Expository: Why Rituals Are Good
The essay “Why Rituals Are Good for You” by Ari Honorvar can be found in 88 Open Essays on pages 235-238.
The article describes how rituals helped the writer handle fear and anxiety while growing up in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War and how she has tried to implement rituals in her life in the different context of living in the United States. She explores why rituals are beneficial. The article includes personal experience and research and demonstrates cause/effect organization. It would pair nicely with the article “Sweet, Sour, and Resentful.”
The following instructional activities, assignments, and documents are included for this reading. They are explained in the chart below and can be found in the module.
| Course Activities, Assignments, and Documents | Goals Addressed |
| Analyzing and Answering Questions with Multiple Parts: A power point and activity to help the students annotate and analyze the directions for assignments (will need to be adapted to the directions/assignments for this particular module.)
How to Analyze a Writing Prompt and create a Strong Thesis Statement activity (will need to be adapted to the directions/assignments for this particular module.) Understanding the Relationship between the Assignment and the Rubric (will need to be adapted to the directions/assignments for this particular module.)
|
GOAL 1: Understanding Academic Writing Assignments |
| Vocabulary Preview: A list of challenging words and phrases from the text is identified so that students can build knowledge of vocabulary before reading the article.
Reading Process Activity: This activity guides students through the reading process – previewing the article, actively reading and annotating the text, and reflecting on the meaning of the text and the reading process. Emphasis is placed on using the title and students’ background knowledge and experience with the content to predict ideas in the text. Summary and Response Activity: This activity provides a set of guided questions to develop a summary and reading response to the article. An example is provided to help with developing a response, as well as providing suggestions to start the writing process. |
GOAL 2: Read and understand college-level texts |
| Sentence Variety activity: comparing paragraphs consisting of choppy sentences and paragraphs containing complex structures
Grammar behind Sentence Variety: (1) Punctuation of paragraphs with a variety of sentence structures (2) Noticing and using reduced clauses activity Passive Voice and Modal Verbs: noticing and error correction activities |
GOAL 3: Develop Sophisticated Grammatical Structures |
| Vocabulary Preview: A list of challenging words and phrases from the text is identified so that students can build knowledge of vocabulary before reading the article.
One-page essay with a planner and suggestions for vocabulary and grammatical structures. Sentence Structure and the Power of Three explains the rhetorical strategies of alternating short and long sentences and using lists of three items to illustrate a point. |
GOAL 4: Develop Fluency with Academic Vocabulary |
| Rhetorical Situation and Evidence asks students to consider the decisions the author made when she wrote her essay, specifically about purpose, audience, and context. It also asks students to evaluate the evidence about the benefits of rituals.
Using Sources Responsibly: A document that provides an example from the original text where students will evaluate the four attempts of incorporating sources has been done so correctly. |
GOAL 5: Strategies for Using Evidence in Academic Writing |
