November 3

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Use your plot outline to help organize the big ideas in the story "Rikki-tikki-tavi".  You may watch the video below, if it will help you remember the story.
• Freewriting (Do this only if you still have time after completing your assignment.)

R-T-T Part 1

R-T-T Part 2

R-T-T Part 3

October 27

Homework

(in this order)

1. Writing Minutes
2. Final Draft of Dance Flies OR Vulture Bees OR Scorpion Fish OR Inca  (This is the edited paragraph I handed back to you this morning.)
3. Finish the Summary of The Elves and the Shoemaker (See outline and first paragraph below.  You do not have to create a new outline; use the one we did together. We wrote the first paragraph together; you only need to write paragraphs 2 and 3.  Notice that all dress-ups and openers are marked.)
4. Freewriting (Yesterday I shrank two feet)

Outline

I.

  1.  Once / shoemaker's / house

  2.  Shoemaker / poor/ his fault 

  3.  cut / leather / 1 / pair

  4.  lay / table / work / tomorrow

  5.  next / day / done

II.

  1.  sells / buys / leather / 2

  2.  cut / leather / 2 / pair

  3.  sells / shoes / good / price

  4.  weeks / not / poor

  5.  wonder / hide / night / watch

  6.  see / two / elves / clothes 

III.

  1.  wife / makes/ clothes / shoes

  2.  lay / clothes / hide

  3.  elves / surprised / dance / sing

  4.  run / seen / again

  5.  shoemaker / poor / happy

Summary

     Once a shoemaker and his wife lived in their house in town.  (1)He was poor, but it was not his fault.  One day he cut out his last bit of leather for one pair of shoes.  (2)At night he lay the leather on the table to work on it in the morning.  The next day he awoke and found the shoes finished.

October 20

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Use your plot diagram to write down the important action of  The Elves and the Shoemaker in one or two sentences.  See the example below for Cinderella.
• Freewriting (My Unusual Pet)

October 13

Homework

• Writing Minutes (Remember to do your assignments first, then do your freewriting.  Both assignments and freewriting count as Writing Minutes!)
• 2nd Draft of Dance Flies, Vulture Bees, Scorpion Fish OR Inca  
• Add dress-ups (strong verb) and openers (subject and prepositional) if necessary
• Learn the parts of a plot for a quick matching quiz next week!  See the chart below if you can't remember!
• Freewriting (I had just completed the most amazing contraption!)

October 6

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Outline for Glaciers
• Outline for Ice Shelf Glaciers
• Paragraph for Glaciers
• Paragraph for Ice Shelf Glaciers
• NOTE:  You may not have time to do two outlines and two paragraphs.  That's OK.  You should be able to finish one outline and one paragraph at least, some of you may be able to finish both outlines and paragraphs, and others may finish one outline, one paragraph, and some of the second outline and paragraph.  I am trying to determine how much writing each of you can accomplish in 100 minutes.  
• Remember your dress-up (strong verb) and openers (subject and prepositional) in your paragraphs.
• Freewriting (When I decided to run for President)

September 29

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Use your Dance Flies or Vulture Bees outline to write a paragraph.  Your paragraph should include one sentence that begins with the subject and one sentence that begins with a preposition.

Use and mark with a (1), one subject opener

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 (2), one prepositional opener

Prepositional Openers

Like its name, a sentence with a prepositional opener begins with a prepositional phrase. Use the accompanying list 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.

• Freewriting (Suddenly, the candle went out!)

September 22

Homework

• Writing Minutes
• Inca OR Scorpion Fish Outline
• Inca OR Scorpion Fish Paragraph
• Freewriting ("This fall the leaves didn't just turn yellow, orange, and red....)

Here's an example of how we turned out Booklice Outline into a paragraph

 

Our outline...

Booklice

insects / eat / mold / mildew / papers

crawl / floors / bookshelves / dead / insects

< / 3 / mm

look / listen

female / attracts / male / rubbing / surface

hear / faint / creaking / tapping

place / alive / booklice

...becomes a paragraph similar to...

     Booklice are insects which eat mold, mildew, and old papers.  They crawl on floors and bookshelves looking for dead insects to eat.  Booklice are less than three millimeters long.  Don't just look for booklice, listen, too!  The female attracts the male by rubbing her body on a piece of paper.  You can hear a faint creaking and tapping.  The place is alive with booklice!

Note to parents:   I’m expecting some choppy sentences and little sentence variety.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll begin addressing sentence variety.  Also, topic and concluding sentences will be addressed a bit later in the course, so they will not be assessed in this assignment.