Readings for Thursday, January 28, 2010

"Ruining Kids in Order to Save Them"

Vocabulary words for next time

In case you couldn't read my handwriting today, here are your vocabulary words for next time:

divination
dogma
exemplar
incongruous
predatory
recidivism
skepticism

Bonus question: which word did I quasi-misspell today on the board (using a British, rather than American, spelling)? Please leave your answer in the comments section.

Second bonus question: What does "quasi-" mean?

LBH edition issue

Several of you have asked if the tenth edition of the Little, Brown Handbook would work for this class. I'm not familiar with the tenth edition, but I think it probably will. In Comp 2 we use the LBH mainly as a guide to MLA formatting, and the tenth edition should work about as well as the eleventh (which isn't particularly impressive in its sections on documenting web sources). If you have the tenth edition, I don't recommend buying the eleventh. Go ahead and try using the tenth, but of course you're responsible for figuring out which pages in the tenth correspond with those in the eleventh.

Help with critical errors

Here are a few links for guidance on overcoming the critical errors we've discussed in class:

Fused sentence or comma splice,
Sentence fragment,
Dangling modifier,
Subject-verb agreement error.

I hope these are helpful. If you'd like more help with these, then let me know. I'll be happy to work with you.

Update: Here are a few more resources to help you with run-on sentences (fs or cs):

• Read this article from Literacy Education Online.
• Take these self-guided quizzes: Exercise 1 and Exercise 2.
• Read this article on run-on sentences and take the quizzes.

Web sites for current events

These are some of the best I've found:

Basic news coverage

• CNN (liberal leaning)
• Fox News (conservative leaning)
• Google News (computer-generated)
  

News analysis (for more in-depth coverage)

• National Review (rightwing)
• Newsweek (leftwing)

Essays and Weblogs (for more depth and breadth of coverage)

• Huffington Post (very blue)
• Daily Kos (very blue)
• The Corner(very red)
• Instapundit (libertarian)
• Reason Magazine weblog (libertarian)