Pre-debate admin instructions

1) As mentioned today, you will need to start forming your debate groups already. It is not confirmed that this will be your final debate assessment group (I have not yet received finalised instructions regarding this), but for the time being you should just assume that it will.

I will settle the groupings in the same way I did with the Social Advocacy ones - via email submission, first-come first-served. Since I am looking for 6x (groups of 3) and 2x (groups of 4), you might be asked to re-organise your group should the quota for either type be already met at the time of your submission.

I will probably post the groupings on this blog as well, and inform you if you need to re-organise your group.

2) In addition, please keep in mind that your Social Advocacy package is due this Friday. As you have been given much time to prepare this already, I will be stricter with applying the late penalty should it not have been submitted by Friday's last period. The package should include your final proposal, the group members' individual reflections, and any appendices you wish to attach (e.g. documented correspondence).

GEB Literature Seminar

Brochure (Link expires after a week)

The Gifted Education Branch is holding the annual Literature Seminar soon and our Secondary Two and Three students have been invited to attend, as well as showcase any projects or drama performances that they have.

The details are as follows:

Date: 29 August 2009
Time: 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Venue: Nanyang Girls' High School

If you are interested in attending or showcasing a project/performance, please let me know by this Wednesday.

The Power of Persuasion (Unit Recap)

From Week 2-4 we went through a unit on Persuasive Speeches, culminating in your presentations for your Social Advocacy projects. Here's a brief recap of what we've gone through.

1) Thank You For Smoking, use of logos/pathos/ethos.

2) Rhetorical devices worksheet - Examining a list of rhetorical devices that could be utilised for a more impactful speech.

3) Practice analysing the Obama speech.

4) Social Advocacy Presentations - Utilising what we have covered in this unit, along with your content from last term's Social Advocacy proposal, you made a presentation meant to persuade the listener to adopt your proposal. This was your assessment for this unit.

Preferred topics?

Hi all,

As discussed, the next unit for EL will be on debates. I would like to seek your cooperation in suggest topics you think you'd enjoy discussing - I'll try to pick from this pool and incorporate them into the upcoming lessons.

Anonymous feedback is allowed, in case you were worried about seeming 'uncool' for wishing to discuss, so feel free to comment away!

Reminder to submit

You might remember that you were instructed last term to submit an essay for the Youth Writers Awards Asia 2010. The due date is 30 Sep 2009, so there's no rush yet, but if you are wondering how to go about submitting it, this is how you can do so.

1) Submit your entry online at this site.

2) After you have done so, you can email your actual entry to me for verification. I will not be grading this, but will take note of your participation for record purposes.

Presentation rubric

The mark allocation is 15m for individual, 5m for group. The rubric shows how you will be graded, but not how the marks will be allocated.

You can see that PowerPoint is meant to be optional, so I will not be deducting any marks if you don't use any (or if they are not good), but good visual aids will possibly net you extra marks.

Link to rubric (expires after a week)

Social Advocacy Presentations

(This is an expansion on the presentation instructions/rubric that has been given out to you.)

As you know, the social advocacy presentations will be done next week. The objective of the presentation is to pitch your proposal to your class, pretending that they are the organisation you hope to convince. For example, assuming that you have written to LTA to suggest the construction of an overhead bridge, you are to present your proposal to the class as though they were the relevant authority.

The structure of the presentation should follow the basic structure of an exposition - with an introduction, main body and conclusion. Credit will be given for appropriate use of persuasive styles (e.g. citing the accident statistics for the road in question as logos), rhetorical devices (e.g. use of anaphora when listing reasons to build the bridge) and evidence of tailoring your speech to the audience/purpose/context (e.g. for a presentation to the LTA, the use of Singlish will probably not be advisable).

PowerPoint slides are not required, but for a presentation of that length (minimum 2min per person), visual aids will probably be useful. After each presentation, the class will have the opportunity to ask the groups questions - the Q&A is not graded, but it's a good opportunity for you to grill your fellow classmates =D

I will be giving you time on Monday (20 Jul) to discuss this with your group, but you should begin this over the weekend already. The actual presentations will be done on Wed/Thu (22/23 Jul). Feel free to contact me (by commenting or emailing) if you have further queries.