Greetings!
We had great discussions this week about our Writing, Literature, and Grammar.
The prompt we started with for the Quick Write was "Clothes make the man." According to the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the phrase was found recorded in the early 15th century, but it comes from an earlier saying in classical Greek, "the man is his clothing." In essence, clothing can both reveal and determine status. I asked the students to write about one particular piece of clothing -- their shoes.
For the Words of the Day, I chose words from the book A Word A Day by Anu Garg. (I may also continue to use SAT words, but they seemed a bit common place and not as fun.) Our words this week were collective nouns used for groups of animals. Did you know that a group of ducks swimming together is a "paddling," while a group of ducks flying is called a "team?"
sounder -- a group of wild boars
nide -- a nest or group of pheasants
skein -- a flock of geese, ducks or other similar birds in flight; a ball of yarn
skulk -- a pack of foxes
bevy -- a group of birds or animals; a group or collection of any kind; an abbreviation for a beverage (used in the UK)
We had a quick check in with our current writing assignment. The Pre-Writes for the Narrative Essay was to be done today. (While it was due this week, they don't need to hand it in until next week when they hand in their rough drafts.) We talked especially about how to write about a personal experience in an essay, which means it must have a thesis statement, and introduction, and a conclusion. I call it a "story with a purpose."
We then dove into our reading selection, The Strange Adventure of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is not a very long book, and I chose it in part because it will be our source for our next round of essays. Writing about literature is an important skill, so this is our opportunity to read carefully, take notes, and then write an essay either about a character or a theme. Included with the handouts last week were two sheets for them to take notes and keep track of information about one of the themes in the book and one of the characters. Additionally, they have a vocabulary worksheet for the book. They are to choose 25 words from anywhere in the book.
And finally, we closed out the class with a Grammar discussion. Phrases and clauses are the focuses for this semester, and we started with Prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases are used either as adjective phrases describing nouns or as adverb phrases describing verbs. I've attached two links at the bottom to instructional videos about Prepositional phrases from EDpuzzle.
One final note: Last week I did not attach all of the introductory handouts. I will be sending another e-mail out with all of those attached.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 3 & 4 of Jekyll/Hyde.
-- Review Study Guide questions for class discussion
-- Narrative Rough Draft
-- Grammar Worksheets: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 (but not Exercise B)
Links for This Week:
Blog Posts:
-- Class Notes
From EDpuzzle:
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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