Our A List word this week is Support. How appropriate to our writing workshop integrity essay revision focus. All submitted rough drafts have been commented on and today we focused on what each individual student needs to do in the revision stage.

Those students who did not respond to the prompt, but rather wrote very general essays on the topic of integrity were instructed to develop a new or stronger thesis that appropriately addressed the prompt and then build an outline looking at how their ideas and examples could be used to support that thesis. An example of how to do this was posted on the front board last week.

A few students needed to go back and cite all of the sources that they had used and or quoted. They were reminded to cite the source both directly in the text and on a Works Cited page.

Mrs. Scales read her rough draft as model text. From the model text, we reviewed the importance of a strong hook, and a clear thesis that appropriately responds to the prompt as a part of the introduction. While many different organizational structures may be used for the essays, the model text was written in a chronological narrative order (anecdotes or stories from the writer’s life are used to support the thesis and represented in the order in which they happened).

Complete revised and edited essays are due by the end of class on Wednesday of this week. 

This week’s independent grammar topic is End Marks or punctuation.

Based on last week’s performance on the comma quiz a Rules For Comma Usage study guide was provided for all students. The study guide presents 10 rules for when to use commas correctly. For any student who did not receive 70% (14 points) or higher on last week’s quiz the study guide is accompanied with a Remedial Homework Assignment on Comma Usage that must be completed for a grade by the start of class next Monday.  Those students who did receive 70% or higher have been exempted from the assignment, but should review the rules as there will be three comma questions on this week’s grammar review quiz.

Third period students were issued a school copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations last Friday.  Today they were reminded that Great Expectations is replacing their independent reading novels and they must have the book with them each day in class.  Like the independent reading novels, Great Expectations will be used anytime we finish a lesson early or reading time is given in class. On independent reading days (normally Fridays) students will have to complete a reading summary for the assigned pages. These written summaries will be due at the start of class on the following day. Summaries are homework and may not be done during reading time in class.  Reading comprehension quizzes and tests will be giving over Great Expectations.