### Title: Essay Writing: The Importance of Antibiotics and Technology in Our Lives
In today’s class, we focused on crafting effective persuasive essays, particularly emphasizing the role of antibiotics and personal technologies in everyday life. The lesson included a detailed exploration of how to structure arguments, provide robust supporting details, and differentiate between factual statements and personal opinions to enhance essay quality.
### Attendance:
– Number of students absent: 1 (noted briefly during a class interaction)
### Topics Covered:
1. **Crafting Body Paragraphs for Essays:**
– **Introduction to the Theme:**
Started with revisiting the importance of antibiotics:
– Frequent infections (e.g., sinus, ear)
– Life-threatening conditions (e.g., sepsis)
– Preventing the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., tuberculosis).
– **Developing Supporting Details:**
Students were tasked with adding one more supporting detail to existing points in their essays about why antibiotics or their chosen technology are important.
2. **Practical Application of Essay Writing Skills:**
– Students applied learned concepts to their technology-related topics, identifying two reasons their chosen technology affects their lives (e.g., internet, social media) and elaborating with examples and explanations.
3. **Interactive Practice:**
– Students shared their technology, reasons for its importance, and supporting details for interaction and feedback.
4. **Understanding and Utilizing Facts and Opinions:**
– Clarified the differences between facts and opinions.
– Practiced identifying and classifying statements as factual or opinion-based in various contexts.
5. **Interpreting Facts to Support Opinions:**
– Lessons on how to link facts to opinions to strengthen arguments.
– Engaged students in exercises interpreting factual information to substantiate personal opinions in their essay arguments.
### Actionable Items:
– **Urgent:**
– Ensure all students comprehend the differentiation between facts and opinions; key for improving argumentative essay skills.
– **Ongoing Support:**
– Continue to encourage students to develop more complex arguments in essays using a mixture of factual data and personal insight.
### Homework:
– Complete interpretations for the exercises on page 98 of the textbook.
– Be prepared to discuss these interpretations at the start of the next class, focusing on how well they connect facts to opinions in persuasive writing.