12/17/13

Today we read page 461-463.  We then completed Exercise 1 on combing sentences by inserting words, and we then went on to do Exercise 2 as well.  We read page 465 and the top of page 466.

12/18/13

We watched a clip of the song "The Grinch" from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas."  Students were to first write, on their paper, 10 adjectives that describe the Grinch.  They were to then use those adjectives to write 10 simple sentences, using one adjective per sentence.  They were then to combine those 10 sentences into 5 compound sentences using the rules on page 457 (1. coordinating conjunction, 2. semi-colon, and 3. Semi-colon + conjunctive adverb followed by a comma).

December 16

Today students were given a few minutes to finish the review exercise on Page 459 of the Elements of Writing book.  They then went on to do the making connections on page 460.

12/12/13

Yesterday we worked on Exercise 5 from the Elements of Writing book on page 455.  We started off reading page 445 and 446 about sentence fragments and incomplete sentences.

Today I had students finish the paragraph and we went on to read pages 456 and 457 about run on sentences.

12/6

Today in class, we watched Channel One News to learn about the passing of Nelson Mandela.  I want my students to be aware of who he was an how he changed the world.
Students were then given time to finish their county-wide essay prompts from the day before, because I had used some of their time at the beginning of class yesterday.  If they had finished, students read for the rest of the class period.

Wednesday and Thursday

Since Wednesday was an early release day, and we only had periods 1, 2, 4, and 6, I showed another powerpoint presentation on Persuasive Writing.  On Thursday we did a county-wide persuasive writing prompt for progress monitoring.

December 2

Today students were given 15 minutes to make corrections to their vocabulary/literary term quizzes and then they turned them back in. We are beginning persuasive writing and will be continuing writing until Christmas break.  I showed part of a powerpoint presentation.  Will finish tomorrow.