Day 63- "Words have power." Blackout

White days kick my arse, especially when first period is a little bit goofy and doesn't want to listen or be very engaged. They were engaged with the movie clips I showed, but there are just a couple goofy students who just make even a good lesson difficult at times. This is a bright class that does well, but a few students still act like freshmen. I have a feeling their papers they just turned in won't be as well written as their last ones, so maybe that fear of failure will help them shape up. Anyway, after that class I reviewed ethos, pathos, and logos, then showed examples of persuasive writing and language. We analyzed the first part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech and examined the emotive and persuasive language and techniques in the speech. They seemed to do a great job of pulling out the persuasive language and realizing how emotion and symbolism can be used to persuade. Hopefully their understanding will carry into their papers as well. I'm pretty happy that "Tommy Boy", "Rudy", "Braveheart", "The Lorax", and Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything for Love" all made appearances in my lessons these last two days.