April 30-May 11
We completed our Sentence Writing Posttest and the class improved greatly in their writing. In order to smoothly transition into the Paragraph Writing Strategy, we have begun an in-class writing assignment based on the piece “On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read” by David Raymond. We are using a schedule and checklist approach so students know what is expected of them in each paragraph. This will give us common expectations as we move into the Paragraph Writing Strategy.
April 16-27
We have been working to complete our complex sentences. We have also examined the narrative writing format and started a narrative story about a shopping cart on a beach.
March 26-April 5
We have completed our with work compound sentences. We have begun to learn about the complex sentence, the dependent clause and subordinating conjunctions. We have also completed descriptive writing examples, focusing on sensory words.
March 12-23
Now that we have completed our exams, we have returned to our regular writing routine. In class, we have continued to work on our compound sentences. Outside of class, our independent writing expectations have increased to three journal writing prompts a week, in addition to a five paragraph essay bi-weekly. The first essay topic is "The Life of Artist", and the final draft of this essay is due on April 5.
February 27-March 9
We have completed our compound sentence quiz and began our independent practice on compound sentences. We also spent time reviewing for our upcoming exams.
February 13-24
We have begun our work on compound sentences and learned two new sentence formulas, I,cI and I;I. We reviewed the definition of an independent clause and learned about coordinating conjunctions. We learned a mnemonic, FAN BOYS, to help us remember the coordinating conjunctions. The class watched me model how to write a compound sentence, using proper punctuation.
To learn about coordinating conjunctions, click here.
January 30-February 10
We have completed our simple sentence quiz and began our independent practice on simple sentences. One member of the class also completed a letter to the students in Morocco as part of the culture exchange package. In addition, we completed poem in which we compared our personality to colors.
January 16-20
We learned the remaining three simple sentence formulas and spent time identifying sentences that use each formula. Our four sentence formulas are SV, SSV, SVV, and SSVV. We completed notes on how to write each of the four simple sentences and the class watched me model how to complete a simple sentence independently.
January 3-13
We have spent time reviewing subtleties of grammar, such as main subjects, action verbs and helping verbs. We learned two memory aids to help remember our helping verbs, "CHAD B SWIM is 23 years old. 2323 3 2314" and "Amisare Waswerebeen". We learned the Verb/Subject identification procedure, which is:
- Look for and identify the action or state of being word(s) to find the verb.
- Ask "Who or what verb?" to find the subject.
We also learned our first sentence formula and have been looking at example sentences that fit this formula.
December 12-23
We finished our work with paraphrasing and can identify topics, main ideas and relevant supporting details.
We learned to ask the following:
- To find the TOPIC, ask "What is this paragraph about?" and answer in one or two words
- To find the MAIN IDEA, ask "What does this paragraph tell me about (fill in the topic)?" and answer in a full sentence
- To find the DETAILS, ask "What is one piece of information that tells me more about the main idea and is related to the main idea?" and answer in a full sentence for three details
We completed our sentence writing pretest and reviewed the definitions of simple sentences, independent clauses and subjects.
November 28-December 9
We discussed graphic organizers and how they can be useful when planning to write an essay. We also made much advancement in our Paraphrasing strategy. As a group, we have almost finished the nine lessons. We will be touching on persuasive writing and our Sentence Writing Strategy in the next few weeks.
November 14-25
We spent a great deal of time preparing for our end of term one exams. As a group, we studied hard and did well on the test.
October 31-November 11
We began our work in the Paraphrasing strategy and discussed the definition of synonyms. We explored how to find synonyms in a thesaurus and in Microsoft Word. We practiced paraphrasing individual words, phrases, sentences and began paragraphs. Topic, main idea and detail identification were reviewed as well.
October 17-28
We have finished our Clear Thinking and Writing work on main ideas and details. We are confident when it comes to identifying the main point of a work and the supporting details that help prove that argument. We will now start applying these skills in the Paraphrasing and Summarizing strategy, which we began at the end of this two week block.
October 3-14
We finished with our QAR strategy, and the class knows how to answer four types of questions. They can also write questions for each of the four categories. We began working on identifying main ideas and details. This skill will be very useful as we move into our paraphrasing and summarizing strategy in the next few weeks.
September 19-30
We were introduced to three strategies in two weeks. The class learned SCOPE, (a proofreading and editing strategy), QAR, (a question and answer strategy), and LINCs, (a vocabulary strategy that will help in definition retrieval). We also took our first vocabulary quiz of the year.
September 6-16
During the first two weeks of school we focused on problem solving exercises. We brainstormed our approaches to solving many different situations based on the NJ Commission of Holocaust Education 9/11 Initiative. We also learned how to ask good questions and how to answer them. We created cross word puzzles to demonstrate this technique. In addition, we learned how to write a model paragraph and practiced this in our journals.
