How to: Read to a child

Children have a short attention span. This makes it difficult to get them interested in one specific thing for a period of time. Many adults make the mistake of reading to children in the same way they would read to themselves . By reading to fast and do not embody the characters. To read to a child you must be engaging, animated, and have fun with it.  In order for children to pay attention when you read to them you must follow these rules:

1)  Find a book that appeals to the kids: if you choose a book that is boring, doesn't have pictures, and won't capture the interest of children. This will result in distractions within a class room or wherever the setting is.
2) skim through the book before you read it. So you know when to use what voices and animations.
3) make sure you are sitting so that the child can see the pictures 
4) read the title of the book to the child and emphasize it 
5)  read along with your finger so the child can follow with you 
6) have the child read along with you and have them participate
7)  use sound effects throughout the story to hold the child's attention
8) ask the child questions about the story to keep them engaged 
9)change your voice with different characters and change how you sound 

These are the essential steps you need to take to read to a child. Making reading fun for kids will make them want to keep reading as they grow up. If reading is made boring, kids will dread reading.  This is why  I encourage you to get out there and read in a library or to your siblings or kids because it can become really fun for you and the child if.

Howto Topics

How to train a puppy:
I love dogs. I have had dogs around me all my life and I have helped trained my dogs. I think this would be an interesting topic for me to do because of my knowledge on dogs and research for this would also be easy. If I am unclear about something or unsure of something I can look up "how to rain a puppy" online and use that as a resource. Dogs are also really awesome and most people like dogs (besides Baran) and I think it would a very well receipted idea and many people now are getting dogs who have no idea how to train them.

How to choice the right sports equipment:
I would relate this to softball and how to choose the right bat because a lot of people who are starting softball or need a new bat do not know how to start looking for one, Height, weight, and strength play a huge role throughout the process of finding a bat and many people are unaware of this, so by creating a video of how to choose the right bat people can save money and learn more about the sizes and what bat types will last longer and are more effective.

How to read to a child:
I love reading, especially to kids because when you read to kids you need to be very animated. This way it will capture the attention of the child. Many people read to kids with a monotone voice and bore the kids, but making a video for how to read to kids would be funny and useful.

I object!

The second debate was about social media and whether or not it has a positive or negative effect on teens. I personally believe that it has a positive and negative effect on teens because it allows people to connect, learn new things, and see unique things about the world that you other wise would not. on the other hand social media can also have a negative effect on teens through cyber bullying, exposing them to inappropriate resources, and also false information a long with many other things. my side was the negative side. some points were that social media exposes kids to cyber bullying, which allows young people to hide behind a different persona and allows them to target people without them knowing who is bullying them. we used a pathos of a time at Cheshire academy when a student made a Twitter account that negatively targeted students. another example we used was students who use social media sites while studying score 20% lower on tests and students who used social had an average of a 3.2 gpa whereas students who do not use it have an average of 3.82. this allowed our opponents and the audience to show how social media can damage futures and learning. the team really stressed the exposure to pornography and pedophilia which is an important topic to address but we focused to much on it. yes it is a good point to make but I think we focused to much on it and instead of elaborating or branching off we just went into more detail. on the other hand somethings my team did very well was rebut, ella did a very good job rebutting the arguments from jack and Hans and along with rebutting them, she expanded on a new topic on our side. another thing we did poorly on was collaboration and communication. we past some notes to each other but not a lot and also there were some points that the group did not believe to be strong enough to put in as an argument but were put in and in clear to the debate and our opponents. this weakened our arguments at the end because it was unclear what was trying to be said and how it related to the debate. the other team did my much better than the last time, their rebuttals were much cleaner and the opening statement was stronger. the only thing was the closing statement needed a little work with rebutting and stating new points but was a pretty good statement. their rebuts could have had more content as well in my first mini debate it was jack vs me and it was dogs vs cats. for having to come up with something on the spot I think we both did okay. we both should not have been so graphic with our depiction of mean cats and dogs. another thing was we both needed to speak longer, especially me in my opening I had 20 more seconds I could have used. in my second mini debate I was against Evan for Netflix vs tv and my points were that Netflix was cheaper, no commercials, and easier to access than television. Netflix only makes you pay once a month a cheap subscription where tv makes you pay bills for cable and electricity. also Netflix doesn't make you watch commercials and you can watch shows and movies without being interrupted. and Netflix can be accessed anywhere there is internet where in order to tv you need a tv and cable.
Overall I think everyone improved a lot from the first debate, both were much more prepared, and had many pathos, logos, and ethos. Rebuttals were much stronger with rebuttals too and I think this improvement improved everyone and this was shown through the mini- debates how people created points very quickly and wrote down rebuts to make. 

#debate

opening statement: Adler
first rebuttal: Baran
second rebuttal: Ella
closing statement: Hannah
timer: David

Notes:
cyber bullying: allows young people to hide behind a different persona and allow them to target people without them knowing who is bullying them          
pathos: cheshire academy: yik  yak and "two cent" (twitter)                                                                              
Background check: social media gives people the privilege to post what ever they want
could be abused by posting inappropriate photos or statuses which could effect your opportunities for jobs
students who use social media sites while studying score 20% lower on tests and students who used social had an average of a 3.6 gpa whereas students who do not use it have an average of 3.82
Spreads unreliable sources
ethos: Social media is the top news source for Americans, ranking over newspapers 28.8%)  and above radio (18.8%)
social media is a way to allow procrastination
ethos: 40% of 8-18 year olds spend 56 minutes on social media a day
Social media is effecting personal relationships
ethos: 10% of people younger than 25 have responded to social media during sex
America is being too consumed by technology and social media
Logos: This is because people have access to it everywhere and  feel the need to be a part of what is happening in the world.
Social media can lead to depression and anxiety
Social media can also lead to other disorders
In 2013, the possible idea of internet addition was researched
Social media can also lead to damages to the body
Pathos: web users had altered prefrontal cortexes due to the fast pace of social media
Pathos: There has been more deaths caused by selfies than their has been deaths due to shark attacks.



Opening Statement:
 Social media has consumed the lives of most people in America. These people are mostly teens or young adults. Some people even younger than 8 are exposed to social media at a very high rate which can create physical problems in the future along with the abuse of social media. Social media is dangerous, especially to teenagers who are going through a transition in their life. They get so consumed by what is happening in social media that they get distracted from tasks such as school and other topics related to that. Social media also exposes young people to the ability to hide behind a screen and attack people without them knowing who it is. For example, at Cheshire Academy there was a twitter account called "two cent girl" created to talk negatively about people at Cheshire Academy and spread rumors. These acts are shown as okay through television shows such as Pretty little liars and GOssip girl.

Debate One

Our first debate was about whether or not the drinking age should be lowered to 18 or should stay at  My team was on the affirmative side saying that the drinking age should be lowered. My team did very well in this debate. We all had thought out and had written out what we wanted to say and our points were clear and conscious. Our team also worked really well together and we all contributed thoughtful ideas and searched a lot about the topic. Another thing that we did well was we came up with possible rebuttals that the other side could have brought up and wrote responses to what they could have said and what we could rebut. Also, the team really fed off of each other very well. We used each others strengths and applied that to  the debate and who would do what.

The other team however I believe was not as organized as our team. The opening speaker said they knew they were doing the opening response the day before. Another thing was they did not have a strong rebuttal. Their ideas were not clearly laid out and were very short. I think their strongest speaker was the closing speaker and the opening speaker. The opening speaker although had a short opening, had very good points and spoke very well. This also goes for the closing speaker, even though he read off of the paper, he had strong consist points and brought up points that were not rebuttal  in  other teams arguments. This was a very strong point for them because there would beno opportunity   for my side to rebut.

The team that I believe won was my team. I think we had stronger arguments than the other team. We did a lot of research and used multiple sources to reassure that our sources were credible. We also had stronger rebuttals and touched on every point. We also used the other teams mistakes to strengthen our arguments and really listened to what their arguments were and picked at little details to rebut.

For my team, we need to keep up our organization and for the next debate assign people what they will do on the first day.  Also, we need to continue to our research on points because that really helped us all to work on something together and bring our points together. Also, we nee to keep up
our good teamwork because that results in a strong debate team. Also, we need to continue to listen very carefully and pay a lot of attention to the opponents arguments and rebuttals. This was something very strong that we did because then we gave our notes to the next rebutter.

What my team needs to work on is speaking slower and work on enunciation. This will allow for our audience to better understand our arguments and our points. Another thing is making sure that the thesis statement in properly stated and clear. I think another thing we need to work on is making sure we stay on topic because sometimes there would be rants or side conversations irrelevant to the debate and that took away from research or brainstorming time. Also, no matter what side your on you have to put in as much research as you would the topic you agree with even if you don't like that. I think that was a problem with our team as well and that weakened our arguments by saying they do not agree with our side.

The other team needs to work on their organization skills and rebutting skills. They should plan out who will be doing what for the debate and help each other figure out a good opening statement, not just the person saying the opening statement. As well as with the rebuttals, coming up with possible rebuttals my team could make and thinking of points and arguments based around that. This will help them organize their arguments better and allow for a better result and a stronger debate. Also, if they work on their communication between Q that will help them. After the debate they argued about how one person said they couldn't make a point because they were going to make it and never did. This then left out information or arguments that they could have used to strengthen their argument.

Drinking age debate