Name:
Directions:
4 sentences of summary about the article. Include
the most important points. Your summary should show that you read carefully and
have a good understanding of the article.
3 sentences of your personal response/opinion. Does
this match up with your observations and experiences? Why or why not?
2 quotes that stand out. Include a couple
sentences on the significance of each quote. Why did you choose it/what does it
mean for this article?
1 question or connection—several sentences about
something you still wonder or don't understand about this article, OR
about something in the text you can connect to.
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10
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9-8
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7-6
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5
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4-1
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All items in the 4/3/2/1 are thoroughly completed.
Answers are all in complete sentences.
Answers show complete understanding of the 4/3/2/1.
Student went above and beyond what was expected (analysis
& thoroughness).
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One
part of the assignment may not be thorough enough.
Answers are mostly in complete sentences.
Answers show substantial understanding of the question(s),
but more analysis could lead to greater understanding.
Student met expectations of activity.
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More than half the assignment is completed, but not
analyzed thoroughly enough.
Answers show understanding of the question(s), but they
could use more detail, analysis, examples, and/or connections.
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More than half the assignment is incomplete.
Answers shows limited understanding of the question(s), and
needs a lot more detail and analysis.
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Assignment is either dreadfully incomplete or needs significantly
more detail and analysis.
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4/3/2/1 turned in late
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- 1 point
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Iraqi forces advance in Mosul but civilian toll mounts
4 Sentence Summary:
3 Sentences of Personal Opinion:
2 Quotes and Why They Stand Out:
1 Question or Connection:
Iraqi forces advance in Mosul but civilian toll mounts
| ERBIL,
IRAQ/BAGHDAD
Iraqi forces pushed
Islamic State fighters back further in Mosul on Tuesday in a renewed effort to
seize the northern city and deal a decisive blow to the militant group, though
progress was slow in some districts, the army said.
Iraqi forces and
their allies have captured villages and towns surrounding Mosul and seized at
least two-thirds of its eastern districts, military officials say, reaching the
eastern bank of the Tigris river for the first time on Sunday.
The government had
initially hoped to retake Mosul by the end of 2016 but three months into the
U.S.-backed campaign, the militants control the territory to the west of the
Tigris that bisects the city from north to south.
Iraqi Prime Minister
Haider al-Abadi said in December it would now take another three months to
drive the militants out of Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control
in Iraq or Syria.
Civilians wounded in
the fighting streamed into nearby hospitals and Iraqi forces blamed Islamic
State for shooting at fleeing residents and shelling populated areas after
losing control of them.
United Nations
humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said nearly 700 people had been taken to
hospitals in Kurdish-controlled areas outside Mosul in the last week and more
than 817 had required hospital treatment a week earlier.
"Trauma
casualties remain extremely high, particularly near frontlines," he told
reporters in Geneva.
The World Health
Organization (WHO) said about 50 wounded patients a day had come into emergency
wards in Erbil over the past two weeks, up from 32 a day previously.
BRIDGES BLOWN
Recapturing Mosul
after more than two years of Islamic State rule would probably spell the end of
the Iraqi side of the group's self-declared caliphate, which spans Iraq and
Syria.
But advances inside
Mosul slowed in November and December as troops engaged in tough urban warfare
with the jihadists, who are thought to number several thousand in the city.
The militants fought
back with suicide car bombs and snipers hidden among the civilian population.
They have also recently blown up sections of two bridges crossing the Tigris to
try to slow the Iraqi advance, military officials say.
Abadi said on
Tuesday the destruction of the bridges would not stop Iraqi forces from
"liberating ... the people of Mosul".
Elite forces in the
city's east and northeast have advanced faster since the turn of the year
thanks to new tactics and better coordination but there was stiff resistance in
the southeast of Mosul, military officials said.
Lieutenant Colonel
Abbas al-Azawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi army's 16th division, said Iraqi
forces entered Hadba on Tuesday, a large northeastern district, though it would
likely take more than a day to capture as IS was using suicide bombers.
Iraqi
counter-terrorism service (CTS) units encircled the nearby Sukkar district on
Monday and sought to recapture the strategic Mosul University area. The United
Nations has said Islamic State seized nuclear material used for research there
when the militant group overran a third of Iraq in 2014.
The CTS and army
units want to capture all the eastern bank of the Tigris so they can launch
attacks on western Mosul.
Mosul's five bridges
across the Tigris had already been partially damaged by U.S.-led air strikes to
slow the militants' movement before Islamic State blew up two of them.
Coalition spokesman
U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian told Reuters last week the new damage done
by retreating IS fighters was "severe" but would not stop the
advance.
"Every day the
Iraqi Security Forces go forward and every day the enemy goes backward or
underground," he told reporters in Erbil in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish
region on Tuesday.
HUMAN SHIELDS
Fighting in
neighborhoods in the southeast of Mosul has been tougher, however, as Iraqi
forces push toward the river.
"The challenge
is that (IS) are hiding among civilian families, that's why our advances are
slow and very cautious," Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi, a
spokesman for the rapid response units of Iraq's federal police, told Reuters.
He said police and
army units had fought their way into the Palestine and Sumer districts over the
last day but Islamic State fighters were firing at civilians trying to flee.
"The families,
when they see Iraqi forces coming, flee from the areas controlled by Daesh
(Islamic State) toward the Iraqi forces, holding up white flags, and Daesh bomb
them with mortars and Molotov cocktails, and also shoot at them.
"Whenever they
withdraw from a district, they shell it at random, and it's heavy
shelling," he said.
Dorrian said
militant fighters were hiding in mosques, schools and hospitals, using
civilians as human shields.
One resident reached
by phone in a recently recaptured district of Mosul said shells had continued
to fall near his home, forcing him to move his family to another neighborhood.
"In the 10 days
since we were liberated, the bombs haven't stopped. Shells fall every day near
the house and we've seen civilians killed and wounded several times," he
said, without giving his name.
Another resident
said he had heard an Islamic State radio broadcast urging fighters to fire at
areas were the civilians remained once the Iraqi army had moved in.
OIL EXPORTS
The number of people
driven out of their homes by fighting spiked around the beginning of the new
push by Iraqi forces, but has since returned to previous levels, the U.N.'s
Laerke said.
Since the offensive
started in October, some 135,000 people have been displaced, he said, adding
that a non-governmental organization had opened a field hospital east of Mosul
to take the strain off hospitals in Erbil, some 60 km (40 miles) away.
In a sign Baghdad is
keen to revive parts of its economy hit by Islamic State's expansion more than
two years ago, the oil ministry said this week it might resume exports via a
pipeline to Turkey through Nineveh province, where Mosul is located.
Relations with
Ankara may have to improve first, however.
Abadi said relations
"cannot move forward one step" without the withdrawal of Turkish
troops from Bashiqa camp near Mosul.
Turkey's military
presence in northern Iraq, where its forces have trained Sunni and Kurdish
fighters, has been a point of friction between the two regional powers since
well before the Mosul campaign began.
Iraq's oil ministry
also invited an Angolan oil company to start work at two oil fields close to
Mosul, which Islamic State withdrew from months ago, setting oil wells alight
as they left.
(Reporting by
Stephen Kalin and Girish Gupta in Erbil; John Davison, Ahmed Rasheed and Saif
Hameed in Baghdad,; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by John Davison;
editing by David Clarke)
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