Ms. Dean's Blog

Spelling Quiz

FRIDAY: Today the students turned in several items: 1. DGP/Spelling work, 2. Index card intro with evaluation attached, and 3. Four practice intros.

The students took a four point spelling quiz today. They needed to spell absence and accessible correctly and place each word in either a compound or a complex sentence. Students who scored less than a 3 out of 4 on this quiz will have the quiz returned to them on Monday with an additional assignment attached. If they turn in the assignment by Friday, they will receive an extra point on their quiz.

The students were given thirty minutes in class to read in order to help prepare for Reading Activity #2 which is due 9/27. They completed a "Four Square" assignment while reading that helped them connect what we are learning about writing to what successful authors do.

We will go to the Media Center on Monday, so please ensure reading materials are at school.

Download Friday's reading activity

I apologize for this post not being available on Friday. I was experimenting with a new option offered by my Blog provider that allows me to type a post in advance and have it automatically load to the Internet at an appointed time and date. I selected 4:30 on Friday; however, when I checked the Blog today, I saw the post was not there. Again, I apologize for this.

Evaluating Intros

THURSDAY: Today the students worked with a partner to evaluate each other's intro paragraphs. After giving written feedback to their partners, students were able to revise their best intro and submit it as a writing grade. This grade carries the same weight as a quiz grade. Additionally, we practiced for tomorrow's spelling quiz.At the end of class, I collected the "Engaging Leads" practice sheet, the "Evaluating Intro Paragraphs" sheet, and the index card with the revised intro.

HOMEWORK: Complete the back of the DGP sheet. Be prepared for tomorrow's spelling quiz. Be able to correctly spell "absence" and "accessible" and place them in a compound and a complex sentence.

Download Evaluating Intro Paragraphs

Download Spelling-homework-wk-1

Dead Words

MONDAY & TUESDAY: Today we will continue to review the difference between compound and complex sentences. We will have quiz on these two sentence types on Friday.

Download Warm-up 8-28 & 8/29

ELA8W2.f (Use vivid verbs and descriptive adjectives) For the next two days will work to identify and replace "dead words." These are the words that do little to create life in our writing. Eventually we will bury these words in The Dead Zone and replace them with more vivid word choices.

Download Dead_Words_paragraph

HOMEWORK: Tuesday night (due Wednesday) students will complete the Vivid Language practice sheet. Download Vivid words UPDATE

FINAL HOLIDAY/CELEBRATION ESSAY

The students took spelling quiz #7 today, and then were given the entire class period to write the final draft of their holiday/celebration essay. One of my objectives, which was clearly stated to the students at the beginning of this assignment, was to help them familiarize themselves with time constraints while writing. Over the last three days they have been given 90-95 minutes of class time to complete the entire writing process for this paper. On January 20th, they will be given 90 minutes to complete the writing process on the Grade Eight Writing Assessment. Through this experience, students have discovered during which step they need to push themselves. 

Students who completed a five paragraph final draft today have the potential to receive full credit (100 points) on this assignment. Students who did not finish the essay must finish it this weekend in order to receive a grade. All students took home their essays in order to prepare for the presentations on Wednesday and Thursday. Students should work on creating an effective visual aide to use during their presentation: a poster, a collage of photographs, a PowerPoint, a piece of clothing, a traditional food item, etc. The presentation rubric is on the bottom of the essay rubric for your review. It is also attached to Wednesday's Blog.

Holiday Essay

MONDAY: After completing the DGP, the students were given three new spelling words for the week: special, calendar, and receive. There are no review words this week. 

This week the students will be writing another essay. This will be my last opportunity to assess their writing abilities before the writing assessment. They will pour everything they have learned this semester into either a persuasive or expository essay about their favorite holiday or celebration. They cannot write about their birthday nor can they write about Christmas. Today the student saw a brief Powerpoint slide show Download Holiday slide show to help get them thinking about types of celebrations, and then they worked with a partner to compare and contrast two essays Download Boxing Day Expository  Download Boxing Day Persuasive written about the same topic but following a different writing genre. The essay they write will be worked on entirely at school and is due by Friday. If a student knows that he or she will not be here on Friday, then the essay is due on Thursday and in that case would need to be worked on at home.

HOMEWORK: Write each spelling words five times each.

Building Relationships

This week is all about getting to know each other and building relationships. Today the students had the chance to learn more about who their teacher is as a person by participating in a "Mystery Bag" activity. Several items were pulled from a large bag and displayed on a table in front of the class. The students had to select four of the items and write sentences explaining how they thought each item related to the teacher. While they were writing their sentences, I had the opportunity to talk individually with students about issues such as capitalization, punctuation, sentence structures, and varying sentence types. 

Today we discussed the quote "Rules without relationships equal rebellion." We began creating a list of rules that will help us work safely, productively, and happily in our language arts classroom. When we develop and maintain positive relationships, we are more likely to respect and follow the class rules we created. 

HOMEWORK: By Friday, the students need to bring in one item that relates to who they are as a person. The item must 1.) be no larger than the top of the school desk, 2.) not have great monetary value, and 3.) must not be a school supply. Please check page 5 of the school handbook to ensure the student is not bringing a prohibited item to school (i.e. i-pods). This is the first homework grade and will be the focal point of a writing assignment. 

Wrapping up Fictitious Facts

Today we worked independently to create statements that would be considered reasonable and relevant facts for our individual persuasive essay topics. Most of the students did very well with this exercise and have now generated at least four topic sentences that can be used tomorrow as we draft one or two paragraphs for our essays.

HOMEWORK: None

Today's practice sheet

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Progress reports were sent home today as well as many other items of importance. The students were given their ITBS scores, information from the PTSA, and letters pertaining to Barber's goal of moving students from "good to great" with their CRCT scores.

Please ask your student about these items and sign the progress report cover letter. Your child needs to return the cover letter by this Friday. Thank you!

Download more_practice_with_fictitious_facts.doc

Continuing With Fictitious "Facts"

Today the students will build on the exercise they did last Thursday when they were required to distinguish between fact and fiction. We will complete another scaffold exercise that will lay the foundation for each student to be able to write his or her own fictitious "facts."

Homework: None

Creating Fictitious Facts sheet Download scaffold_fictitious_facts.doc

Skills Tutor

We will be in Mac Lab I working on Skills Tutor activities today. While the students are progressing through their individual assignments, I will have a conference with each one discussing their introductory paragraph as well as any missing assignments that negatively impact their grade. Progress Reports are going home with the students on Tuesday. This will be the second time in four weeks that I have sent home progress reports. There will be several additional items of importance going home that day including ITBS test scores. Please be on the look out for that.

HOMEWORK: None

Gathering Support

Now that the introductory paragraphs have been written, it's time to gather support for our persuasive argument. When the students take the Eighth Grade Writing Assessment in January, they will be expected to write convincingly on the prompt they are given. Obviously given the 90 minute time frame of the assessment, students cannot do research on the prompt, therefore I will teach them how to create reasonable sounding support. I call these "Fictitious Facts." Today, the students will examine a list of fictitious facts and discover why these made-up statements sound so believable. They will categorize the statements, and then practice writing their own fictitious facts. Today's lesson will be the foundation of three days worth of work spent writing our supporting argument paragraphs.

HOMEWORK: None

Fictitious Facts Download fictitious_facts.doc

Steps for today's lesson
Download read_these_steps_and_following_them_in_order.doc

Categories

Download categories_for_supporting_details.doc

Prompts

Download persuasive_prompts.doc

Ticket-Out-The-Door

Download ticket_out_the_door_support.doc