Dear seniors,

Last week (Thursday and Friday) I asked you to read your junior year IB written assignment that you wrote for either Ms. Synhorst or me. From that reading, you were asked to create a new outline with an emphasis on “making a point” in each of your topic sentences. Also, I asked you to identify your thesis statement. I’m going to assume that you are still working on your outline, which is a good thing! Once you have your outline and thesis, please use it to revise and develop your IB written assignment about either Murakami, Ninh, or Neruda.

Remember, your junior year essay is worth 25% of your final IB grade, so it behooves you to give it a thorough review and possible revision.

Here you will find the Written assignment Rubric HL. Please read this and consider its descriptions when revising your essay. Per the IB rules, I am only allowed to read and comment on your essay one time, which I did last year. However, you are able to continue revising as long as I can verify that the essay is ALL YOURS and no part of it is plagiarized.

Given that all of the essays will be uploaded as digital files, the IB organization now automatically scans all essays and runs them through a sophisticated plagiarism checker. DO NOT plagiarize, or your IB essay will be invalid and not count towards your grade! OUCH!

Tuesday-Friday you have access to the computer lab in F8A (front section), so that should be ample time to revisit your essay.

Tuesday: Thesis, outline, reflective statement (300-400 words) Review the sample reflective statement, which demonstrates a high degree of thinking about how the research shared with the student shaped his/her interpretation of the work.

Wednesday: Work on your body paragraphs with an emphasis on “making a point,” context, concrete details that support your point, and commentary about the author’s choices. Use the “advanced paragraph” as a guide for organizing and developing your paragraphs.

Thursday: Using effective transitions, active voice VerbsforLiteraryEssays, Compound Sentences with Coordinating Conjunctions, parallel structure, and correct pronoun references.

Friday: Formatting your essay in MLA style (your candidate number goes in the upper right header, page number will go bottom/center of the page, a works cited page is required for the work you are writing about) MLA style from Purdue University.

You’ll need a Google Docs version of this essay for our final on Tuesday. The plan is to have small groups read and comment on each others’ papers. After that, perhaps additional revision will be warranted. We will convert the Google Doc to a pdf file (I’ll show you how) and then upload the file to the IB eCoursework page.

Resources to support you in the computer lab will be forthcoming!

In the meantime, I expect you to give your best effort while I am out of the office, and I’ll see you all very soon, perhaps even this Friday!

Kind Regards,

Mr. Coey