Mrs. Scales really does listen to us. Today in class we started out with reading time because some of us suggested when we talked about how she could help us reach our reading goals for this nine weeks that she give us more time to read in class.  Now we are going to mix it up a little. Some days we will have a quick write to begin class with, and other days we will have that time to read.  Today we had about 10 minutes at the start of class to read, sometimes it may be even longer.

 

Then Mrs. Scales explained the dilemma she found her self in last night. It was frustrating to her when she realized that she could not post the log for yesterday on the blog, because one of the students hadn’t presented the root word he was assigned.  If she had posted the blog that student would have been able to just copy the work done by the other students who presented root words and that would not have been fair.  So today some changes were made:

 

1.We will begin getting graded for the root word presentations next Tues.  Anyone not presenting their word on the day scheduled will receive and NHI.  She gave each of us a grading rubric so we would know how to prepare.  The rubric looks like this.

 

Daily Root Word Presentation Rubric:

Name _____________________________  Date ___________ Period _______

 

Criteria	Possible Points	Earned Points
Spoke Clearly / Well Prepared	4
Had 3 Strong Example Words	3
Linked Example Words to meaning of the root word	5
Total	12

 

Mrs Scales even explained how to link the example words back to the meaning of the root.  Like today’s root was Micro, the Greek root that means small or tiny.  The example words were:

 

Microcosm : MICRO cosm (mie’ kro koz um) n. A small world

 

Microphone : MICRO phone (mie’ kro fone) n. Instrument to intensify slight sounds

 

Microscope : MICRO scope (mie’ kro skope) n. Instrument to examine objects too small to be seen by the naked eye

 

So you would point out to all of the students how micro in each word indicated that it was something small or tiny, microcosm = small world, microphone = something to magnify small sound, and microscope = something to view small things.

 

2. Anyone not presenting their root word on the day it is scheduled can not use any of the example words posted for that root word on the blog.  That will make it harder because normally the easiest or most common example words will be the ones used and posted, so the person missing their day will have to look harder for example words that fit the meaning of the root.

 

We continued working in small cooperative learning groups for our craft review. The craft we focused on today was:

 

• Sensory Detail
• Connecting Ands
•  Magic 3 (Parallelism)

 

Just like the last two days we wrote a definition of the craft from our 6^th grade craft folders, then looked for sensory detail, connecting ands, and Magic 3 in literature by finding examples in The Call of the Wild or Artemis Fowl. Then we concluded by adding sensory detail, connecting ands, or magic 3 to our own writing.  The instructions said to add two of the three kinds of craft to our quick write from today, but we didn’t do a quick write today because we were reading.  Mrs. Scales explained that for all of the craft review work where we are instructed to add craft to our own writing, we can use any of the writing in the response section of our W-R’s N.  When she picks up the notebooks next week she will be looking for 10 highlighted and labeled examples of craft found or added to our own writing.

 

 

Log info from Tuesday – Aug 31, 2011

 

 

After our 5 minutes of free writing in the response section of our W-R’s N at the start of class today, we started out here – on the blog.  We reviewed yesterday’s blog to see if it fulfilled the requirements of expository writing.  For the most part, we agreed that it did because it was informative, gave us the most important information that was covered yesterday in class, and even anticipated some of the questions the reader might have.  Now that we have had a couple of example days, today is the first day that a student will log in class.

 

Next, everyone who came to class prepared, meaning they had an index card for the root word at their desk, their W-R’s N, English binder and The Call of the Wild received 10 points.  So, don’t forget to read the lesson plans and know what to bring to class everyday so you don’t lose those easy points.

 

Our root word for today was:

 

GRAPH or GRAM meaning to WRITE, or SOMETHING WRITTEN

 

Calligraphy : calli GRAPH y (ka lig’ ra fee) n. Elegant handwriting

 

Homograph : homo GRAPH (hom’ o graf) n. Two words spelled the same but with different meanings; as, fair; a market and fair; beautiful

 

Phonograph : phono GRAPH (foe’ no graf) n. An instrument for reproducing recorded sound

 

Grammer: rules for writing

 

Anagram: a word or phrase written by rearranging its letters

 

• Then we continued working in cooperative learning groups to do our Craft Review:
• Personification, Alliteration, and Onomatopoeia
• Looking for personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in literature
• Adding personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia to your own writing