Today's class was good. We covered a lot and had some thoughtful conversations about writing.
The Quick Write for the day came from a creative writing story starters book. They were to incorporate the following sentence into a short story: "How could you do this to me?" said the lion tamer as he/she tumbled over the waterfall. They had some creative responses to this writing prompt.
The Words of the Day were from a dictionary since I'd forgotten my book on foreign phrases at home:
tachycardia -- excessive rapid heart beat
tableau -- a representation of a picture, statue, or scene by one or more persons suitably costumed
tabloid -- a newspaper or magazine filled with sensational news
taciturn -- inclined to silence
As part of our vocabulary work, we made a scale from taciturn to loquacious, including other words that are synonyms for talking a lot. Without telling them what either taciturn or loquacious mean, I asked them to locate themselves on the continuum between the two words. It was humorous to watch the talkative ones put their marks near taciturn, and vice versa.
I collected from them their rough drafts of their History or Biography Essays and their A Christmas Carol Study Guide questions. I will hand their rough drafts back to them at the next class.
We talked through the questions for Stave III from the Study Guide for our book, A Christmas Carol. This is the section about the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I read aloud to them some of the descriptions. They had thoughtful and insightful responses to the questions.
After those small groups, I rearranged the class into different groups to do some editing practice. Giving them some Bad Writing Samples, they worked together to fix the mistakes. We then put those corrections on the board. They're becoming more careful writers with each exercise.
They probably don't need reminding, but we don't have class next week. They can spend Thursday eating turkey and hanging out with the family, instead.
Assignments for Dec. 5
-- Edit Bad Writing Samples #2 & #3
-- Rewrite 2 paragraphs from the Grapes of Wrath excerpt, writing it in a different tone.
This week's blog posts:
Class Notes
Bad Writing Samples
A Christmas Carol Study Guide
Happy Thanksgiving! Be blessed!
Mrs. Prichard
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