Greetings!What a great group of students! I especially enjoy the measure of cohesiveness and collegiality they've come to. We have good, insightful discussions. Occasionally they interrupt because they have something important they can't wait to contribute to the class or chat too much between themselves. If you ever walk by my room and hear single, double, or triple claps, it's because I'm doing something I learned from a director of a grade school. When the students were gathered for all-school gatherings, she would quietly stand at the front and say, "If you can hear my voice clap once ... if you can hear my voice clap twice ... clap three times." Without raising her voice, she got the attention and then quieted 180 kids.
For some reason, the students found the Quick Write a bit difficult. Entitled "Mama's Soup Surprise," they were required to write 12 sentences about food -- 4 facts, 4 opinions, 4 lies. Here's a link to the Nancy Cassidy song: Mama's Soup Surprise
No Vocabulary Words this week. I have a fun activity for next week, though!
I handed back the Take-Home portion of the final for Animal Farm. This was an open book test, and the students could give as many examples and write as much as they wanted. Here's how I scored the papers:
0 pt = Wrong answer
1/2 pt = one-word answers
2 pt = full sentence answers
1 pt = per extra sentence to elaborate or explain a point.
The test had 4 questions concerning the themes. The lowest possible score (they had to give at least 2 examples) was 4 pt. The highest score given was 58 pt. I explained to the students that sometimes a grade or score isn't a matter of how smart you are but of how much effort you put into an assignment. (FYI, I found no wrong answers on any of the tests.)
Our next writing assignment is a Biographical Essay. We took a long time to go over the difference between a report and an essay. We worked through a couple of examples and especially went over how to develop a thesis statement. Here's the "equation" that I gave them:
main topic/subject
+ position/stand/opinion
_____________________
thesis statement
A couple of students wrote essays that were more biographical than historical for the last assignment. I wrote notes to them and said that they could count that essay as the biography and that they should write a history essay for this assignment.
We spent the last 30 minutes of class discussing Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol. We have some mixed feelings in the class about this book partly due to the challenge of Victorian language. Hopefully, by the end of the book they will find this classic as delightful as I do. I found some interesting websites: Videos and pictures of Dickens' England, a map of London, a brief article about Victorian England. I also gave them a hand-out with some background information on the book and England. This is on Dropbox and a blog post.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol
-- Choose 10 Vocabulary Words for the list: write definitions and word roots.
-- Answer 5 of the 10 questions from the study guide
-- Extra Credit #1: more vocabulary words and more study guide questions
-- Extra Credit #2: bring in information about Dickens's London/England
-- Pre-writing for Biographical Essay. Have something to hand in! (outline, brainstorming, lists, chart, etc.)
Have a great week!
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