This course teaches students who are beginning to write research-based papers how to effectively read multiple articles and use the information found in those articles to write persuasive and comparative essays.

Within this course, students will learn the how to read and highlight an article, how to quickly refer back to this information to make an outline for a persuasive and for a comparative essay, and how to incorporate research into a persuasive and comparative essay.  This course will be covered in 6 classes.  In the first class, students will learn how to draw information from an article through highlighting (truly, how to read critically).  In the second class, students will learn how to organize a persuasive paragraph using highlighted information from one source.  In the third class, the student will learn how to read and analyze multiple articles to put in the outline of a 5-paragraph persuasive essay.  In the fourth and fifth classes, students will repeat the exercises of class 2 and 3 with comparative essay writing.  For the final class, they will pick which 5-paragraph essay is their favorite and revise it.  The final class will be spent learning revision strategies that will also reinforce the first five lessons.  Parents are invited (and encouraged) to sit in on the final class or speak with Juliana after each Skype class so that they can better assist their students with assignments throughout the year.

This class can be tailored to help students complete summer homework assignments.