Hello There!
Today was another great day with this group. They are such a blessing as we continue to work and learn together.
As usual, we started the day with a Quick Write–since we are working our way through poetry, the prompt today was to try their hands at Haiku. I think we realized how challenging this seemingly simple art form is!
After that, students had the opportunity to try their hands at writing some original “autobiographical” poetry. We watched a video of local poet Rudy Francisco perform a piece called “My Honest Poem” After that, we compared the delivery style to George Ella Lyon’s autobiographical poem “Where I’m From”--they had some insightful observations! Students had time in class to compose their own autobiographical poem in a style of their choice or based on the “Where I’m From” poem template.“I could tell some really got into “the zone” writing these and my hope is to hear some of these performed at our Poetry Event.
Speaking of the Poetry Event, which will be the last day of class , we spent the rest of the class getting into more details about this project. It takes a lot of work to put on an event like this, and to split up the labor, each student signed up for a role on a committee. Their grade on this project will depend on not only their poetry performance techniques, but also how well they worked as a group. They are to answer a Discussion Question about their first and second preferences of which committee they’d like to participate in. They should also begin to narrow down the poems they would like to perform. **A conversation regarding Poetry Event Dress Code came up in class. I posted Poll in the form of a Discussion Question asking students to give their opinion.
The last piece of Literature work for this week is to choose their favorite poem from this unit and complete a One-Pager about it. They will be asked to comment on poetic devices, poetry’s style and connections to other poems they have read. I encouraged students to really lean in to this assignment as it will be their last, ever One-Pager from Mrs. G ;)
To conclude our Grammar for the year, I have a Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take next week. For this week, they have a review sheet that they should complete and then correct. (The Key is on the Google Classroom assignment.) Correcting their own work will further help them review and will be much more beneficial than waiting a week to see if they got the answers right.
We didn’t touch on Writing in class today, because I am still working grading their Evaluation Essay Rough Draft. Because of that delay, I have pushed back the Final Draft due date to the last day of class.
We have a couple fun weeks planned to finish out our year, so let's make sure you get caught up on any late work.
Assignments for Next Week:
–Which Committee? Discussion Question
--Choose 2 poems for your contribution to the Poetry Jam (Here is the scoring/committee information)
–Finish composing “Where I’m From” poem ( if not finished in class)
-- Complete the Evaluation Essay Rough Draft (if you haven’t finished it)
Complete the Mastering the Comma Review sheet and correct it. (Bring the corrected version to class)
Links for This Week
Rudy Fransisco’s “My Honest Poem” video
“Where I’m From” George Ella Lyon audio
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