The snowflakes flew today-finally! If you are a true Minnesotan, these are a welcome sight ;) Tearing our eyes away from the beautiful snow and sunshine, here’s what we accomplished.
Our Quick Write today was a creative one! After watching this video, students brainstormed some ideas for villains compiled a to-list for this villain’s day off. It is humorous to imagine Darth Vader’s downtime from being a bad guy. Does he really binge watch “Golden Girls”?
After that, we got down to the business of Writing. Last week, we started working on our Urban Legend essays. (The Prewrite was due today.) This essay is a persuasive piece with research, MLA in-text citations and a Works Cited page. Their job is to find an urban legend, describe it, explain why so many people have believed it, and finally to effectively debunk it. We discussed the importance of tone, voice and structure last week.
This week, we analyzed a Mentor Text looking for certain elements in the introduction and conclusion such as the thesis, roadmap sentence and hook. We discussed how the whole essay comes full circle as the conclusion mirrors the introduction by restating the thesis and mirroring the hook in its memorable parting thoughts. I asked them to think of a title for this essay as well. Next class period, we will examine this Mentor Text for its use of in-text citations. The Rough Draft is due next class period when we will Peer Review your work. Don’t forget to post an answer to the discussion question about your topic!
Since the topic of this essay is finding “misinformation” and debunking it, it is important to understand what a reliable source is and how to evaluate its credibility. A tool to help do that is an acronym called The “CRAAP” test. This mnemonic device stands for: Credibility, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose. They are to watch an Edpuzzle video on this topic and then run one of their sources through this CRAAP test. They are to complete a worksheet.
Literature
We are continuing on in our short story units now. After brainstorming some connections and relationships between the four very different stories they read for homework, they broke into small groups to share their findings. I must say that this class is full of deep (and lively!) thinkers and they made some insightful connections. For homework, they have four more stories to read and a Short Story Packet to complete
Last, we talked over the topic of commas as they appear in appositives for Grammar. Appositives, a special kind of parenthetical expression, can add flair and are positioned next to another noun/noun phrase to identify it or give additional information. (The appositive is underlined in the previous sentence.) After working through some examples, they started work on three worksheets that deal with that concept.
Have a wonderful week off of CHAT and reach out with any questions you might have. I hope to get Grade Reports out early next week, so keep an eye out for those.
Blessings,
Mrs. G
Homework
Discussion Question: What’s Your Topic?
Read: Hawthorne (73); Bierce (10); Poe (156); Harte (64)
Comma Worksheet Appositives and Parenthetical Phrases
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