10/29/08

Today we started a compare/contrast short story unit. We read the first part of "The Monkey's Paw," by W.W. Jacob. We will be reading again tomorrow.

10/28/08

Today we wrote essays on www.myaccess.com. This is a great writing evaluation program for you to use at school and at home. I have added several prompts in the "assignment" folder. You may use these prompts to practice your writing at home. Remember, your username is your first name and student ID # (no spaces, no S), and your password is 999 and your last name (no spaces).

Today's writing sample is for the school district. We will write another essay at the end of the school year to see how much we have learned.

10/27/08

No spelling words this week!

Using our peer evaluation sheets, we made changes to our drafts today in class. We spent the entire class period working on our final drafts. The final autobiography is due tomorrow. Use this score sheet to put your paper together. Make sure you give yourself a grade!

Score Sheet
Name____________________________ Class period__________

Please staple your paper in the following order:
• This score sheet
• Outline
• Draft
• Peer edit sheets
• Picture
• Final draft

Student score
All steps included ________/30
Visual aid ________/15
Introduction ________/15
Three experiences ________/45
Transitions ________/15
Life lessons ________/30
Total ________/150

Mrs. Cheney’s score
All steps included _______/30
Visual aid _______/15
Introduction _______/15
Three experiences _______/45
Transitions _______/15
Life lessons _______/30
Total _______/150

10/24/08

We started today by taking the spelling quiz. If you were absent, arrange to make it up before or after school, or during advisory on Wednesday.

We spent the rest of the class period doing peer evaluations. Using the following form, have two friends or family members read your paper and answer the questions to help you find ways to improve your paper. Use their suggestions to make changes to your draft.

Autobiography Peer Evaluation
Writer____________________________ Reader_____________________________
Your draft has 11 indented, double-spaced paragraphs Y N
Your draft is typed in Times New Roman Font, 12 pt. Y N
Your draft has an intro, a body and a conclusion Y N
Your intro has a hook and introduces three experiences Y N
Your body has 3 experiences, 3 paragraphs each experience Y N
Your conclusion explains the meanings of your experiences Y N
I have three questions about your experiences.
Question #1 _____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Question #2 _____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Question #3 _____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________


We will work on our final drafts on Monday.

10/23/08

We worked on our drafts all day today. Don't forget to bring a printed copy of your first draft to class tomorrow. We will also have a spelling quiz tomorrow.

10/22/08

Autobiography Visual Aid
Your autobiography is an opportunity for you to express who you are based on the stories you tell. The reader should come away with a basic understanding of your values, ideals, characteristics, hopes and dreams. To further illustrate who you are, you will be required to turn in one visual representation of yourself along with your final draft. This visual representation can be anything you would like it to be—a drawn or painted picture, a photograph, a collage, a graph, a chart, a map, a diagram, a pattern, a diorama, a poster, an abstract drawing—anything that you feel represents you. The only requirement is that it be a visual representation. Be as creative as you can.

Autobiography outline
Directions: Use the outline form below to help you organize your autobiography. Choose three experiences and list the important points under each experience. Section I is for your introduction. Section II is for the body (including each of the experiences). Section III is for your conclusion. Be sure to include the meaning of your experiences in your conclusion. You will turn this outline in with your final draft.

I. Introduction
a. Experience #1___________________________________
b. Experience #2___________________________________
c. Experience #3___________________________________

II. Body
a. Experience #1___________________________________
i. Detail__________________________________________
ii. Detail_________________________________________
iii. Detail________________________________________
b. Experience #2___________________________________
i. Detail__________________________________________
ii. Detail_________________________________________
iii. Detail________________________________________
c. Experience #3___________________________________
i. Detail__________________________________________
ii. Detail_________________________________________
iii. Detail________________________________________

III. Conclusion
a. Meaning experience #1___________________________
b. Meaning experience #2___________________________
c. Meaning experience #3___________________________
d. Tie it all together_____________________________

Autobiography Structure
Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
Double-space (ctrl 2), no extra spaces between paragraphs (only hit “enter” once)
Indent each paragraph (hit “tab” once)

Paragraph #1
Introduction: start with a hook (always!) The opening paragraph is the first bit of writing our readers will experience. We want our readers to enjoy our writing, so we give them our very best writing in the first paragraph to convince them to keep reading. There are several ways we can hook our readers. Here are just a few ideas:
• start with a question
• create a scenario the readers may be familiar with
• put the reader in your shoes
• draw the reader in with dialogue (this helps the reader feel as though he/she is personally involved in the situation)
• paint a picture with your words (imagery)
• use words and phrases that appeal to the senses
Do NOT write any of the following, or any variation of the following:
• "I am going to write about . . ."
• “This is a paper about . . ."
• "This is my writing assignment . . ."
• “My autobiography is about . . .”
After your hook, briefly introduce your three experiences. Your three experiences should be separate events. They should not be similar kinds of experiences. For example, you should not write about three different football games you played in. Instead, you should focus on the lesson you learned about yourself in the most important football game and then choose two other experiences that taught you the same kind of lesson.

Paragraphs #2, #3, #4
Start paragraph #2 with a transition sentence or word. Describe your first experience in these three paragraphs. Be sure to explain who, what, when, where, why and how when you are describing your details. Tell why this experience was meaningful to you in paragraph #4.

Paragraphs #5, #6, #7
Start paragraph #5 with a transition sentence or word. Describe your second experience in these three paragraphs. Be sure to explain who, what, when, where, why and how when you are describing your details. Tell why this experience was meaningful to you in paragraph #7.

Paragraphs #8, #9, #10
Start paragraph 8 with a transition sentence or word. Describe your third experience in these three paragraphs. Be sure to explain who, what, when, where, why and how when you are describing your details. Tell why this experience was meaningful to you in paragraph #10.

Paragraph #11
The conclusion of your paper should summarize your experiences and tie them together to show how they were meaningful to you. You must have some sort of a meaning tied to your experiences in this paper. I will be taking off points if you do not give me some sort of a meaning in the conclusion. It is very important that you focus on the meaning of your experiences. Please, please, please focus on the meaning of your experiences in your conclusion. (Do you think it might be important to focus on the meaning of your experiences in this paper? Hint: the answer is YES!)

The first draft (11 paragraphs) will be due at the beginning of class on Friday. We will work all day today and tomorrow in the computer lab.

10/21/08

Today we talked about adding detail. Yesterday we each wrote about an experience we have had that was somehow meaningful to us. Today we are revisiting the experience to see what kinds of details we should add. Remember, a good way to find details to add is to ask yourself where, what, when, why, how questions. You should also make some sort of connection between your experience and what it means to you today. Here is an example of how I added detail to my experience:

When I was five years old I was jumping on the couch. I fell and hit the sliding glass door. When my mom heard the crash she ran into the room. She found me lying on the floor with broken glass all around me.

Here is the same experience after I added important details:

Five year old children have a lot of energy. I was no exception to the rule. When I was five, I loved to climb and jump. Wherever we went, my mom was always pulling me down off of things, but I wouldn’t stop climbing.

One day when I was watching TV in the living room I started getting antsy. I needed to climb or jump or run or do SOMETHING. I couldn’t stand just sitting there watching Sesame Street. So I climbed onto the back of the couch. Then I thought it would be fun to jump from the back onto the cushions of the couch. It was fun for a while, but I started to get bored again. I needed more of a challenge, so I decided to try jumping from the cushions up to the arm. Well, I jumped too far—which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been for the sliding glass door on the other side of the arm.

I crashed through the glass of the door. I don’t really remember that part, but my mom remembers the sound. She came running into the room to see what on earth had happened. She found me there, lying in the glass, looking up at the remaining glass with its sharp ends pointing at my stomach.

My mom freaked right the heck out, until I looked at her and said, “Sorry Mom.” She couldn’t believe that I was okay—not only okay, but I didn’t have a single scratch or bump from the incident. She was so happy that she started crying. I think she cried later on, too, when she realized they would have to buy a new sliding glass door.

These days I still climb, but instead of furniture I climb mountains. In August my husband and I climbed the Grand Teton. It was an experience I will never forget, and it symbolizes a big part of who I am. I climb now for inspiration rather than to rid myself of excess energy. The beauty of the mountains helps me to be grateful for our earth and all the joy it provides for mankind.

Do you see how the added details make a difference in my story?

Your assignment today was to look at the experience you wrote yesterday and add details. When you are satisfied with the description of your first experience, write about a second. You should write at least three paragraphs for each of three experiences.

I also gave this worksheet to help you decide which experiences you would like to focus on:

Who Am I? Name______________________________

Use the following questions to gather ideas (pre-write) for your autobiography. This worksheet is meant to get you started. Don’t limit yourself to these topics when writing your first draft.

1. What is your favorite thing to do after school or on weekends?



2. What is your earliest memory?



3. Describe a time when you were hurt.



4. Describe a happy moment from your childhood.



5. What is your family like? Describe them.



6. What do you think is the best thing about you?



7. What is your greatest talent? What do you do with your talent?



8. Think of three experiences you have had that show who you are. Briefly describe those experiences here. You can write on the back of this paper if you run out of room. Write as much as you can so you will have something to work with when you write your first draft.

10/20/08

I hope everyone had a wonderful fall break! I went to a rendezvous with my husband and our six girls. We had a wonderful time dressed in our colonial clothes, cooking outdoors, and mingling with other campers. The weather was simply gorgeous!

Today we started with this week's spelling words. See the right side bar for the list. We also talked about the P.O.S.O.T.W. Be sure to study these things on your own for a quiz on Friday.

We started a new writing project today; we are writing a personal narrative. A personal narrative is a description of an experience you have had. We are working toward an autobiography, in which you will write about three experiences you have had that were meaningful to you. The personal narrative can be one of those three experiences.

We started by brainstorming different kinds of experiences you could choose. Since you are writing three paragraphs about this experience, we decided the experience should be one that is very clear in your memory. The more you can remember, the easier it will be to write three full paragraphs. Here are some possible ideas: painful experience
scary experience
embarrassing experience
exhilerating experience
learning experience
near-death experience
first experience in any area
spiritual experience
negative experience
traveling experience
etc.

You have each had 13-14 years to experience life. Tell me about one of those experiences in three paragraphs. Remember, each paragraph should be 5-8 sentences long. The more you write today, the more you'll have to include in your autobiography.

The first draft of your personal narrative is due tomorrow.

10/13/08

We took the final test on The Outsiders today. If you missed it, you can make it up tomorrow or Wednesday during class while we're watching the movie.

10/10/08

We took our spelling quiz during the first ten minutes of class, then we finished reading The Outsiders. We will have a test on Monday. The test will be all about the big ideas of the book along with connections between the book and real life. Just like Ponyboy's English teacher, I want to know your big ideas. So come Monday ready to think, think, think!

10/9/08

Today we read to page 166, then we practiced our spelling words in the computer lab at http://spellingcity.com.

10/8/08

We started with 10 minutes of reading (don't forget to put a word in your glossary), then we read, read, read again. Be sure to make connections with the themes and your own life as we read. The test on Monday will be all about making connections.

Tomorrow we will be in the computer lab for a spelling activity after we read some more of The Outsiders.

10/7/08

Today, after journals, we read, read, read. We read through chapter 8, page 130, of The Outsiders. We talked about the emerging themes in the book--family, individuality, stereotypes, violence. We're finishing the book this week, so expect to do a lot of reading this week in class.

Remember to study your spelling words!

10/6/08

We got new spelling words today. These words are tricky plural words. Not all plural words end with an "s". We have a shorter list this week because we're also doing prefixes and suffixes. See the right side bar for the list of words.

We discussed Thursday's reading today, then read pages 93-110 in class. We were on assembly schedule today, so class was a little shorter than usual.

Thanks to all the parents who came in to see me during parent teacher conferences. I appreciate working with you to create a successful experience for your student. I hope we can continue to work together.

10/2/08

Today we practiced our spelling words, we took a spelling quiz, we turned in our first book report, then we read silently from our Outsiders books for the rest of class. We read through page 93. We'll discuss on Monday.

Bring your parents to parent/teacher conferences this afternoon or tomorrow during school hours. No school tomorrow due to conferences.

10/1/08

Today was late start--so of course we didn't get nearly enough done. *sigh*

First we took a quiz on the first 75 pages of The Outsiders.

Next we talked about the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay", by Robert Frost.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

To understand the poem, we analyzed it. That means we broke it down into parts to figure out which each part meant, then we put it all back together again to find the meaning of the poem. The first step was to find the metaphors. They are:

Nature's first green is gold
and
Her early leaf's a flower

Next we had to figure out what the metaphors mean. In order to do that, we need to know something about denotation and connotation. We can break those two words into word cells (aha! something useful comes from knowing word cells!). These two words have the same root--notation. So what is a notation? It's a group of symbols used to represent something meaningful. So it can be words, numbers, music, anything that has a group of symbols that are somehow meaningful. For our purposes, we will say a notation is a word.

Next we look at the prefixes--de- and co-. Co- means with and de- means down or minimal. We can put the prefixes with the roots to discover the meaning of denotation is just the word itself while connotation is the word along with other ideas we associate with the word. A simpler way to say it is a denotation is a dictionary definition of a word while a connotation is everything we think about when we hear a word. When we have a metaphor, we look at the connotation of the words being compared.

Let's compare green and gold:

Green
Money
Foliage
Nature
Eco-friendly
New
Jealousy
Sick

Gold
Money
Jewelry
Riches
Warmth
Wealth
Friendliness

We take this a step further by looking at the phrase, "Nature's first green". What is nature's first green? Spring. So how is spring gold? After a long winter, we long for spring. We get so happy when we see the first signs of spring. We have been waiting for this day through months of snow--so it feels like gold to us.

The next metaphor is "Her early leaf's a flower". How is a leaf a flower? Taking on connotations again, a flower is a positive symbol that gives us warm, fuzzy feelings inside. So a leaf is as good as a flower when it's all we have. Or we can take into consideration that some trees flower before they produce leaves. Or we can look at an early leaf. What color is it? Usually a yellow green--not the true green of a leaf. When buds first appear, they are usually indistinguishable from flower buds. When they first open, the edges are ruffled like flowers.

The whole idea is that spring is a new and wonderful time. We all look forward to it, and the new greenery is beautiful to us.

"Her hardest hue to hold" is a good example of alliteration, or the repetition of the first sound of multiple words in a sentence or line. The use of alliteration here makes the line stand out. It also makes the poem more pleasant to listen to. What is the idea of this line? Knowing that hue means color helps. This line goes along with "But only so an hour" to say spring is fleeting. It doesn't last very long. The colors change, we get used to it, life goes on and before we know it, it's fall.

The next device we're looking for is an allusion. Poets often include a reference to a commonly known place, event or character. The idea is that the reader uses his or her background knowledge of the allusion to draw connections to the poem. In this case, the allusion is "So Eden sank to grief". Eden is a reference to the garden of Eden. In the Christian tradition of the creation, the garden of Eden was a paradise that fell into a state of chaos. The paradise was only temporary--just like spring. Most people are familiar with the Christian creation story, so most people would understand that Frost is making an indirect comparison of the garden of Eden to spring time.

The last line, "Nothing Gold can stay", finalizes the idea. We can't hang on to spring forever. Fall will also end the golden springtime. Winter kills it altogether. Spring is temporary, but while it lasts, it's golden.

Now we have to put it all back together and decide what it means to us. Can we apply this interpretation to other ideas, other cycles? When we read about Johnny and Ponyboy tomorrow, we find out that they aren't just talking about spring time when they talk about this poem. We find out they are talking about other beginnings. They are talking about the newness of anything state of being. They are especially talking about youth. The idea is that when you are young, you are full of hope for the future. Everything is wonderful, and you can become anything in the world. But as you age, you lose that optimistic outlook on life. You become jaded by all the bad things that are happening in your world around you.

Sounds pretty pessimistic, doesn't it? Let's see how it all pans out in The Outsiders. We may find more meaning in the poem as the story progresses.

9/30/08

Today's journal assignment was to write each of the word cells on my list five times. Here is the list:

hydra, hydro
chron
therm
meter
di
centi
phobia
ize
logical

We continued with our reading of The Outsiders. We read through page 75 today. At this point of the book, we are in the middle of the rising action and several themes have been introduced. A theme is a big idea, a lesson, a moral of the story, or a recurring idea in the book. We brainstormed a list of themes we seen so far, and this is what we came up with:

violence causes more problems than it solves
friends are important influences
everyone has problems, no matter the social class
don't judge a book by its cover (stereotyping)
families come in all different forms
everyone could be considered an "outsider" depending on who they are with
your group doesn't define you as an individual

We also talked about symbols. A symbol is a thing or event that represents something greater than itself. Some symbols we've found in the book so far:

greasers' hair = their identity
socs' money, cars, clothes, jewelry = social status, wealth, power, intimidation

We met in groups to discuss themes in an activity called "The Last Word". Each member of the group was given opportunity to discuss a theme of the book. We also talked about the importance of connecting literature to our own lives. If we don't ask ourselves what it means to us individually, we don't really learn the lessons the book has to offer.

If you missed today, please check out a book and get caught up on the reading.

Remember, there will be a quiz on the first 75 pages tomorrow. The spelling quiz will be on Thursday this week due to parent/teacher conferences.

Please come see me during the conferences with your parents. The more your parents are involved in your education, the more you will learn.