We had a good class today. The students were well-engaged and, as always, a delight.
For our Quick Write, I gave the students two options: 1) This month is National Seafood Month; write about seafood or lake food. 2) This was was Edward L. Stratemeyer's birthday. Born in 1862, he wrote the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries. Students could write about something related to mysteries. We were lucky enough to hear a good recipe for pan-fried walleye.
Our Words of the Day:
fresco -- fr. Italian fresco, "cool, fresh" -- a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries.
dixit -- fr. Latin, dixit, "he himself said" -- a dogmatic statement which the speaker expects the listener to accept as valid
xenophobia -- fr. Greek xenos, stranger; phobia, fear -- a fear of strangers or of foreign things
Following our beginning of class activities, we discussed the homework that I passed back to the students and the homework that they handed in. I briefly talked with them about homework and some the challenges they might sometimes have in getting work done and handed in. Occasionally, directions are unclear or the assignment is hard. For those times, students should come and see me so that I can help. For the other issues, distractions, forgetfulness, busyness, and even laziness -- they have to solve those problems for themselves. They've been a hardworking class, and I have this discussion with them to encourage them to take charge of their work.
We had our third Parts of Speech presentation today: Adjectives with Brady and Daniel. They showed a video and gave a short explanation about the uses of adjectives. The homework worksheet for this will be e-mailed out later. Following the explanation, we filled in some possible adjectives for this sentence: This is a ______ pizza. We paid special attention to words that carried opinions. I'm also including a link at the bottom for the video done by Writing 2.
They've handed in the final drafts of their Personal Essays and received their next writing assignment: an Examples/Illustrations Essay. For this essay, they are give concrete examples in order to explain a more abstract topic. For our previous assignments, the students completed 2 steps: a rough draft and a final draft. For the rest of the assignments for this class, we will focus on a 3-step process that includes pre-writing, a rough draft, and a final draft. The pre-write can include an outline, a mind map, a Venn diagram, or a T-chart. Any research for a paper is also part of the pre-writing activity.
We have neared the end our our book, Animal Farm. Because of our presentations and writing discussions, we have not spent as much time talking about the book as I would like. I can tell, however, that they are doing a careful job reading the book by their thoughtful responses to the study guide questions. I divided the class into four groups to discuss Napoleon, Squealer, Boxer, and Clover. They were to list details for the following areas: physical characteristics, relationships, character/personality traits, and key actions. Next week, the students will share the main points of their discussions with the rest of the class.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Review assignment character
-- Bring 3 specific points about this character to share with your group.
-- Adjective homework
-- Examples Essay Pre-Write
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Have a great weekend and a good Fall Break!
Mrs. Prichard
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