Week 13

WOW - only one regular community day left and then the blue book exam!  It's hard to believe our year is almost halfway over.  This blog post will be brief because I need to get back to work on the exam.  :)

On Monday, we will spend quite a bit of time reviewing material for the exam.  Remember - the exam is your opportunity to show off what you know.  There won't really be any surprises.  You will want to study, but NOT stress about this!  :)

Ms. Baughman will lead us in a devotion about responsibility (Romans 14:2).

LATIN, LOGIC, AND MATH

Your assignments are in the Guide.  We will review in class what to expect on the exam.  Keep practicing your multiplication drills and Basic Math Facts - we are SO close to conquering our Drill to Chill challenge!  (And these items will likely appear on the exam!)

LTW

You are creating your issue and ANI charts for your essay on The Witch of Blackbird Pond, in addition to completing several worksheet pages in the student text.  We did not have much of an opportunity to discuss the novel during our last class.  Make sure you have finished reading the book by Monday!  I look forward to hearing the issues you came up with.

SCIENCE FAIR

Your FINAL research plan is due on Monday.  See pages 184-185 in the Guide for the required contents.  PARENTS:  Please review and sign off on the plan before class!  Come prepared to discuss your project.  You should begin assembling the materials you will need for your experiments.

DEBATE / CURRENT EVENTS

Our current event topic this week is: Should the federal government raise the national minimum wage?

Students chose which side they want to argue.  Find two articles, one supporting each side of the topic - you will use these to prepare your proofs and your refutation of counter-arguments.  Come to class having already prepared your exordium, proofs, refutation, amplification, Bible verse, etc.  We will not spend time in class preparing outlines - be ready to argue your side.  :)

For our final class of the semester (Dec. 12), you will be presenting your elevator speech.  We will go over this assignment in class on Monday.

POSTREMO

* Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the CH B Movie Night is December 30 at the Jones's house, so save the date!

See you on Monday!  - Mrs. D

Week 12

WOW!  WOW!  WOW!  I am so proud of each of you for the hard work you put in last week and the amazing job you did with your Speeches to Congress.  I asked each student beforehand to let me know what their "challenge goal" was for this task (i.e., what would be a stretch for them personally) - whether to be able to memorize their speech, improve their arguments, develop skills of persuasion, etc. - and it was wonderful to see them strive to accomplish those things.  Well done!

This week will hopefully feel a little calmer (except perhaps for those involved in the Mulan play!).  ;)  If you have a busy week ahead, I would encourage you to prioritize your work and not skimp on these assignments: write a good essay for The Hiding Place, finish reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond, continue your work on the science fair, and read through all of the new lessons in Logic.

DEVOTION:

Mr. McInturff led us in a discussion on contentment (1 Timothy 6:8).  We switched leaders for the next two weeks.  Here is the revised schedule:

13:  Ms. Jones (diligence, Colossians 3:23)
14:  Ms. Baughman (responsibility, Romans 14:2)

15:  Ms. Nemec (joyfulness, Proverbs 15:13)

Remember to share (1) a definition of the character trait, (2) relevant Scripture they found, and (3) one to three questions to ask the class about applying the trait in their lives.  The goal is for our devotion time to be more discussion-oriented, and facilitated primarily by the student leader.

LATIN:

So, I thought Latin was pretty cool this week.  We reviewed homework, with each student taking turns at translations.  Then they reenacted a Roman trial of persecuted Christians - reading their scripts in Latin.  I loved their enthusiasm and drama!

One of our recent new topics has been VERBS.  Several of the students said they are struggling a bit with this.  I would encourage everyone to check out the resources on CC Connected.  Go to CONNECTED --> Challenge Learning Center, and from the Learning Center drop down box, select Grammar (Latin).  There is a whole category on Latin Verbs.  Enjoy!  I also gave each student a chart on verbs that should be helpful.

We are finishing up Lesson 11 in Henle this week.  There are new vocabulary words, three exercises to complete (#151, 153, 155), and new grammar rules (blue book).  The new rules include personal pronouns (1st and 2nd person, and also 3rd person reflexive and non-reflexive) and the rule that a pronoun must agree with the word to which it refers in GENDER and NUMBER.  Its CASE depends on how it is used in its own clause.  

LTW:

Next week, students will read their essays on The Hiding Place.  They are to follow the Essay #6 format and check their final product against the checklist on page 112.  It should include an exordium, parallelism, at least one simile, antithesis, refutation, and amplification.

Also, please bring TWO copies of your paper to class, one highlighted for me as we discussed.  :)

We will also begin our discussion and ANI chart on The Witch of Blackbird Pond, so finish reading that this week.

LOGIC:

We move on to lessons 30-32 this week.  Be sure to READ THROUGH ALL LESSONS.  You should also review the new vocabulary and, if you are able, begin working on the exercises.  Next week, you will re-read the lessons, continue to study vocabulary, and complete all the remaining exercises.

In class, I passed out a chart to everyone that summarizes our most recent lessons.  Be sure you understand each of the components on it, and come to class with any questions.  :)

MATH:

For our lesson review, we discussed multiplying and dividing mixed numbers, roots and exponents, order of operations with exponents, roots, and fractions, volume, evaluation of exponential expressions and radicals, and fractional equations - whew! 

Everyone did well on math drills again this week.  It looks like they each only have about two facts they are still missing.  Practice on Quizlet this week and maybe we can nail it on Monday!  Remember, there are two Quizlet drills I made for these.  :)

SCIENCE FAIR:

Students shared their background research and hypotheses.  I think everyone has more background research they need to do.  Remember to take notes in your lab books and to write at least 3-5 paragraphs about your research into your research plan.

This week you are writing out the procedure for your project (section V in your Research Plan).  In class, we discussed the importance of including every silly little step.  :)  Check out sciencebuddies.org for further resources on developing procedure.

This all means that by next Monday, your typed research plan should include sections I-V (see pp. 184-185 of the Guide).

BRING TO CLASS A TYPED COPY OF YOUR DRAFT RESEARCH PLAN with sections I-V completed!

CURRENT EVENTS:

Can I say WOW again?  I loved your Speeches to Congress!  This week, we have two issues:

     Should a driver's education course be required of any minor seeking a driver's license?

     Should a curfew be imposed on minors?

Students chose which issue they will research and the side they will present in class.  You do not need to memorize your speech, but you do need to do the following:

- Find at least one affirmative and one negative article.

- Find a Bible verse to support your argument.

- For the article supporting your side, prepare a notecard including an exordium, 3 proofs/subproofs, and an amplification.  

- For the article on the opposite side, prepare a notecard for your refutation, including the counter-thesis, two strong counter-proofs (and any sub-proofs needed to adequately explain the counter-proofs), your statement about what is wrong with each counter-proof, and a conclusion as to why the counter-thesis is not persuasive. 

REALLY THINK THROUGH each of the required elements so that your are ready to present your arguments on Monday (we will not be spending time preparing outlines in class).  Each person will present their argument individually, instead of sharing the presentation of one outline.

POSTREMO:

* Kyle's last day with us is this Monday.  :(

* We do NOT meet the Monday after Thanksgiving.  :)

* Don't forget to bring to class:  your typed science fair research paper (sections I-V), TWO copies of your LTW essay, all Latin homework, and notecards for your current events issue that map out your argument and counter-proofs.

* If you would like to see Ms. Nemec, Mr. McInturff, and Ms. Dragovich in their production of Mulan this weekend (Saturday at noon or 5 pm and Sunday at 2 pm), you can get tickets here:  http://audienceofonetheater.com.

See you on Monday!

Week 11

Greetings!  We're two-thirds of the way done with the semester - time is flying!  We accomplished a lot this week and have a bunch of new stuff coming up.  Be sure to read below and check your CH B guide carefully to make sure you don't miss anything!

I know the weeks have been long and the assignments might be starting to feel a little overwhelming.  My encouragement to you this week is not to shortchange science fair or the Speech to Congress.  If you need to scale back this week, try doing so in math or Latin.  Science fair and the Speech to Congress are very unique two experiences, though, that many 8th grade students do not get.  You don't want to miss the opportunity to grow in wisdom, skill, and persuasion through the speech, and you don't want to fall behind in science fair.  :)

DEVOTION:

Ms. Jones led us in a discussion about tolerance (Philippians 2:2).  Here is the schedule for our remaining 1st semester classes:

12:  Mr. McInturff (contentment, 1 Timothy 6:8)

13:  Ms. Baughman (responsibility, Romans 14:2)

14:  Ms. Jones (diligence, Colossians 3:23)

15:  Ms. Nemec (joyfulness, Proverbs 15:13)

Remember to share (1) a definition of the character trait, (2) relevant Scripture they found, and (3) one to three questions to ask the class about applying the trait in their lives.  The goal is for our devotion time to be more discussion-oriented, and facilitated primarily by the student leader.

LATIN:

We are moving onto Lesson 11 - Personal Pronouns this week.  We reviewed what the personal pronouns are, including subject pronouns and object pronouns.  We also reviewed the exercises students completed in lesson 10, and quizzed on new vocabulary.

Number	Person	Gender	Subject Pronouns	Object Pronouns
Singular	1st	masc./fem.	I	me
	2nd	masc./fem.	you	you
	3rd	masculine	he	him
		feminine	she	her
		neuter	it	it
Plural	1st	masc./fem.	we	us
	2nd	masc./fem.	you	you
	3rd	masc./fem./neuter	they	them

Examples (subject pronoun / object pronoun):

• I like coffee. / John helped me.

• Do you like coffee? / John loves you.

• He runs fast. / Did Ram beat him?

• She is clever. / Does Mary know her?

• It doesn't work. / Can the man fix it?

• We went home. / Anthony drove us.

• Do you need a table for three? / Did John and Mary beat you at doubles?

• They played doubles. / John and Mary beat them.

1st PERSON PRONOUNS = I (me), we (us)  —>  the SPEAKER or WRITER.

2nd PERSON PRONOUNS = you (thou, thee, ye)  —>  the person spoken TO.

3rd PERSON PRONOUNS = he (him), she (her), it (it), they (them)  —>  the person or thing spoken or written ABOUT.

LTW:

Students shared the issue they drafted for The Hiding Place, as well as their favorite three items from each column of their ANI charts and what they came up with on the workbook pages.  For the upcoming essay, we will use Essay Template #6.  This incorporates REFUTATION:

Refutation is a RESPONSE to an opposing argument.

ANTICIPATE 2 arguments your opponent will have against your thesis.

Refutation states the 2 counter-proofs and why they are inadequate:

1.  Present opposing side’s counter-thesis & 2 strong counter-proofs.

2.  State what is wrong with each counter-proof.

3.  Conclude by stating the counter-thesis is not persuasive.

When you draft and sort your ANI charts, you are developing counter-proofs!

- pick 2 strong proofs

- then determine why they are inadequate (you might ask: why didn’t I choose this side originally?)

STEPS TO CREATING A REFUTATION:

1. Write thesis statement.
2. Write counter-thesis.
3. Choose one proof that supports counter-thesis.
4. List 3 sub-proofs.
5. Explain why this proof is not persuasive.
6. Choose a second proof that supports the counter-thesis and repeat steps.

This week, sort your ANI charts, complete the worksheets for exordium, amplification, division, and refutation, and draft your outline.  You should also start reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond - our final novel this semester!  :)

LOGIC:

We finished Unit 3!!!  Now we're on lessons 27-29.  Last week, you should have read through all the lessons, studied the new vocabulary, and started on exercises as much as possible.  This week, RE-read the lessons and complete all the exercises.

We reviewed immediate inferences (lesson 27):

CONVERSE: (E & I)

        S <—> P    (switch the subject and predicate)

OBVERSE: (All)

           + <—> -   (change the quality)

       P —> C    (change the predicate its complement)

CONTRAPOSITIVE:    (A & O)

           S <—> P

          Both S & P to C   (change both the subject & predicate to their complements)

We also started a discussion on translating ordinary statements (lesson 28), including the unique situations involving singular statements (John is a mailman.), indefinite statements (Boys threw rocks at me.), and hypothetical statements (If you eat that cake, you will regret it.).  Lesson 29 covers translating inclusive and exclusive statements.

MATH:

For our lesson review, we discussed overall averages and order of operations (PEMDAS).  I am so proud of everyone on our math drills this week!  EVERYONE got either 100% or only missed 2 on the 108 multiplication problems through 15s - WOO-HOO!!!  We are well on our way to ice cream!  Keep working on the Basic Math Facts.  I have created two new Quizlets for these drills - check them out!

SCIENCE FAIR:

I distributed lab books to everyone and explained what needs to go in them.  I gave each student a detailed handout last week explaining lab books, and I will forward via email some additional material.  The students also shared their science fair topics and research problems.  Finally, we reviewed the steps to the scientific method and completed a fun paper airplane "experiment" to demonstrate the importance of wording your question well, controlling and limiting variables, and repeating an experiment a sufficient number of times.

There are several tasks to complete before our next class (see p. 186 in the Guide):

(1)  Make sure that your SF topic does not include human or animal test subjects (we discussed the problems with this - please let me know if you have any questions), that it is actually testing a variable (versus just demonstrating something - several of the projects on sciencebuddies.org are just demonstrations), and that your project only has one variable.

(2)  If you did not already write out your research problem (1-2 paragraphs) and type it into your Research Plan/Paper Template (see pp. 184-185 of the Guide), make sure you do that this week (Roman Numeral I).

(3)  Finalize your research question and add it to your Research Plan (Roman Numeral II).

(4)  Do background research on the science behind your question/topic.  This is an important step that will help you to formulate your hypothesis.  You might even change your project or question somewhat in light of the research you uncover.  As part of your research, you must:

     (a)  Cite all sources used in bibliography format.

     (b)  Take notes in your lab book.

     (c)  Once completed, add your research into your Research Plan (Roman Numeral III).

(5)  Develop your hypothesis, based on your background research.  Add your hypothesis to your Research Plan (Roman Numeral IV).

(6)  BRING TO CLASS A TYPED COPY OF YOUR DRAFT RESEARCH PLAN with Roman Numerals I-IV completed.

You do not want to get behind on your science fair project!  We will be discussing procedure next week.  As always, let me know if you have any questions.

CURRENT EVENTS:

Our issue this week was:  Should the United States should financially support countries that persecute Christians?  Instead of dividing into groups, we worked as a class to outline proofs and subproofs for each side.  Many people had some difficulty last week finding articles on this topic.  Hopefully our work in class equipped everyone for the task this week:  Preparing and memorizing a 1-3 minute Speech to Congress, using the elements of Essay #6 in Lost Tools of Writing (see p. 72, LTW and the checklist on p. 113 - e.g., exordium, 3 proofs, subproofs, amplification, and refutation).

I randomly assigned the students to the affirmative or negative side.  They should dress up in business attire for their speech (think "dress rehearsal" for Mock Trial).  Don't forget to include REFUTATION (anticipating two strong proofs from the opposing side and explain what is wrong with them and why the counter-thesis is not persuasive).

I explained to the students that this is a very challenging assignment for some, and for those who are already somewhat comfortable speaking in public and memorizing, they should consider how the assignment can stretch them, too.  I would like to hear privately from each student (via email or on a notecard, etc.) what their goal is for this assignment and how they think they will grow through it.  For some, it might be simply memorizing the speech and delivering it without a notecard.  For others, it might be to be as convincing as they can, trying out new skills of persuasion, inflection, etc.  I am very excited to see how each student rises to the challenge of this task!

POSTREMO:

* THIS WEDNESDAY at 2 pm is our Quizlet competition (at the new Lone Tree library).

* The Hiding Place movie night is THIS THURSDAY at 7 pm at the Nemecs' house.

* Stay on top of your Science Fair project!  

Hope to see you at the library and our movie night!

Week 10

Greetings!  We're two-thirds of the way done with the semester - time is flying!  We accomplished a lot this week and have a bunch of new stuff coming up.  Be sure to read below and check your CH B guide carefully to make sure you don't miss anything!

DEVOTION:

Mr. Markel led us in a devotion on discretion (Proverbs 22:3).  Next week, Ms. Jones is up to talk about tolerance (Philippians 2:2).  Going forward, I'd like for the presenter to share (1) a definition of the character trait, (2) relevant Scripture they found, and (3) one to three questions to ask the class about applying the trait in their lives.  The goal is for our devotion time to be more discussion-oriented, and facilitated primarily by the student leader.

LATIN:

We continued in Lesson 9 (conjugating verbs).  This coming week, you will be in Lessons 9 and 10.  In class, we reviewed several characteristics of verbs - this is material covered in Essentials, as well, so it was review for some of the students.

Characteristics of VERBS include:

(1)  Voice: 

A. Active - where the subject acts or is being:  I praise the king.

B. Passive - where the subject acted upon:  The king is praised.

(2)  Mood:

A. Indicative - a statement or asks a question; 

B. Subjunctive - expresses a condition which is doubtful or not factual / used to explore conditional or imaginary situations; 

He is allowed.  in the subjunctive becomes: It is essential he be allowed.

I was ordered.  in the subjunctive becomes: If I were ordered, I'd go.

I was in your position two years ago. in the subjunctive becomes: If I were in your position, I would do the same.

C. Imperative - forms commands or requests

(3)  Tense: 

A. Present   (I verb)

B. Imperfect   (I was verbing)

C. Future   (I shall verb)

D. Perfect   (I verbed; I have verbed)

E. Pluperfect   (I had verbed)

F. Future Perfect   (I shall have verbed)

(4)  Number (singular or plural)

(5)  Person (1st, 2nd, or 3rd)

REMEMBER, to conjugate a verb:

1 You must learn the 4 PRINCIPAL PARTS OF A VERB from the vocabularies.

2 The present infinitive active shows to which conjugation the verb belongs.

3 Then  you find the stem; and

4 Add the ending!

THE FOUR REGULAR CONJUGATIONS are:  

(model verbs are on p.43 in the blue Henle book)

     1st:    -āre

     2nd:  -ēre

     3rd:   -ere

     4th:   -īre

Don't forget to keep working on vocabulary - the Mastery Review Vocabulary List for Units 1 and 2 (p. 91-98 in the purple book) AND the new words from the past two weeks.  

PARENTS: Exercise 131 this week can be used as an assessment of your student's understanding.  ;)

LTW:

I enjoyed hearing the students' essays for Where the Red Fern Grows.  Everyone's writing is improving - sounding more fluid, including great verbs and adjectives, covering all the elements of the prescribed essay form - great work!  I asked the students to focus on a couple of things for the next essay:

(1)  Incorporate context and background into your introduction (e.g., "Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls, tells the story of a boy becoming a man through his perseverance to buy and train hunting dogs....").  The context and background you provide could be one or several sentences long.  

(2)  Try to make your amplification very smooth and not sounding like you are just stating and answering a question (e.g., the wrong way:  "This is important to Billy's parents because they care about him."  Better:  "Even though getting his dogs seemed to be the most important thing to Billy, it is more important for him to wait because otherwise he could destroy all the trust his dad has in him.")

We also started our discussion on The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.  What an amazing story of God's faithfulness, provision, and protection, and the incredible hope and peace we can have in Him, even amidst the most painful circumstances!  There are many resources online about this remarkable woman and her story.  Here are a few you can check out:

http://tenboom.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlmxNv6kedk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDCJo5lfI1U  

This week, students will draft their own issue, complete the assigned workbook pages in the guide, and create an ANI chart with at least 30 items in each column.  

LOGIC:

We finished up with lessons #23-26 in class, including working through how terms are distributed in a syllogism and how to test syllogisms by rules.  I think we are at a point where students (and parents?) might benefit from some extra logic practice - as a group and outside of class.  I'll include some possible dates for this in the email, too.

Now we're moving on to lessons 27-29.  In last week's blog, I mistakenly said you would only have one week on these lessons.  We actually have two weeks (whew!) - this week, be sure to:

(1)  Read through ALL assigned lessons (#27-29),

(2)  Make and study vocabulary terms for lessons 27-29, and

(3)  As much as you are able, begin working through the exercises.

I gave everyone one more week to try to solve Einstein's Riddle.  If you do, bring your answer to class....

Einstein's Riddle

(Supposedly, Einstein wrote this riddle and said that 98% of the world could not solve it.)

The situation:

- There are 5 houses in five different colors.

- In each house lives a person with a different nationality.

- These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet.

- No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.

The question is:  Who owns the fish?

Hints:

- the Brit lives in the red house

- the Swede keeps dogs as pets

- the Dane drinks tea

- the green house is on the left of the white house

- the green house's owner drinks coffee

- the person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds

- the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill

- the man living in the center house drinks milk

- the Norwegian lives in the first house

- the man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keeps cats

- the man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill

- the owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer

- the German smokes Prince

- the Norwegian lives next to the blue house

- the man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water

MATH:

For our lesson review, we discussed rectangular coordinates, the addition-subtraction, multiplication, and division rules for equations, and reciprocal fractions.  We also spent a good chunk of our review time going over sample problems from Saxon lessons 1-7. I will forward those questions and answers to you via email - it's good practice for possible math problems on the Blue Book exam.  :)  We also completed our usual drills on multiplication facts and Basic Math Facts - we had quite a few students get perfect scores or only one or two wrong.  We are on our way to ice cream!!!

SCIENCE:

The Shoebox Project was so much fun!  First, we tried to identify the scientists only by the clues, then we looked at their biography cards for additional help.  Everyone did a great job!  Although everyone also left their shoebox at the end of the day.... ;)  They are in my trunk if you want to collect yours next week.

Each student also presented on Einstein - his theory of special relativity (what was assigned), but we also heard about the theory of general relativity and a biography of Einstein's life.  Be sure you are carefully reading your Challenge B Guide and the blog each week so you understand what is assigned.  ;)

That is an excellent segue to...SCIENCE FAIR!

We are diving in this week to our science fair projects.  We spent quite a bit of time discussing what is expected, what needs to be done, etc. on Monday afternoon.  If you missed this, be especially sure to review everything in the Guide and let me know if you have any questions.  This is also an excellent resource for students and parents:  http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_guide_index.shtml

For this week, please make sure you do the following - you don't want to get behind on this project!

(1)  Become VERY familiar with the information contained on pages 181-187 of your Guide.  

     (a)  The main point of the Science Fair project is for you to become comfortable with using and understanding the scientific method (p. 181).  

     (b)  Through this process and your experiments, you will be answering each of the questions on page 182.  

     (c)  Utilize the Notecard Format on page 183 in your research.  Make sure you are not copying information without crediting your sources!  Summarize the information instead, putting it into your OWN words.  PARENTS:  Please use this opportunity to discuss plagiarism with your student - what it is and how to avoid it.  

     (d)  Over each of the next weeks, you will be writing parts of your Research Plan.  A sample is on pages 184 and 185.  Your Research Plan will ultimately be the foundation for your Research Paper, which you will finalize upon completing your experiments.

     (e)  SCHEDULE:  The Science Fair Project Schedule (p. 186) details what you are to be doing every week.  Be very familiar with this document, and let me know if you have 

(2)  Decide on the topic of your science fair project.  Identify what problem you will investigate.  If you need ideas, check out www.sciencebuddies.org.   

(3)  As you find information online (e.g., sciencebuddies.com) or in books or articles during your research, make sure you are writing your notes in your own words and not copying text verbatim or so similarly that you risk plagiarizing material.  There are several free online tools to check your text for plagiarism, too (e.g., https://www.paperrater.com/plagiarism_checker or https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism).  Try testing one of your science or LTW papers and see how you've done so far this year.

(4)  Using the Sample Research Plan/Paper Template (pg. 184-185 in the Guide), draft your Research Problem.  This is a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) of the problem you will research.  This page on sciencebuddies.org might be helpful for this part of the assignment:  http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_question.shtml

(5)  Take a look at the Judge's Form (p. 187) for additional direction on what you should be including in your project.  

I will give everyone a log book on Monday.  You will use this to record basically everything you are doing on your project going forward.  Parents, you can also check out the tutorials for Science Fair on CC Connected in the research strand.

CURRENT EVENTS:

In class, students divided into two groups and outlined presentations on either side of the issue:  Should the president be elected by popular vote instead of the electoral college?  This week was our best set of presentations so far.  The arguments were articulated and expanded upon well.  We'll follow the same format next week: find one affirmative article and one negative article for our premise, write a notecard for each article outlining three proofs, an exordium, and an amplification for each side, and take notes or highlight your articles to show more detail and explanation for your proofs.  

To make sure that everyone is getting the most out of this strand, we'll share our proofs and exordiums in class.  If we have time, we will pair up for presentations, too, instead of dividing in half.  That way, each student can take the lead in drafting and presenting more of the arguments.

The premise for this week is Should the United States should financially support countries that persecute Christians?  We discussed definitions for "financially support", "persecute", and "countries".  As we discussed in class, a great place to start researching this topic is with two implicit ideas: 

- There are countries to which the US sends aid, and 

- There are countries that persecute Christians. 

Find a list of each of these and then compare: does the US send money to countries that persecute Christians?  Why?  Try to find articles that show current policies that do support countries who persecute or allow persecution of Christians - such as the recent nuclear deal with Iran.  For example, according to Open Doors USA, the number two country on their list of persecuted Christians is Iraq, yet we have spent billions in support of Iraq.  Why?  Is it because we support their persecution of Christians?  Because the US is trying to build a democratic state in the region?  Is it for humanitarian aid?  Something else? 

The question then becomes should we offer humanitarian aid to countries that do not share our human rights policies?  For that matter, do Christians support the human rights policies of the US?  What *are* the human rights policies of the US?  

Another way to look at it is to focus on the premise and be sure it's defined enough to research.  The affirmative position is that the US government should financially support countries that persecute Christians and the negative is that the US government should not financially support countries that persecute Christians.  What does it mean to financially support a country?  Loans?  Grants?  Aid?  Other assistance?  

Here are a few websites that might be helpful as you wrestle with these issues: 

www.globalissues.org/article/35/foreign-aid-development-assistance  

www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/ 

http://beta.foreignassistance.gov

For class, make sure to bring:

- both articles and notecards (with your exordium, 3 proofs, amplification, and subproofs already written down or highlighted in your articles and ready to share), and

- a relevant Bible verse on this topic. 

POSTREMO:

* Please make sure you check in with me before leaving class each week - even if your ride is waiting for you.  ;)  This past Monday, everyone disappeared and Reese and Joy had to do everything by themselves.  :(

* Watch for the email about our next movie night (The Hiding Place) and a Logic study group meet-up...and get back to me on dates.

* Stay on top of your Science Fair project!  

See you on Monday!