Hello!
We are in the thick of it and the weather is turning warm. Just as spring should be! We had another great class together today. Here’s what we did.
Quick Write
The topic today was designed to get students thinking about success, qualities in others they admire, people they admire and fictional characters they’d love to meet IRL 🙂. They were given five minutes and they could choose whichever topic piqued their interest.
Writing
Today we had a check-in on their Weakness as Strength essays that were assigned last week. The subject of this essay is to think deeply about how to switch your perspectives on some character traits in order to see it from the positive side. Sometimes, in our weaknesses, we make mistakes; sometimes our mistakes require us to give an apology. So today, we explored the art of a proper apology. Although it’s not customary to write a note of apology–we usually do this in person–we took the opportunity to think deeply about how to give and receive an apology. We watched a few short videos on this topic. After that, each student picked out some stationary and they got started. Their finished apology notes are due along with their essays next week.
While they were writing, I went around and gave them credit if they met the deadline for their KWO. Their KWOs were due this week and most students look like they are tracking well.
Two more sentence openers were added to our checklist for this next assignment and today, we learned the [5] adverbial clause opener and the [1] subject opener. The [5] sentence opener is very straightforward if you remember the WWW.ASIA.B dress-up. You just start the sentence with that. The only trick is to make sure to use a comma after the adverbial clause. Remember:
AC, MC
That stands for adverbial clause COMMA main clause. (You need to use a comma after the www.asia.b clause when you use it to start the sentence.) For example:
[5] When you use this adverbial clause, you must put the comma after the clause.
The subject opener is SUPER SIMPLE! It's what you write as a default--which is why I leave this one until last. You simply start the sentence with a subject. (You may use an adjective or article to precede if necessary.) Don't overuse this because it can be very tedious to read. For example:
[1] This sentence opener is very easy.
Literature
This class is enjoying our short story unit and today we had an enjoyable Literature Circles Discussion. After refreshing ourselves on the other three stories from last week, we spent the rest of the time focusing on “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin. In this Jigsaw style discussion, students became “experts” on one aspect of the story: Plot, Theme, or Setting & Characters. After they had thoroughly discussed, they re-grouped and shared their information. They were to come to a consensus on this question: What is your opinion about Mrs. Sommers' choices for how she spent her money? Once again, they had some wonderful insights! They are to read the next batch of short stories for next week and do the worksheet. There will be a Quiz over this week’s and next week’s reading in class next week–so make sure you are prepared!
Our topic for Grammar was fairly simple. There are two worksheets on Hyphens and End Marks & Abbreviations. Though we didn’t have time to work together in pairs on these, I did post an information sheet on hyphens in case more support is needed. They are to be corrected and are due next week.
Homework
Read: Larsen (110); Anderson (1); Hardy (56); London (122)
Links for this week
About Weaknesses as Strength Essay
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