Homework
- Writing Minutes
- Freewriting (Picture of the trunk)
- Use your outline to write a 3 paragraph summary of Hansel and Gretel. REMEMBER to use your openers!
Here's out example from Jack and the Beanstalk. Notice that we have changed some of the words from our outline. We have even, occasionally, turned one entry into two sentences, combined two entries into one sentence, or rearranged the details from out outline a little bit. We didn't tray too far from our outline, but we used it as a guide to our writing rather than let it dictate what we could write.
Once upon a time in England lived a boy named Jack and his mother. 1Jack's mother was a poor widow. Because their cow, Milkywhite, stopped giving milk, they decided to sell it. 2On the way to the market, Jack encountered a man who offered to trad magic beans for the cow. When Jack returned home his mother threw the beans out of the window, for she was furious that Jack had traded the cow for worthless beans.
2In the morning, Jack spotted the beanstalk that had grown to the clouds. 1Jack climbed the beanstalk and found a giant castle. When the giant returned to his castle, Jack hid in the oven and watched the giant count his gold. The giant fell asleep, and Jack slipped out of his hiding place, stole the gold, and climbed back down the beanstalk. It wasn't too long before Jack and his mother spent the gold and Jack decided to climb up the beanstalk again. This time the Jack stole from the giant a goose which lay golden eggs.
Before much time had passed, Jack decided to climb up the beanstalk again to steal a golden harp he had seen before. When the giant had fallen asleep, Jack sneaked up and stole the harp which cried out loudly and awoke the giant who ran after him. 2With the giant close behind, Jack climbed down the beanstalk, yelling for his mother to give him an ax. 1Jack quickly chopped the beanstalk down and sent the giant falling to his death. Now rich beyond their wildest dreams, Jack married a princess from a nearby kingdom, and they all lived happily ever after.
We also reviewed openers this week. Good writing uses a variety of different sentence styles to keep a reader’s interest and create compelling prose. The easiest way to make sure that you are using an assortment of sentence styles is to start sentence differently.
Subject Openers
Subject openers are probably the easiest opener to use. This just means that the subject (and any modifying adjectives) comes first in the sentence. Subject openers are marked at the start of the sentence with a number 1. This helps you keep track of which openers you have used, and let’s me know as I grade what openers were intentional. Examples of subject openers are,
David shivered under the tree.
The six brown mice shivered under the tree
Both of these sentences have a subject opener because the sentence begins with the subject or its modifying adjectives.
Use and mark with a (1), one subject opener in each paragraph.
Prepositional Openers
Like its name, a sentence with a prepositional opener begins with a prepositional phrase. Use the accompanying link of prepositions to help you. Here are some examples of prepositional openers:
In the late afternoon, David shivered under the tree.
Up above the village, Peter sat and wondered how to relieve his boredom.
Use and mark with a (2), one prepositional opener
Notice that the openers have been marked in our summary above!
