We had a good class this week. For our Quick Write, I had the students make up an adventure, in celebration of the birthday of Astrid Lindgren, the author of the Pippi Longstocking books. We had real and imaginary persons in a number of adventures.
Our Words for the Day were taken from the vocabulary lists for A Christmas Carol:
jocund --fr. Latin jocundus, pleasant; cheerful, gay, merry
lustrous -- gleaming, radiant, shining
corroborate -- fr. Latin, corroborare, to strengthen; to make certain or confirm another's statement
reclamation -- the act of reclaiming
ubiquitous -- fr. Latin, ubique, everywhere; existing or being everywhere
This week we did an all-class writing exercise. In writing, students are often not sure what details to include or in what order to write those details. I had been doing some research about my family heritage and had some details about my great, great, great grandfather, Morten Olsen. I filled the white board with those details and then set the students to the task of writing a paragraph or two about them. When finished, we discussed what information they felt was essential and what they felt could be omitted. I then divided the class into four small groups so that they could compare their paragraphs with one another. I enjoyed listening to their conversations as they read aloud their writing.
I handed back their Final Drafts of their Examples/Illustration Essays. We discussed the rubric for the essays. Since we had talked about Introductions and Conclusions, I payed special attention to those. We will focus on various points of the rubric with the papers so that they students can consider what aspects of their writing they want to improve.
They were to have worked on their pre-writes for their History or Biographical Essays. The Rough Drafts are due next week. One student reminded me about the option of doing both, one for extra credit. If any students want to do this, I'll never say "no" to extra writing practice.
We've not done justice to our book, A Christmas Carol. Next week that will be the focus of our discussion. They are to read Stave III for next week.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Stave III of A Christmas Carol.
-- Answer 3 questions from the study guide for Stave III First Half.
-- Write the rough draft of either the History or Biography Essay
-- Extra Credit: Re-write the paragraph about Morten Olsen, paying special attention to sentence constructions. Make it an excellent paragraph.
This week's blogs
Class Notes
Have a great weekend. It should be a tad warmer, before it turns cold again.
Mrs. Prichard
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