We had a good and productive class this week. This is a hard-working group of students!
For our Quick Write this week, we used cards from a game entitled "Man Bites Dog." Each student got 6 cards; a noun, adjective, adverb, or verb was on each card. They object of the game is to develop a headline using those words. For our writing exercise, they not only created headlines, but wrote a news story to go with it. Once again, we had some creative endeavors. I love those first minutes of class when their heads are bent down towards their papers, and their pens or pencils are working quickly.
The discussion of our Grammar Quiz/Test took about half of our class time. I don't think they did as well as they would have liked. From a teacher's perspective, if gives me an idea how much of the grammar instruction is sinking in. I know that grammar isn't exciting, but it's the foundation for good writing. An analogy that comes to mind is the house-builder who has quality materials, but shoddy workmanship. No one is going to give his newly-built house a second look. These students have a lot of really good ideas and interests. I want them to be able to express themselves in ways that attracts others to their thoughts and passions. Because the performance on this test wasn't great, I'll be altering some of the grammar instruction. Expect some occasional practice exercises to be part of the homework.
They handed in their rough drafts of their Biography Essays. I'll go over these and hand them back next week. With each set of essays, I not only see improvements, but I also learn a lot; their topics are fascinating. If ever for some reason a student can't hand in the rough draft at class time, I will take them until midnight on Saturday. I correct papers on Sunday evenings and Mondays. They can e-mail them to me; if a paper was hand-written, it will need to be scanned and then e-mailed.
We finished our study of Animal Farm with a final "exam" that they wrote. I had each student come to class with 3 questions from the test; I couldn't be prouder of the quality of the questions that we had. They were insightful and thought-provoking. I divided the class into two teams and had them answer the questions as a team. This encouraged even more conversation about the "whys" and "what ifs" of the book.
Our next book is Charles Dickens's The Christmas Carol. This is a favorite of mine and a good introduction to Dickens. I will bring the books to class next week. For Extra Credit, the students can bring in information about Dickens and/or about Victorian Christmases.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Grammar Worksheets
-- Extra Credit: Information about Dickens and/or about Victorian Christmases
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
This week's blog
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