Reflective Questions

What did you work the most on with regard to this essay? What do you wish you’d spent more time on?

Writing about Objects

Review Project

Writing Reviews

Next unit is about the objects we consume or use. Building on what you’ve already done:

Bringing an object to life with details (rather than an place or person).

Still working on using specifics—but now those details will become evidence.

Moving from reflection and implication—to making a clear point, expressing a reasoned opinion about something.

Movie Trailers

Review the TRAILER itself, as a genre in and of itself.Not reviewing the movie’s potential

necessarily.Just considering how good of a

trailer it is . . .

On Your Own

Sketch out a review—jot down why you think the trailer is a good or bad one.

Try to point to specific features of the trailer to make your case more clear.

In Your Groups

Compare reviews. Make a list: what criteria did you use

to evaluate? IOW, what makes a good trailer?

What criteria were similar across the group? Different?

Put criteria on board . . .

Did you compare the other trailers to all movie trailers?

Or are there subcategories of trailers, each with different qualities that make them good or bad?Genres: Action, Drama, Boipic, Sci-Fi,

Fantasy, Romance, Comedy, KidsProduction: Indie, Big Studio, Big Special

Effects, AnimatedStar Power: A-list, B-list

Categories

Categories

Categories help our reviews be more useful—more convincing.

Reviewing a restaurant—generic criteria not so useful to rate your favorites. Compare sushi restaurants to other sushi restaurants, compare steakhouse to other steakhouses.

Re-Cap

So reviews are useful when the categories are well-defined.Reviewing snowboard cross an

example of a sporting event might not be as useful as if you’d reviewed it as an example of a new Winter Olympics event.

Criteria are important too. Writer has more credibility—sense that there are reasons and evidence to back up the writer’s opinion.