We made it to class despite the snowy weather, and it was good to see everyone’s smiling faces.
As usual, we started with our Quick Write using a combinations prompt options that both the class and I have written:
I wouldn't be me without…
Write about a scar that tells a cool story.
What five adjectives describe your personality?
How would you like to “show up” to others? What five adjectives would you like other people to describe you with? How do you desire others to experience your personality?
Remember your prompt from last week? Take the same character you invented and answer questions 1-3 from their point of view.
Whatever???
Our Words of the Day were a combination of the ones I brought and one that Grace brought. I asked students to submit their Words of the Day to me in advance, provide the definition, etymology and an example sentence and they can have some extra credit. Though today’s submission was a bit obscure, the Word of the Day should be a word that is interesting, but not too strange. In other words, it should be a word that could be used in conversation, or perhaps our writing.
Students recorded these Words in their Writing 2 Notebooks.
abscond (v)
Definition: To depart quickly and in secret, especially to avoid criminal charges.
Etymology: Latin–ab=off or away from; -condere=put together; store
Example: The bank robbers immediately absconded to Mexico with the money.
Nefarious (adj)
Definition: Evil, reprehensible
Etymology: Latin-ne-not and fas=right; first used in 1609
Example: Because of the nefarious nature of this crime, I am forced to pass a stern sentence.
Arachibutyrophobia (n)
Definition: fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order: Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.
For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Mystery Stories. The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week. We discussed for a bit how writing this story will take a different kind of planning. Students are thinking about putting in clues and even red herrings. I am really looking forward to reading their stories next week! By the way, if students want to read some student-written stories, they can go to the Writing 2 blog, and the stories are listed on the right hand margin.
To that end, there may be some characters using dialogue. We had a mini-lesson on using quotation marks. They worked in pairs on a worksheet. There is a Dialogue Quiz posted on Google Classroom–watch the video, then answer the questions.
After that, I divided the class into two groups and we had a discussion of the first two Sherlock Holmes stories that were assigned and they played the game "Enter the Mystery Mansion." Students were given cards with pictures, and as a group, they were to compose a mystery and/or spy story. When they were done, a story was shared to the whole group.. They were quite creative!
The last part of class was for Grammar instruction. Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates along with compound sentences. I often use fairly simple sentences to illustrate the concepts, but then we take these concepts and apply them to the students' own writing. They had some time to get started on these worksheets at the end of the class.
Homework
Grammar: Commas & Coord. Conjunctions & KEY
Grammar: Is It a Compound Sentence & KEY
Grammar: Writing Compound Sentences
Links for this Week
Discussion Questions for “A Scandal in Bohemia” & “Red Headed League” (in class discussion)
Class Summary Video (if absent)
