This week is all about building vocabulary, looking at model essays, and learning ways to apply those skills to our writing.
Monday – G/L Roots
Tuesday – go over roots practice; share what student groups discovered about the model essays from last week; begin comparing their own writing to the model essays and discover what tricks they could apply from the model essays
Wednesday – lesson on expository introductions; brainstorm new prompt for next expository essay
Thursday – lesson on smiley face tricks (improving elaboration); drafting essays
Friday – continue drafting
I hope everyone enjoyed their three-day weekend! Today, students will practice revising & editing with STAAR-type passages.
Tomorrow is a half day for students; we will use this time to go over the work from today.
Thursday and Friday will be devoted to looking at the essays students wrote last week as well as breaking down model essays (anonymous essays released by the state that received 4s on last year’s STAAR Writing test). We will look at the score reports and focus on all the things they did right.
This week, students are finishing up the drafts of their essays explaining why it is important to keep the promises we make.
Once their drafts are complete, they will continue on to the revising & editing stages. They start by making certain they have answered the prompt. From there, I have given them specific things to look for to improve their writing. Ask them about Rainbow Revisions! (I have put a copy in their Google Classrooms).
Final drafts will be written on STAAR-lined paper so that students are familiar with how much space they have to adequately convey their ideas on the state assessment in April. It also provides an opportunity for them to practice their penmanship. An essay that cannot be read will be marked non–scorable.
Once they write them out by hand, we type them into Google Docs so that they have a saved copy for their writing portfolios. (Google Docs saves automatically as they work). We then copy and paste them into PEG Writing for instant feedback!
Welcome to the second semester!
This week, students will be working with new Greek & Latin roots in an effort to become better communicators in both writing and speech. Learning roots also increases their comprehension of unfamiliar words in other’s writing and speech.
They will also be reviewing the writing process and parts of the expository essay. I have some fun things planned to assist with this such as a digital word cloud and a game of word sneak!
MONDAY: It’s Musical Monday! Students were randomly selected to share their favorite songs with their classes. We made pages in our comp. books to jot down lyrics that inspire us. We talk about places that we can find inspiration for writing, and music is a great source! Students also reviewed plot today with a little sorting contest and then worked on the plot for their upcoming novels.
TUESDAY: Students will practice with a new set of Greek & Latin roots. I will be at a workshop.
WEDNESDAY: 1/2 day for students; students will work on their Passion Projects.
THURSDAY: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) kickoff! Students will begin writing their novels. We will spend the entire month of November on this.
FRIDAY: NaNoWriMo continues.
This week is all about vocabulary. Students are working on Greek & Latin Roots, creating vocabulary flip books, and showing mastery of words by listing examples & non-examples, as well as illustrating the words and using them in sentences. There will be a test on Friday.
This is the final week of the first nine-week grading period. Students are learning new Greek & Latin Roots (and advanced students are also working on SAT Vocabulary). Students have also been working on FlipGrid videos for introducing both themselves and their main characters for the stories they will be writing during NaNoWriMo in the month of November.
There will be vocabulary tests on Wednesday in all classes, and students have been provided links in their Google Classrooms to Quizlet study sets.