We had a good week in class again. Since this weekend we are celebrating Valentine's Day, I asked the students to write a Literary Love Letter as their Quick Writes. We had comments of affection and appreciation for authors, punctuation marks, and even the spaces between words. I plan to type them into the blog later this week.
Our Words of the Day were "Reduplicatives." These expressions are pairs of words that can repeat (bonbon), be similar (ping pong) or rhyme (higgeldy-piggeldy). Our words:
shilly-shally -- to procrastinate, hesitate, or vacillate
tussie-mussie -- a bunch of flowers, a bouquet, nosegay
herky-jerky -- moving in a sudden, spasmodic, irregular way
wishy-washy -- lacking in decisiveness, determination, or purpose
In class today we discussed some of the common errors that were found in the rough drafts of their Narrative Essays. These include:
-- Using "There is/are" sentences
-- using contractions
-- Consistent verb tenses
-- Parallel structure
-- Writing out numbers
Using their own writing is one of the best ways to teach grammar and writing principles. This is one case when learning from mistakes is a great strategy.
Following our writing discussion, we moved on to our literature selection. We've read most of the The Strange Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so I asked them their impressions of the book as a whole. For some, it seems dry with not a lot of action. As we looked at some scenes, it appeared that Robert Louis Stevenson did a lot of telling as opposed to showing.
Assignments for Next Week
-- Final Drafts of Narrative Essays
-- Read Chapters 7 & 8 of Jekyll/Hyde
-- No Grammar Worksheets
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Happy Valentine's Day!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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