We had another wonderful class this week. This is a bright group of students, and I enjoy my Thursday class times with them.
We began with our usual Quick Write. This week our topic was Benjamin Banneker, a scientist, mathematician, astronomer surveyor, and writer who died on this date in 1797. Though called the "first black man of science," he only went to school as a child. Most of his knowledge and skills were self-taught. I gave the students 2 options for the Quick Write: 1) Write about something you taught yourself; 2) If you could invent something, what would it be.
Our Words of the Day came again from my book of foreign words and phrases. I asked a student to choose a letter, and she chose "L," so all of our words began with the letter "L."
Lagoon -- fr. Italian; fr. Latin lacus; basin, pool -- a shallow pond-like body of water
Lariat -- fr. Spanish, la reata, rope -- a long-noosed rope for catching and tethering livestock
Lasagne -- fr. Italian lasania, cooking pot; fr. Latin lasanus, chamber pot (a pot with a stand) -- a baked dish consisting of layers of pasta, meat, cheese, and sauce.
The students handed in their final drafts of their Personal Essays. A couple of students had problems with computers and/or printers. Those essays can be e-mailed to me. Also, if a student forgot the rough draft to hand in with the final draft, that can be scanned in and sent to me. I handed out to them the instructions for the next round of essays. This essay is an Examples/Illustration Essay. I spent some time explaining the two styles of essays and giving examples of types of topics that would work. (The description for this is attached.) The first two essays for Writing 1 were written with a 2-step process: rough draft then final draft. For the rest of our essays, we will be following a 3-step procedure: pre-writing, then rough draft, then final draft. They are to do the pre-writing (brainstorming, mind mapping, outlining, researching, and thesis developing) for next week. I will check to see that these are done, but they will be handed in with the rough drafts in 2 weeks.
After correcting their worksheets dealing with linking and helping verbs, I felt that we needed to go over this Grammar topic a little more. Using a chart and a handout, we discussed a little more thoroughly the difference between helping and linking verbs. We came up with some examples and looked at ways to tell whether a noun is a linking verb or an action verb. I showed them a cheesy video of the "Verb Rap."
A large portion of our time together today was taking the Quiz for Animal Farm. I divided the class into groups of 3 students to do this as a collaborative process. I like to take as much advantage of the classroom setting for group learning as possible. I listened in as they processed the quiz questions and appreciated their hard work and thoughtful comments. We have finished the book and will discuss it as a whole next week. Also for next week, the students are to pick one of the characters and write down 10 details about this character. If they have blank spaces on the vocabulary worksheet, they should get them filled in. That will be due in 2 weeks. As a "treat" following the quiz, we watch a video that was made as a high school project.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Pick 1 character from Animal Farm and write down 10 details
-- Examples/Illustrations Essay Pre-Write
This week's links:
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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