Tuesday, April 3rd, 2013: On Tuesday, the students worked whole group on a head-to-head team challenge with ELA CRCT review questions.
HOMEWORK: Read for 30 minutes. Work on completing the ELA Infographic Project, which is due Friday, April 5th.
PowerPoint:Standards Centers (Day 2) 4.2.13
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013: Today, after much pleading from the students (that was a little example of hyperbole),though they had the option of working in three different centers, they overwhelmingly voted to work on their infographic projects. I reminded them that they could use PowerPoint, Infogr.am, and Visual.ly. I have included information on these resources below:
- PowerPoint (just make it on one slide and print it out)
- Infogr.am
- Go to http://infogr.am
- Visual.ly
- Go to http://visual.ly
HOMEWORK: Read for 30 minutes. Work on completing the ELA Infographic Project, which is due Friday, April 5th.
PowerPoint:ELA Olympic Showdown (Day 1) 4.3.13
Friday, March 29th, 2013
We capped off this week with a continuation of our ELA Olympics. Each of the teams in class were competing quite hard to gain the most points. Today, we put our emphasis on two things: the ELA Infographic Project and sentence trees. I had a Q & A session with the students to make sure that everyone was clear on the expectations of the project (which is due next Friday, April 5th and no later). We then broke sentences down into their parts of speech and then looked at how the words came together to make phrases, clauses, complete subjects, complete predicates, etc.
Just as a refresher (for those of you parents who might not be familiar with sentence trees):
HOMEWORK: Read for 30 minutes. Continue work on the ELA Infographic Project (due Friday, April 5th).
PowerPoint: Status Report 3.29.13
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013
Today the students had the opportunity to go back through “Roger’s Swim” to talk about the sentence parts identified (subjects and predicates). We then had a discussion about direct objects where the students then located the direct objects in section A of the short story.
The students then transitioned into reading through “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson where they did a literary and grammar scavenger hunt. From that scavenger hunt, they reviewed many of the skills required via the standards. They had 8 minutes to look at a specific set of concepts before switching to another set of concepts. Each table took turns with the requirements.
We finished class as we have all of this week with the ELA Olympics. So far, 6th period seems to have gained the most points overall (with “Europe” a.k.a. Side A) in the lead!
HOMEWORK: Continue work on the ELA Infographic Project.
Read for 30 minutes.
PowerPoint: Putting Things Together 3.27.13 v2
Monday, October 8th, 2012 in Review
It’s always important to review concepts in a fun way. Today we reviewed the sentence parts, phrases, and clauses that had been covered in class thus far (minus gerunds, next time) through a Sentence Auction. Each sentence part, phrase, or clause was assigned a dollar amount. This will serve as the minimum bid price for each sentence. As the students work in pairs (or groups of three) to create the most expensive sentence that makes sense, one “expert student” served as the “appraiser” to verify that the sentences were grammatically correct. Our end goal is to put the sentences on a sentence strip which will be auctioned off to other student groups. This assignment will be concluded tomorrow.
We watched a video clip from the Discovery Channel Show “Auction Kings” where the students were able to see what an auction looked like in real-life. This served to give everyone background on exactly what the Sentence Auction would entail.
HOMEWORK: Take a look at the homework for the week (which can be found here).
PowerPoint: 10-8-12 Fun Times at the Sentence Auction
Monday, September 24th, 2012 Recap
*Edited
After completing the quizzes on gerunds and prepositions (which took up a majority of the class period), we broke down the writing prompt given to first period on Friday. We just opted to do T, A, and P:
- Topic: Should kids do chores at home?
- Audience: adults in one’s family
- Purpose: to persuade
HOMEWORK:
- 1st Period: Begin work on the week’s homework. Read for 30 minutes.
- 2nd, 6th, and 7th: Finish in-class essays.
- All classes: complete take-home quiz
PowerPoint: 9-24-12 Be Clause You’re Worth It!
In-Class Essay: (forthcoming)
Friday, September 21st, 2012 in Brief
Friday was a mixed bag lesson where each class had a slightly different experience based on their lesson needs:
- First periodreviewed conclusion techniques discussed in Tuesday’s lesson. This class also dissected a writing prompt (see below) using TAP (we left the last “P” for later). The students are to complete this for homework.
- Writing Prompt:
- Writing Situation: Most families assign chores to their children. Families need to work together, and having the children of the house help out teaches responsibility. However, many children and teens object to having these chores imposed upon them. What is your opinion?
- Directions for Writing: Do you think that children should have assigned chores to do at home, or do you think you have enough to do already? Write an essay to convince the adults in your family of your point of view regarding the children and teens being required to do chores at home. Be clear in your opinion, and use specific details and examples to support your ideas.
- Writing Prompt:
- Second period took time to revisit the computer lab in order to finish the SRI. The students who finished then began work dissecting the prompt above using TAP(P).
- Sixth period had the opportunity to briefly visit the Book Fair which was only in our Media Center for one day. Upon returning from the Media Center, sixth period completed the notes on conclusion strategies from Tuesday’s lesson.
- Should there have been more time slots available, the other class periods would have also attended.
- Seventh period completed notes on conclusion strategies from Tuesday’s lesson.
**QUIZ ALERT: Anticipate a quiz over prepositions and gerunds on Monday!
HOMEWORK:
- 1st: Complete the in-class essay. It must be 3 paragraphs in length.
- 2nd: For those who began the in-class essay, complete it. Those who did not will work on this assignment starting on Monday the 24th, 2012.
- 6th: No homework
- 7th: No homework
PowerPoint: 9-21-12 Conclusions Practice + Starting a Timed Writing
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 Summary
Today we directed our attention to conclusions. These ending paragraphs can be daunting, so we first listened to a year-in-review rap as a real-world example. Next, we took notes on some strategies to make conclusion-writing easier.
Of course, there was the fun part after the note-taking. The students worked in groups to create their own “wrap up rap” verses summarizing what content we have learned in class this year. To close the lesson, each group performed their verse. The class then voted (by a round of applause) to determine which one was the most entertaining. The students in the groups who won earned a homework pass for tonight.
HOMEWORK: You must create a bumper sticker advertising conclusions. It must be written as a prepositional phrase. (Due Wednesday)
- Remember, “Create-A-Song” is due Friday (you must create a preposition song to the chorus, also known as the “hook,” of a popular song).
PowerPoint:9-18-12 Stronger Essays through Conclusions
Graphic Organizer: Conclusion Strategy Notes
- (This was used to help the students organize their notes)
Monday, September 17th, 2012 Summarized
Monday started out with the solving of a mystery to heighten critical thinking skills. The ability to pull out important details, draw inferences, and support these inferences from the text are all key standards.
The rest of the lesson focused on the use of prepositions. We first identified them within the mystery, and practiced using them in the form of a skit. Each student chose a preposition and along with their table mates, wrote a skit which they acted out at the end of class. There was so much creativity flowing around the room (and many laughs too)! I think we may have discovered some future playwrights, screenwriters, and comedic writers within Room 239 today!
HOMEWORK: Create-A-Song: The students will have all week to create a short song (to the hook of an existing, already popular song) to help them remember prepositions. (Due Friday)
PowerPoint: 9-17-12 The Power in the Preposition