Grammar:
- What makes a complete simple sentence?
- How can you join two simple sentences to make a compound sentence?
- Can you identify any noun and classify it according to these 4 categories: common, Proper, concrete, or abstract ?
- What is the one major general rule for forming a possessive noun? (Here is a good explanation and review.)
- What is the one major exception to that rule?
Grammar Practice:
What possessive noun phrase would you use to write each of these ideas?
The bookbag belonging to my brother
The bookbags belonging to my brothers
The agenda belonging to my friend
The agendas belonging to my friends
The schedule belonging to the children
The schedule belonging to the child
More practice here.
Writing
You should bring to class each day this week all the usual: your agenda, your ELA notebook with its five sections clearly marked and containing your in-progress writing piece:
- The sequence-ladder graphic you used to pre-write your personal narrative;
- the rough draft of your 5-paragraph personal narrative essay;
- the changes you made when we revised.
Your revision should show that you evaluated your rough draft for these qualities:
- Do I have a catchy beginning? (dialog, a question, a quotation, a vivid description, or action)
- Does the 1st paragraph let the reader know the who, what, when, and where of the story and what the situation was at the beginning?
- Do the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs use lots of sensory detail (touch, sight, sound, taste, smell) and some dialogue? Do these paragraphs show the reader how the characters feel? Have you built up some anticipation in the reader?
- Is the sequence of events clear to the reader?
- Does the 4th paragraph tell the high point of the story using vivid verbs, dialogue, and sensory detail?
- Does your concluding paragraph provide a sense of completeness? Do you show why the experience was worth telling? Do you point out any lesson learned from the experience?
Please come to class each day this week with your revised narrative ready for us to begin editing and proofreading for mechanical and structural improvements. We will be ready to publish these by early next week.
Here is one possible internet site to check out for some tips on writing a personal narrative.
Literature:
We have discussed the "butterfly effect" from several different angles for the last few weeks as we have read short stories focusing on the theme "Learning from Experience -- Knowing Who You Are." As a related read, we also discussed Emily Dickinson's encouraging poem "If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking". We just finished reading "Names/Nombres", the 3rd short story in this unit.
Tuesday we have the selection test (big grade!) on the short-story "Names/Nombres".
Here are some questions to further guide your study for that:
1. Why do you think Julia Alvarez gave her personal narrative the dual-language title, "Names/Nombres"?
2. What is the main issue the author deals with in the story?
3. What is the author's attitude toward her topic?
4. How does humor help the author get her idea across?
5. What country is the Alvarez family from?
6. What does her family think (during her teenaged years) about her hobby of writing?
You should study the vocabulary words some more if you didn't stay on task very well during our class work on these words.
The ten vocabulary words from this story are:
- Adjectives: exotic, initial, chaotic, convoluted
- Verbs: specify, usher, merge,
- Adverbs: ironically, inevitably,
- Noun: ethnicity
Congratulations to the one student who took the opportunity to get extra ELA credit this week! KD got 10 points added to her lowest daily grade by writing a poem and designing a card for Grandparents' Day (September 9). Isn't her grandmother blessed!? I hope each of you told your grandparents how much you love and appreciate them!
I am looking forward to another good week with you September 10-14!
1 comment:
Thanks Joan for directing us to this great Blog...(by a great teacher...very enlightening...
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