From Mrs. Scales, “I am so excited. Several of the students are taking notes in class and writing big chunks of the blog already. This is great. I love it when the student are writing strong expository pieces.”

Wow, what a way to start off English! We came in and started reading Tuck Everlasting. Great book! Of course that was from 4th period. First, second and sixth period read from the book they chose, The Call of the Wild. This is a very good book and I liked what Lizzy said about never knowing what’s going to happen next. We read for about 10 minutes at the beginning of class today. After reading we had a class discussion about the book. There were some very interesting points made about both books. It is good to talk about what is happening in the book as we read it. It helps our comprehension.

Mrs. Scales had everyone take out their W-R’s notebooks. We filled in the final three colums for A Writer’s Notebook on the Books I Am Currently Reading page. The date we finished the book was 8/26. We had to decide if the book was Easy, Just Right or Hard, give the book a number score of 1 (didn’t like it at all) through 5 (best book I have ever read) and give a one word decription of the book. Mrs. Scales reminded us that we need to keep this list updated on our own as we finish any books we are reading.

People signed up for next week’s BookTalk Tuesday and we did our ninth root, which was meter, metry. We already knew that meter means measure because we used it in a root word sample word yesterday, geometry. We will have one more new root tomorrow and then next week we will have our first root word test. We need to know each of the 10 root words we have learned so far and what each one means.

We worked in our cooperative learning groups again today. Each group recieved a new craft review table. Toady we looked for examples the following three forms of craft in the book we are reading.

Connecting “Ands”
The writer uses the conjunction “and” to connect items in a series instead of using commas. An author does this to connect the things and make them seem like one action instead of separating them. Example: We were so busy hugging and eating and breathing together.

Sensory Detail
A description that uses one or more of the five senses (taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing). Example: Somewhere behind us a train whistle blew, long and low, like a sad, sad song. I could hear it through the woolen cap Pa had pulled down over my ears. A farm dog answered the train, and then a second dog joined in. They sang out, trains and dogs, for a real long time. And when their voices faded away it was as quiet as a dream.

Magic Three
The writer creates a rhythm and/or a sense of completeness by grouping in sets of three. Example: In the fields, by the rivers, and deep in the trees.
Note: This example is also an intentional fragment.

Some people came to class today without their book or their W-R’s notebooks. That did not make Mrs. Scales very happy. She made those people who did not bring their W-R’s notebooks go stand in the hall. We are still missing 4 flash drives, which is a big deal because there are kid’s writings on them. It didn’t make any of us very happy that they have not been found. Four of 12 classroom flash drives missing in less than three weeks. That’s crazy!

Mrs. Scales also announced that we can all write a recipe to put in a cookbook for the National Day on Writing extravaganza. Our recipes can be real food type recipes or something we create like a recipe for success or a recipe for disaster. She told us to have fun with it. Today was a good day in English, well at least for everyone who came to class prepared. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as good.