Day 2 of the Twain WebQust focused on the essay each group must write on the Twain Prize. As a class we reviewed the writing genre – Essay. Our working definition of an essay is: A short, nonfiction piece of writing about one topic. In step one of the webquest the assignment is to write a summary essay about the Twain Award and its past recipients (our one topic for this assignment). An essay is a structured form of writing and always needs to include an introduction, body, and a conclusion.

Mrs. Scales made us some sticky note checklists for our essays. We have to review the essays and then staple the Twain WebQuest Group Grading Sheet to the front of our essays before we turn them in. No one in the group may move on to the second step in the process until the essay for the first step has been turned in.

It was explained to us that there are really three components to the Twain WebQuest.
1. Content Information (What we will learn about Mark Twain, Humor, and the Twain Prize.
2. Working together in cooperative learning groups.
3. Being able to follow written directions from multiple resources. (Twain WebQuest instructions in process and time line sections, lesson plans, blog recaps.) Critical Thinking Skills

Our root word for today was chrome, which means color. Our three example words were, chromosome, polychrome, and bichrome. Chromosome is a word we use often in science, so Mrs. Scales expected us to know that it has to do with hereditary traits that may determine the color of our eyes, hair and even skin being passed on. Poly is a root word that we have had earlier this year. Poly means many so polychrome means many colors and bichrome therefore means two colors.

We have one more week to earn AR points. Right now in seventh grade as a whole 51% of the students have earned all of their AR points for the third grading period and 4th period is in the lead with 67%.