It’s finally finished! My first book 🙂

The Paper Chain: An Instructional Workbook for Argumentative Writing 

It is a 77-page exciting student-friendly instructional manual and workbook for writing an argumentative  paper – perfect for grades 7 – 10. This Common Core Aligned unit addresses writing, reading, and language. These are reading and writing techniques that can be used for cross-curricular writing in Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education… you name it! I have provided professional development at my school for these writing techniques, and the entire staff at my middle school now uses them. It’s great to be on the same page.

By using the instructional workbook, students learn how to read and write argument/persuasive papers step-by-step. The following topics are addressed:

* Argumentative Writing
* The Paper Chain: Overview
* Argument Writing: Flow Chart
* Practice Identifying the Argument
* Effective Argument (word choice)
* Practice Generating an Argument
* Generating your own Argument
* Practice Identifying Claims
* Claims and Supporting Evidence
* Generating Claims: Supporting the Argument
* Practice Identifying Evidence
* Organizing Evidence
* Claims and Supporting Evidence
* Quoting Evidence
* Credibility
* A Search for Evidence
* Collecting Evidence: Internet Search
* Is this Website Credible?
* Practice Determining Credible Evidence
* Homework: Find Your Own Evidence
* Counterclaim
* Adding a Counterclaim
* Deconstructing a Counterclaim
* Writing a Body Paragraph: Organization
* Reasoning / Links: Explaining Evidence
* The Whole Paper = A TERCon Sandwich
* Citing Sources: Avoiding Plagiarism
* Other Ways to Say ‘Said’
* Bibliography / Works Cited
* Peer Revising
* Peer Revising Sample
* Revision Checklist
* Rubric
* Model/Exemplar Paper
* How to get an Advanced Score
* Sentence Fluency: Appositives
* Why Appositives Are Important
* Appositives Practice
* Commonly Misspelled Words
* Editing Shortcuts and Practice
* Publishing
* Glossary
* Answer Key

My favorite part about the workbook is that it is filled with models, examples, and practice, as well as easy-to-follow visuals and charts. You can print out the manual as a hard copy workbook for students or – as I do in my one-to-one iPad school – email it to my students as an ebook to reference all year.

I am hoping to have this available on iTunes University soon! In the meantime, you can purchase a version from Teachers Pay Teachers here. Happy Teaching!

So are you a fan of The Oatmeal? No, not oatmeal that you eat, but THE Oatmeal? He’s my favorite web comic. I own his book, which he autographed! What can I say, he just speaks to me. He’s ridiculous!

He has this great post entitled Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling. The words are:

1. Lose/Loose
2. Weird
3. Their/They’re/There
4. Your/You’re
5. It’s/Its
6. Definitely
7. Effect/Affect
8. Weather/Whether
9. A lot
10. Then/Than

It’s true – people DO need to stop misspelling these words. It’s pretty very annoying.

Here’s a sample:

I know my 8th graders would find this absolutely stinking hilarious.

You can purchase the poster for $20, which he says is perfect for the classroom. So here’s my question: Would you post this in an 8th grade classroom?

There is a reference to alcohol, an alien that keeps ‘crapping,’ the word ‘crap,’ referring to misspellers as ‘a-hole,’ and hemorrhoids (but that’s just funny, right?).  I mean, good common sense says NO. Maybe this would pass as appropriate in a high school classroom, but 8th grade is just skirting the line?

I wonder if he would ever consider making a few revisions for our younger adolescents. I could see this having a really big impact on my students who would identify with the humor and forget that they were supposed to be learning something. This kind of humor is right up their alley.

He has some other great grammar tools including:
* How to use a semicolon – I see no problems with this one for the classroom
* The Three Most Common Uses of Irony – reference to smoking crack, virginity, ‘sh*t’  🙁
* When to use i.e. in a sentence – No problems with this one either
* How To Use An Apostrophe – No problems

What are your thoughts on using these webcomics as learning tools for adolescents? Please post in the comments below.