Today, I introduced Josh to the idea of Parody and Irony in writing, attempting to elaborate on our topic of legitimate and illegitimate sources. I had Josh watch several videos from TheOnion.com and discuss the "big joke" and "underlying message" of each. To this end, Josh and I finished our discussion on whether or not parody is an effective means of exposing a societal flaw.

Today, I had Josh research J.R.R Tolkien. To distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate sources, I showed Josh a blog from a Tolkien fan, explaining to him that something informal like a blog, Wikipedia, and even an online journal would be inappropriate sources to cite. Afterwards, we looked at a legitimate source (CNN.com) and discussed the differences between this and Wikipedia.

Josh and I read and discussed the article "Ulysses and Grant: Two Extremes," discussing the major ideological and moral differences between these two political figures. Afterwards, I had Josh write a paragraph about his thoughts on the piece, and we outlined some of the arguments main points.

Today, I had Josh participate in a critical thinking exercise by making him write for about 3-4 minutes on topics like the death penalty, assisted suicide, obesity, Obamacare, homosexuality, etc. Afterwards, I had Josh read his responses to me, and I had him consider some of the gaps in his reasoning. For example, I had him provide a concrete, explicit measure for how assisted suicide was different from Hitler's euthenasia program, which essentially "mercy-killed" people who were deemed old, disabled, sickly, etc. The point was not to prove one point-of-view right and the other wrong, but to help Josh qualify his arguments, noting that sometimes disparate ideas can stem from the same basic concept.

Today, I decided to try stretching Josh's critical thinking comfort level with a 20 minute free-writing lesson. To do this, I gave Josh a list of 6 random topics and gave him about 3 minutes to write anything that came to his mind for each one. Topics ranged from "The Medieval Period," to "My Family," "College," and even "Video Games." My goal was to get Josh to focus/hone these topics, centering his ideas on particular facets of each. Afterwards, I had Josh read all of his answers and found that he made some pretty interesting connections in topics. I then created a case scenario for Josh: college professor says write an argument paper about anything that you want. Using the previous topics, I asked Josh to move from topic to focus to argument, deciding on a claim that was defendable. We had a really good time of doing this, and Josh was able to articulate some really interesting claims based on this free-writing assignment.

Josh and I went over our previous discussion about words and connotations. Afterwards, we spent some time reading and discussing the themes in the narrative "Turning Japanese" by Heidi Juliavits. I asked Josh to relay some information about our narrator based on specific instances from the text, and he did a very good job of coming up with ideas, but needed lots of support from the text itself. I am trying to wean Josh off of his reliance on the text to answer questions about characters, teaching him instead how to use the text to draw his own conclusions about the message, speaker, etc.

To expand on our narrative discussion, I created a worksheet for which Josh and I could discuss descriptive language, metaphors, word associations/connotations, and images. In this worksheet, I had Josh compare the sound of words (mellifluous vs. raucous) and word associations (which words connote positive or negative images). We had a healthy discussion about these items. I will introduce Josh to poetry based on our discussion today.

Josh brought in a History homework paper today that he asked to read during our class session. To hone in on Josh's recalling abilities, I had him track the progression of each section with small notes for each paragraph. While Josh's handwriting is still quite large, he was able to jot down some really insightful ideas. We had to discuss the main point of each paragraph for sometime, as Josh would recount small details that did not contribute to the bigger, whole picture of each story.

Before getting into our in-depth discussion, I asked Josh to recount the details of "The Ashen Guy," the story we read last week. I was pleasantly surprised by Josh's recall, and there were only small, minute details that needed to be clarified with Josh. Afterwards, we reviewed the definition of a Narrative, paying particular attention to how narratives are not just stories about events, but stories that use language to convey particular truths or beliefs about society, the world, etc. With this in mind, I had Josh give me a tentative definition of the word "theme." Josh answered that "theme" meant something along the lines of "genre," which was true in a sense, but not the definition used in literature. I clarified that "theme" is a prominent topic or idea of a story, and then I gave him example of themes like death, friendship, sadness, etc. Pushing Josh a bit out of his comfort zone, I asked him not only to define the theme of the story, but to give me specific, textual instances where this theme occurs and to articulate what "bigger message" the text is communicating about that theme. Josh and I were able to have a great discussion, and while not every piece of textual evidence fit his argument, Josh was able to articulate some really insightful arguments about this story.

Before beginning our reading of this article, Josh and I discussed the definition of a Narrative, and I explained to Josh that Narratives aren't just stories about events, but stories that lead readers to particular feelings and ideas about subjects. To spearhead this discussion, we conducted a "close-reading" of a picture of Obama interviewing several dogs. After much discussion, I had Josh tell me a "story" that he thought this picture was trying to communicate and cite evidence for his beliefs. Afterwards, we worked on Josh's reading and comprehension with the story "The Ashen Guy." Josh is good at recalling some very specific details, but there are moments in the narrative shift from p.o.v. that Josh could not keep track of. For every detail that he recalled from the text, I had him cite specific examples/lines that supported his ideas. In this way, Josh was able to catch some of the details that he made-up in his head. With a subject like 9/11 it was hard to keep Josh focused, and I had to tie every bit of un-related information back to the story at hand.