One more week. Some students will be done for their 2015-2016 school year and others will still have work to do, but summer vacation is nearing for all of us.
Our Quick Write today was in recognition of two important items for May 5: Cinco de Mayo and the National Day of Prayer. Some students wrote about prayer, and the others either wrote about their favorite Mexican food or wrote about the most unusual food they had eaten. Most of us have not been too adventurous.
Our Words of the Day were related to "linguistic faux pas."
mondegreen -- a misunderstood word or phrase as a result of mishearing words spoken or sung. This word itself represents this faux pas. Originally, a line in a poem, "Laid him on the green" was misheard and then reprinted as "Lady Mondegreen."
spoonerism-- a verbal error of transposing sounds in a word. Named after William Archibald Spooner who was notorious for these mistakes, spoonerisms can be a great source of mirth/fun. For example, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" becomes "Loldigocks and the Bee Threars." The story of Cinderella becomes Rindercella who slopped her drippers. Or we might pray to the Lord who is a "shoving leopard" instead of the "loving shepherd."
malapropism -- using a similar but incorrect word. This type of faux pas is also called a Dogberryism, named after the Shakespeare character from Much Ado About Nothing who continually mixes up his words. One of my favorite examples is the day my daughter began an announcement at the dinner table: "Ok everybody, embrace yourselves." Or the time she told us that she wanted a "monk bed."
Following this opening part of our class, which also included handing back homework and fielding questions about the essay re-writes, I gave the students their Final Writing Exam. Unlike a test to see if they've accumulated a certain body of knowledge, this test is to see how they can edit and fix some bad sentences. They've been doing this all year in the context of their essays. Every time they revised the rough drafts for the final drafts, they were learning strategies for correcting common errors and how to write stronger sentences. This is a Take Home Test due in class next week.
In addition to the Take Home test, students are to write a Reflection Paper about their time in this class. Those who study education have research that supports the value of looking back and thinking about your learning; this takes the learning to deeper levels. (I have a link at the bottom of this e-mail to a related article.) In these short responses, I would like the students to address what they have learned this year, what they feel they take away from the class, what worked well, what didn't work so well, and what they would change. They can also include comments about their favorite assignments/essays, their favorite pieces of literature, their thoughts about the amount of homework. These reflections are helpful to them and are valuable feedback for me.
Students handed in the haikus, cinquains, and diamantes that they were assigned to write. I will be adding these to the blog this weekend. Look forward to being amazed by the creativity of this group.
And now ... the Poetry Jam. A good bit of time was spent to explain the logistics. I've been doing this for a few years, and every year I work more kinks out of the scoring portion. So far, the students have done a wonderful job reciting their poetry. We finished just the first teams presentations just as the alarm for the end of class went off. We will continue next week.
Also planned for next week is a final Literature Exam (a.k.a play Jeopardy as teams with questions related to our literature readings.) I will bring brownies and prizes for our last week together, and students are welcome to bring treats to share.
And, finally, I will have Missing Homework Reports out on Monday so that all work can be handed in on our final week. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Take Home Writing Exam
-- Reflection Paper
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Spring Writing Test
Have a marvelous weekend. Happy Mother's Day to all!
Mrs. Prichard
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