11/24/08

Welcome to a new trimester! I'm a bit late getting started with my blog for this tri--I hope you'll forgive me.

Things we have already discussed:

Glossary

During reading time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you will be required to enter a word you your glossary. A glossary is a collection of vocabulary words and definitions found in the back of technical books. Your glossary will be a collection of words and definitions you find from the books you will read during reading time. I would like you to keep a glossary in the back few pages on your journal. Your glossary should be a chart with these headings: date, word, book page #, definition. As you read, look for words that may be unfamiliar, interesting, fun to say, or just plain curious. When you find a word you'd like to add to your glossary list, record the date, the word, the book and page number where you found your word, and a definition of the word in your own words.

This is not a dictionary activity. I repeat, this is not a dictionary activity. That means, don't use a dictionary to find your definitions. You will find your definitions right there in the book you are reading. Look for context clues (clues in the text of your book), first in the sentence the word is part of, then in the sentences before and after that sentence. Sometimes the context clues come through an entire chapter. I promise there are clues in every book you read to help you understand the words in the book.

Here is an example from Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer. On page 77 it says, "Finally the curiosity I'd suppressed so long got the best of me." The word suppressed might be an unfamiliar or interesting word to you. So let's look at the sentence to see if we can figure out what it means based on how it is used. Clue #1: curiosity. We know what curiosity is. It means an inquisitive state of being. She wants to know something, and she wants to know it bad. Clue #2: got the best of me. We know that means it won the contest, took over, or overcame. Clue #3: finally. We understand that to mean that it was a long time before the curiosity took over. That means she was able to hold back her curiosity for some time. So now we're ready to guess based on our clues. What does suppressed mean? It must mean to hold back. So for your definition, you would write "hold back" or some similar phrase.

It's just that easy.

This is a skill that you will use again and again. If you are able to use context clues properly, it will help you to be a life-long learner. Plus it makes school a whole lot easier.

You will turn your glossary in at mid-term and at final. I expect at least one word for every reading period we have. That means by the time the trimester is over, you should have about 36 words in your glossary. Each entry is worth 3 points. Make sure to keep up with your glossary every time we read so you won't have to make it up at the end.


On Friday, we read "Thanksgiving: A Meal Without Forks and Other Feast Facts" on page 137 in the literature textbook. After reading the essay, we made a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the first Thanksgiving with our modern-day Thanksgiving traditions. This was a pre-writing activity to prepare us for a compare/contrast essay we will be writing today, tomorrow and Wednesday.

Today we started with reading/glossaries. You should have two words in your glossaries after today.

Next we continued with our prewriting activities--this time we wrote an outline. An outline is a like a map that shows us where to go (and what to write) in our drafts. This is what we covered today:

Structure of a five paragraph compare/contrast essay

Introduction (3-5 sentences)
• Hook: Grab the reader’s attention with a quote, scenario, question, vivid description, etc. Must be related to your topic. 1-2 sentences
• Thesis statement: Simply and clearly state the main idea of your essay.1 sentence
• Three sub-topics. Choose three points of similarities and differences you will write about. Briefly state these ideas here. 1-3 sentences

Paragraph 2 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your first sub-topic
• Write a paragraph including specific details and examples from the text and your own experience
• Write a transition sentence.

Paragraph 3 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your second sub-topic
• Write a paragraph including specific details and examples from the text and your own experience
• Write a transition sentence.

Paragraph 4 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your third sub-topic
• Write a paragraph including specific details and examples from the text and your own experience
• Write a transition sentence.

Conclusion (3-5 sentences)
• Summarize—restate your thesis statement and three sub-topics in different words
• Make a closing statement. Tie your closing statement back to your opening hook.

Do not use phrase like:
• I’m writing my essay about . . .
• This assignment is . . .
• My first (second, third) sub-topic is . . .
• My thesis statement is . . .

Outline, Compare/contrast Essay
Directions: Use the outline form below to organize your compare/contrast essay. Choose your topic and three sub-topics to show similarities and differences. Section I is for your introduction. Section II is for the body (one paragraph for each sub-topic). Section III is for your conclusion.

Topic_____________________________________________________
I. Introduction
a. Hook___________________________________________________
b. Thesis statement____________________________________________
c. Sub-topic #1_________________________________________________
d. Sub-topic #2_________________________________________________
e. Sub-topic #3_________________________________________________
II. Body
a. Sub-topic #1_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
b. Sub-topic #2_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
c. Sub-topic #3_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
III. Conclusion
a. Restate thesis (different words)__________________________________
b. Restate sub-topics (different words)_______________________________
c. Clincher (tie it all together)______________________________________

The outline is due tomorrow!

11/17/08

Make sure to turn in your hall passes and late work vouchers for extra credit today. Tomorrow is the last day of the tri!

11/13/08

Today we started a five-paragraph persuasive essay. We talked about structure and we wrote an outline. We watched this PowerPoint presentation.

Structure of a five paragraph persuasive essay

Introduction (3-5 sentences)
• Hook: Grab the reader’s attention with a quote, scenario, question, vivid description, etc. Must be related to your topic. 1-2 sentences
• Thesis statement: Simply and clearly state your position on the issue. 1 sentence
• Three arguments. Choose three arguments you can use to convince your reader of your position. Briefly state these arguments here. 1-3 sentences

Paragraph 2 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your first argument
• Write a paragraph about it
• Use specific examples to support your argument
• Write a transition sentence.

Paragraph 3 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your second argument
• Write a paragraph about it
• Use specific examples to support your argument
• Write a transition sentence.

Paragraph 2 (5-8 sentences)
• Go back to paragraph one
• Find your third argument
• Write a paragraph about it
• Use specific examples to support your argument
• Write a transition sentence.

Conclusion (3-5 sentences)
• Summarize—restate your thesis statement and three arguments in different words
• Make a closing statement. Tie your closing statement back to your opening hook.


Outline, Persuasive Essay
Directions: Use the outline form below to organize your persuasive essay. Choose your topic and three arguments to support your opinion. Section I is for your introduction. Section II is for the body (one paragraph for each argument). Section III is for your conclusion.

Topic___________________________________________________________________

I. Introduction
a. Hook_______________________________________________________
b. Thesis statement______________________________________________
c. Argument #1_________________________________________________
d. Argument #2_________________________________________________
e. Argument #3_________________________________________________
II. Body
a. Argument #1_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
b. Argument #2_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
c. Argument #3_________________________________________________
i. Example #1____________________________________________
ii. Example #2____________________________________________
iii. Example #3____________________________________________
iv. Transition_____________________________________________
III. Conclusion
a. Restate thesis (different words)__________________________________
b. Restate arguments (different words)_______________________________
c. Clincher (tie it all together)______________________________________

We will be going to the computer lab tomorrow.

11/4/08 - 11/12/08

Mrs. Cheney has been a slacker! So sorry. Here is a recap of what we've done in the past week or so. We finished up the compare/contrast unit with a group project. Each group created a Venn diagram, then wrote a one paragraph summary of the differences and similarities between "The Monkey's Paw" and "The Third Wish." If you missed this activity, come see me.

The next few class periods we spent reading "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. This story is in your red literature books. If you missed one or more days during the four days we read, you will need to check a book out and read the part you missed.

Today we are taking a test (of sorts) on "Flowers for Algernon". This is a making connections test--I'm far more interested in what you think about the issues surrounding Charlie in our story than the nit-picky details of the story. If you missed today, you will need to be prepared to fill in a plot map and answer several essay questions using examples from the story and from your own experiences to show me what you think.

Tomorrow we will start writing a persuasive essay.

Remember, due dates are a-coming! Don't forget--Friday is your last day to turn everything in.

11/3/08

We read "The Third Wish", by Joan Aiken, today. We filled out our compare/contrast chart. We found that this story was quite different from "The Monkey's Paw" even though they are centered on a common motif. Tomorrow we will be making connections with the similarities and differences.

Be sure to study your spelling words and know your POSOTW.

10/31/08

Happy Halloween!

Today we told scary stories in the dark. CREEPY!!!!

We talked about story telling techniques such as volume of your voice, rate of your speech, hand gestures, facial gestures, sound effects, lighting, etc. We practiced using our very best story-telling techniques to scare the socks off of each other. Did it work?

10/30/08

We read the second part of "The Monkey's Paw" today. Check out a book if you missed class.

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.