We began our class with another Quick Write. The day of our class, November 6, was James Naismith's birthday. He was the inventor of the game of basketball, which he did as a class assignment. The topic of the Quick Write was to write about a creative project they had done or would like to do for school. One thought that was expressed is that sometimes a project that is hard or takes a lot of work is often very satisfying once it's done.
Our Words for the Day were:
Mademoiselle -- fr. French, ma damoisele, my noble young lady -- the title for an unmarried young woman
Madonna -- fr. Italian, ma donna, my lady -- refers to the Virgin Mary
Madrigal -- fr. Latin, carmen matricale, simple song -- a part song for a small unaccompanied group
Maestro -- fr. Italian, maestro, master -- an eminent composer, teacher or conductor of music
I reminded them that we will have a test at the end of the semester with these words. The test will be a combination of multiple choice, true/false, matching, and fill-in-the-blank.
They handed in the final drafts of their Examples/Illustrations Essays along with the self-evaluation rubric and list of common errors. The consensus was that figuring out the errors from the list was difficult. That's not surprising. In order to write well, students need to master a lot of Grammar. It's a process.
Our next essay is either a History Essay or a Biography Essay. They can choose to write on or the other; they may also choose to do both, one for extra credit. We took some time to discuss the difference between a report and an essay. Since these are to be essays, they need to be written with a thesis, in other words a stand or opinion. We talked through some examples.
We've begun our new book, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I read aloud some portions from Stave One. Not only is this one of the best-known Christmas classics, it's a delightful book with great images and language.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Stave Two
-- Write the answers to 3 Study Questions
-- Write the definitions for 4 Vocabulary Words
-- History or Biography Pre-Write
This week's links:
Class Notes
Keep warm; winter's coming!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment