recommended children's books

2009 Summer Reading List


Students Entering Grades 6-9
http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/panda/subjectlinks/midreading.html

Students Entering Grades 9-12
http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/panda/subjectlinks/secreading.html


I hope they're useful

source: http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/forparents/tp/summer_reading.htm

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The date of commemoration is not known to be Jesus' actual birthday, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either a historical Roman festival or the winter solstice. Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days.



Although traditionally a Christian holiday, Christmas is widely celebrated by many non-Christians, and some of its popular celebratory customs have pre-Christian or secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, Christmas carols, an exchange of greeting cards, church celebrations, a special meal, and the display of various decorations; including Christmas trees, lights, and garlands, mistletoe, nativity scenes, and holly. In addition, Father Christmas (known as Santa Claus in North America and Ireland) is a popular mythological figure in many countries, associated with the bringing of gifts for children.

Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.

History

For many centuries, Christian writers accepted that Christmas was the actual date on which Jesus was born. However, in the early eighteenth century, scholars began proposing alternative explanations. Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, which in ancient times was marked on December 25. In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church. In 1889, Louis Duchesne suggested that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation (March 25), the traditional date of the Incarnation.


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. It is a holiday celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.

The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. The traditional "first Thanksgiving" is the celebration that occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history of what would become one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. The celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s. This Thanksgiving, modeled after celebrations that were commonplace in contemporary Europe, is generally regarded as America's first. Elementary school teacher Robyn Gioia has argued that the earliest attested "thanksgiving" celebration in what is now the United States was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

Halloween

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a secular celebration but some have expressed strong feelings about perceived religious overtones.



The colours black and orange have become associated with the celebrations, perhaps because of the darkness of night and the colour of fire or of pumpkins, and maybe because of the vivid contrast this presents for merchandising. Another association is with the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, ghost tours, bonfires, visiting haunted attractions, pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

source:http://msp212.photobucket.com/albums/cc141/andee_sur_13/halloween.jpg

Labor Day

"Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker".


source:http://www.dol.gov/OPA/ABOUTDOL/LABORDAY.HTM

Chapter 16 Writing the Research Paper

Chapter 16 Writing the Research Paper

The Research Paper Defined

The research paper is a long documented essay based on a thorough examination of your topic and supported by your explanations and by both references to and quotations from your sources. The traditional research paper in the style of the Modern Language Association, typically called MLA style, includes a title page (sometimes omitted), a thesis and an outline, a documented essay (text), and a list of sources (called "Works Cited," referring to the works used specifically in the essay).

Ten Steps to Writing a Research Paper

Step 1 Select a Topic

Select a topic and make a scratch outline. Then construct a thesis as you did for writing an essay by choosing what you intend to write about (subject) and by deciding how you will limit or focus your subject (treatment). Your purpose will be wither to inform (explain) or to persuade (argue).

• Your topic should interest you and be appropriate in subject and scope for your assignment.
• Your topic should be researchable through library and other relevant sources, such as the Internet. Avoid topics that are too subjective or are so new that good source material is not available.

Step 2 find Sources

Find sources for your investigation. With your topic and its divisions in mind, use the resources and the electronic databases available in your college library and on the Internet to identify books, articles, and other materials pertaining to your topic. The list of these items, called bibliography, should be prepared on cards in the form appropriate for your assignment.

Books

Today most academic and municipal libraries provide information about books on online computer terminals, with databases accessible by author, title, subject, or other key words.

Printed Material Other Than Books

For the typical college research paper, the main printed nonbook sources are periodicals, such as newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Computerized Indexes and Other Online Services

Computerized indexes, such as Infor Trac, Periodical Abstracts, and Newspaper Abstracts Ondisc, can be accessed in basically the same way as the online book catalogs, using key words and word combinations.

Step 3 List Sources

List tentative sources in a preliminary bibliography

Bibliography and Works Cited, MLA Style

You will list source material in two phase of your research paper project: the preliminary bibliography and the Works Cited list. The MLA research paper form is commonly used for both the preliminary bibliography and the list of works cited. This format is unlike the format used in catalogs and indexes.

Step 4 Take Notes

Take notes in an organized fashion. Resist the temptation to write down everything that interests you. Instead, take notes that pertain to divisions of your topic as stated in your thesis or scratch outline. Locate, read, and take notes on the sources listed in your preliminary bibliography. Some of these sources need to be printed out from electronic databases or from the Internet, some photocopied, and some checked out. Your notes will usually be on cards, with each card indicating key pieces of the information:

• Division of topic (usually Roman-numeral part of your scratch outline or the divisions of your thesis)
• Identification of topic (by author's last name or title of piece)
• Location of material (usually by page number)
• Text of statement as originally worded (with quotation marks; editorial comments in brackets), summarized or paragraph (in student's own words, without quotation marks), and statement of relevance of material, if possible.

Step 5 Refine Your Thesis and Outline

Refine your thesis statement and outline to reflect more precisely what you intend to write.

Step 6 Write Your First Draft

Referring to your thesis, outline, and note cards keyed to your outline, write the first draft of your research paper.

Plagiarism

Careful attention to the rules of documentation will help you avoid plagiarism, the unacknowledged use of someone else's words or idea. You can avoid plagiarism by giving credit when you borrow someone else;s words or ideas.

Step 7 Revise Your First Draft

Evaluate your first draft and amend it as needed (perhaps researching an area not well covered for additional support material and adding or deleting sections of your outline to reflect the way your paper has grown).

Use the writing process guidelines as you would in writing any other essay.

• Write and then revise your paper as many times as necessary for coherence, language (usage, tone, and diction), unity, emphasis, support, and sentences (CLUESS).
• Correct problems in fundamentals such as capitalization, omissions, punctuation, and spelling (COPS). Before writing the final draft, read your paper aloud to discover any errors or awkward-sounding sentence structure.

Step 8 Prepare Your Works Cited Section

Using the same form as in the preliminary bibliography, prepare a Works Cited section (a list of works you have referred to or quoted and identified parenthetically in the text).

Step 9 Write your final Draft

Write the final version of your research paper with care for effective writing and accurate documentation. The final draft will probably include the following parts:

• Title pager (sometimes omitted)
• Thesis and outline (topical or sentence, as directed)
• Documented essay (text)
• List of sources used (Work Cited)

Step 10 Submit Required Materials

Submit your research paper with any preliminary material required by your instructor. Consider using a checklist to make sure you have fulfilled all requirements.

Notes:

The research paper is a long documented essay based on a thorough examination of a topic and supported by explanations and by both references to and quotations from sources.

The research paper is no more difficult than other writing assignments if you select a good topic, use a systematic approach, and do not get behind with your work.

Asystematic approach involves these then steps:

• Select a topic
• Find sources
• List sources.
• Take notes.
• Refine your thesis and outline
• Write your first draft
• Revise your first draft
• Prepare your Works Cited section
• Write your final draft.
• Submit required materials.

Your library almost certainly mixes traditional and electronic indexes and sources; you should become familiar with them.

MLA styple for works cited differs from that used in traditional and electronic indexes.

You can avoid plagiarism by giving credit when you borrow someone else's words or ideas.

Source:Brandon, Lee. Brandon, Kelly. Paragraphs and Essays with Integrated Readings, Tenth Edition. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008

Chapter 15 Argument: Writing to Persuade

Chapter 15 Argument:
Writing to Persuade

Writing Argument

Persuasion is a broad term. When we persuade, we try to influence people to think in a certain way or to do something.

Argument is persuasion on a topic about which reasonable people disagree. Argument involves controversy. Whereas exercising appropriately is probably not controversial because reasonable people do not dispute the idea, an issue such as gun control is. In this chapter, we will be concerned mainly with the kind of persuasion that involves argument.

Techniques for Developing Argument

Statements of argument are informal or formal. An opinion column in a newspaper is likely to have little set structure, whereas an argument in college writing is likely to be tightly organized. Nervertheless, the opinion column and the college paper have much in common. Both provide a proposition, which is the main point of the argument, and both provide pupport, which is the evidence of the reasons that back up the proposition.

For a well – structured college paragraph or essay, an organizing plan is desirable. Consider these elements when you write an argument, and ask yourself the following question as you develop your ideas:

• Background: What is the historical or social context for this controversial issue?
• Proposition (the thesis of the essay): What do I want my audience to believe or to do?
• Qualification of proposition: Can I limit my proposition so that those who disagree cannot easily challenge me with exceptions? If, for example, I am in favor of using animals for scientific experimentation, am I concerned only with medical experiments or with any use, including experiments for the cosmetic industry?
• Refutation (taking the opposing view into account, mainly to point out its fundamental weakness): What is the view on the other side, and why is it flawed in reasoning or evidence?
• Support: In addition to sound reasoning, can I use appropriate facts, examples, statistics, and opinions of authorities?

Your Audience

Your audience may be uninformed, informed, biased, hostile, receptive, apathetic, sympathetic, and empathetic – any one, several, or something else. The point is that you should be acutely concerned about who will read your composition. If your readers are likely to be uninformed about the social and historical background of the issue, then you need to set the issue in context. The discussion of the background should lead to the problem for which you have a proposition or solution. If your readers are likely to be biased or even hostile to your view, take special care to refute the opposing side in a thoughtful, incisive way that does not further antagonize them. If your readers are already receptive and perhaps even sympathetic, and you wish to move them to action, then you might appeal to their conscience and the need for their commitment.

Kinds of Evidence

In addition to sound reasoning generally, you can use these kinds of evidence: facts, examples, statistics, and authorities.

• First, you can offer facts. Some facts are readily accepted because they are general knowledge – you and your reader know them to be true, because they can be or have been verified. Other “facts” are based on personal observation and are reported in various publications but may be false or questionable.
• Second, you can cite examples. Keep in mind that you must present a sufficient number of examples and that the examples must be relevant.
• Avoid presenting a long list of figures; select statistics carefully and relate them to things familiar to your reader.
• Third, you can present statistics. Statistics are numerical facts and data that are classified and tabulated to present significant information about a given subject.
• Fourth, you can cite evidence from, and opinions of, authorities. Most readers accept facts from recognized, reliable source – governmental publication, standard reference works, and books and periodicals published by established firms. In addition, they will accept evidence and opinions from individuals who, because of their knowledge and experience, are recognized as experts.

In using authoritative source as proof, keep these points in mind:

• Select authorities who are generally recognized as experts in their field.
• Use authorities who qualify in the field pertinent to your argument.
• Select authorities whose views are not biased.
• Try to use several authorities.
• Identify the authority's credentials clearly in your essay.

Logical Fallacies

Certain thought patterns are inherently flawed. Commonly called logical fallacies, these thought patterns are of primary concern in argument. You should be able to identify them in the arguments of those on the other side of an issue, and you should be sure to avoid them in your own writing.

Eight kinds of logical fallacies are very common.

• Post hoc,ergo proter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”): When one event precedes another in time, the first is assumed to cause the other. “If A comes before B, then A must be causing B.”
• False analogy: False analogies ignore differences and stress similarities, often in an attempt to prove something.
• Hasty generalization: This is a conclusion based on two few reliable instances.
• False dilemma: This fallacy presents the readers with only two alternatives from which to choose. The solution may lie elsewhere.
• Argumentum ad hominem: (argument against the person): This is the practice of abusing and discrediting your opponent rather than keeping to the main issues of that argument.
• Begging the question: The fallacy assumes something is true without proof. It occurs when a thinker assumes a position is right before offering proof.
• Circular reasoning: This thought pattern asserts proof that is no more than a repetition of the initial assertion.
• Non sequitur: This fallacy draws a conclusion that does not follow.

The basic pattern of a paragraph or an essay of persuaion or argument is likely to be in this form:

Proposition (the topic sentence of the paragraph or the thesis of the essay)

I. Support 1
II. Support 2
III. Support 3


Source:Brandon, Lee. Brandon, Kelly. Paragraphs and Essays with Integrated Readings, Tenth Edition. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008