Opinion Response Essays

A presentation for Mr. Ryan Kays

WORLD HISTORY and
AMERICAN GOVERNMENT classes
by

Mr. Steve Tadevic

Opinion Response Essays

Why, oh why, do we have to do THIS ???

YOUR GRADE
will depend in some part
on how well you do on these.

These will be graded as assessments:

Score point 4s will be equivalent to 20 points

Score point 3s will be equivalent to 18 points

Score point 2s will be equivalent to 16 points

Score point 1s will be equivalent to 14 points

MORE IMPORTANTLY
Doing opinion response essays
helps to develop your reading,
writing, and critical thinking skills
Mr. Kay has commented that social studies classes
in the future will begin to look more and more like
English classes.
If the Common Core continues to prevail as the
basis for subject area standards, English and social
studies will be linked togethe r as never before.
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/

What if I dont care about the Common Core?

Note the mission statement beneath the logo:
PREPARING AMERICAS STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE & CAREER

You will be expected to do this kind of essay in almost every college course you will take.

Even if you forego college for a more immediate career, you will be COMPETING AGAINST
students who will have these skills once Common Core is more fully implemented.

Why not be better readers, writers, and critical thinkers ?

Opinion Response Essays

Test your reading proficiency equally

as much as they test your abilities as a

writer

Help you to become better informed

about current eventsevents of
national and international import
By requiring you to disagree with
another writers opinion, ask you to
think critically about these issues
Can cultivate a better sense of
empathythe ability to see the world
through the eyes of another

How to write excellent or better

opinion response essays

Score point 1 papers the majority of these papers

did not follow instructions
Score point 2 papers the majority of these papers
were too brief or undeveloped
Score point 3 papers a good level of writing
proficiency; these papers are often not as serious or as
well-planned/thought-out as they could be
Score point 4 papers only one or two in a class,
indicates a superior ability to write, will be interested
to see if this can be demonstrated consistently

Dealing with the problem of

NOT FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS

Be sure to include the following at the top of each opinion response you write:

your name, class hour

title of article
date article ran in WSJ

Choose an article from the OPINION section of The Wall Street Journal.
(generally located in the last 3 to 6 pages of the first/A section)

Be sure that you write an opinion response in which you DISAGREE with
the opinion expressed by the writer of the article you have selected and read
Do NOT rewrite, re-cap, summarize, or explain what the article means do as
much of your own original writing as possible to share your opinion about an
issue with those who will read your essay.
The goal is to CONVINCE your readers that your opinion is right or more
valid, and that the other writers opinion (in the article) is wrong or misguided.

Dealing with the problem of

TOO BRIEF or UNDEVELOPED

If youve only written 3 sentences or filled up less than of the

page, your response is almost certainly too brief or undeveloped.
Consider what sort of evidence will best
support the statements that collectively
express your opinion in your response.
Personal experience
Evidence from the text itself

Evidence from outside sources

(NOTE: Each of these has its strengths and weaknesses.)

1. Personal experience

Use personal experience as examples to:

demonstrate why you interpret the text the way you do
why you react the way you do
why you agree or disagree

Example sentence:
I strongly disagree with Tannens first point based on my own high
school experience, especially in my History class.

2. Evidence from the text itself

Cite specific phrases or sentences (or the lack of them)

from the text itself to support your

explanation of the text

analysis of the effectiveness of the text
to support why you agree or disagree

Use this kind of evidence to question the credibility,

credentials, or authority to speak on the issue of
The source itself the Wall Street Journal
The writer of the article

3. Evidence from other sources

Acceptable to bring in ideas and information from other

texts or online sources of information
Your prior knowledge (i.e., what you have learned in other
subject area classes)
No research is required for this assignment, but dont be
afraid to discuss the issues with adults in your life or to
learn more about the issues online
Informally cite sources if you do use or borrow material
from other sources

Dealing with the problem of

NOT AS SERIOUS or
AS WELL-PLANNED OR
THOUGHT-OUT AS IT COULD BE

These responses tend to suffer from being

LOPSIDED
DOGMATIC
They rely too much on one kind of evidence

They ask questions they leave unanswered or make

statements not supported by any kind of evidence
They do NOT match the style of the article to which
their response is directed

A Question of Style
FORMAL or INFORMAL ?

Take the following test to see

how well you understand the differences:
http://dissc.tees.ac.uk/Writing/Style/wordstyletest.htm

Using the Rubric

Rubric title: SBAC Informative-Explanatory Writing Rubric Grades 6-12
Scores are based by measurement in three to five areas:
Statement of Purpose/Focus and Organization
Statement of Purpose/Focus
Organization

Development: Language and Elaboration of Evidence

Elaboration of Evidence
Language and Vocabulary

Conventions (aka grammar)

These areas are arranged in order of importance in weighing the final score
of the students writingtherefore, a students ideas and their organization
are most important; followed by how they use evidence and language to
support their ideas; followed lastly by grammatical considerations

Some Other Rules

First of all, choose an article with a topic that we
feel we can most effectively write about
For example: Obamacare,

domestic violence in the NFL, or

the decline of penmanship.

Then we use this STRUCTURE to write our essay:

Opening

Body

Conclusion

Opening
In this part we write a presentation of the issue and
our opinion.
This part of the essay shouldnt be too long; its
only a brief introduction to the topic that we will
then treat in the next section, the body.
The longest part of our response will be developed
in the next part, the body.

Body
Is the longest part of the essay.
In the body of the essay we have to convince the
reader, giving specific reasons and facts to support
our opinion (this is why its the longest part).
And to finish our opinion essay, we must write an
effective conclusion.

Conclusion
Its the part where we sum everything up and
(almost always) restate our opinion.
As in the opening, the conclusion does not have to
be too longa single complex sentence or two or
three sentences at most.

Some last words of advice

You can use a separate sheet of paper to do
a schemea list of the ideas that you are
going to talk about in your essay. Using
this scheme, you should be able to better
organize your opinion response and present
your ideas in the most effective sequence.

THE END