Writing Workshop

Today was a writing workshop. Our theme is Integrity. Our mini-lesson today was on pre-writing. We did word clouds on qualities of Integrity. Words and concepts such as: Honesty, Promise-Keeping, Fidelity, Fairness, Caring for Others, Responsible Citizenship, Pursuit of Excellence, Accountability, Doing what is right even when no one is watching you, Principled, Honorable, Upright Behavior, Courageous, Convictions all came up.  We also brainstormed on people or experiences in our lives that we believe are examples of showing strong Integrity.

Today we worked on the Writing stage of the writing process. The drafts have to be completed and submitted through Turnitin by the end of class next Wednesday 25 January 2017. Drafts must be written in MLA format so Mrs. Scales reviewed the requirement of using Times New Roman 12 point font for the entire paper. She also reminded students to put the header on the top right corner of each page, the heading has four lines:

Joe Smith

Mrs. Scales

English 9 Period 3

18 January 2017

 

Integrity Essay

• Theme: Why is it important to show integrity in working to achieve a difficult goal?
• How does your integrity lead you to set goals and then work to achieve them?
• Identify examples of how you have worked to achieve a difficult goal?
• Cite research, details, or other sources to make your essay more interesting.
• Be sure to include a beginning, middle, and an end to your essay.
• 750 – 1000 words

Homework: Read and Annotate pages 46 – 54 of “The Nose”

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards will be announced by Friday January 20.

A-List Vocabulary Word – Imagine

Round 2 of Sentence Diagraming – Students were given a study guide taking the work we had done last week with the basic sentence diagraming line and expanding it to the primary elements of the sentence that go under the line and the difference needed if there is an indirect object instead of a direct object. How to diagram all of the following was covered in class today.

What to do under the line.

• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• Articles
• Prepositional Phrases

Indirect Objects

Students were shown how to find and review the presentation on the Weekly Independent Grammar Lesson in Canvas – which this week covers Prepositional Phrases.

Under Resources in Canvas click on the link for the appropriate week under Independent Weekly Grammar Lessons. This will allow you to download the powerpoint directly to your iPad.

Once you open the powerpoint on your iPad you must play the slide show so that all of the links are active.

In this first week’s lesson the first slide in like a table of contents with five different links. You have to click on the first link: Identifying prepositional phrases. That will take you into the first part of the lesson. There you must read each part of the slide and click on all of the small yellow arrows to work your way through that lesson. DO NOT just click Next or you will miss important information.

Watch * Summarize * Question

Once you have worked your way through the entire presentation you must fill out the WSQ form and submit it to the assignment for that week in Canvas. You will receive points for the WSQ each week and have a review quiz over that week’s grammar concept on Fridays. Your WSQ assignment in Canvas is due prior to the start of your class period every Friday. 

And the last thing covered in class today was the introduction to our next reading:

“The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol (funny satire with a surreal or supernatural twist)

• Add Satire to the vocabulary words in you Reading Log. Satire – the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. Then think as we read “The Nose” what parts of it are satire and what parts of it fit our criteria for being magical realism.
• Close Reading – Reading for understanding and clarity.
• Annotation – Marking your text in ways that are helpful to you. What do your annotation tell you? They are no good to you if you just highlight different parts of the text. That is called coloring, and while coloring might be fun, it really doesn’t do anything to help you better understand the text or help you dig deeper.

 

Homework – finish reading and annotating the first chapter of “The Nose”

The quiz today was very basic. Students were asked to diagram 

three sentences using the information taught on Monday and reviewed yesterday. Students also had to match the description of ten words (parts of speech). The definitions were word for word the same as given in the lesson on Monday.

Two of the four classes did not adequately demonstrate an understanding of the basic parts of speech or the rules and functions of basic sentence diagramming. Both 3rd and 4th periods were given a homework assignment to provide them a second chance to demonstrate their understanding of this basic grammar information that they have been taught since grade school. The homework assignment is to:

Write a complete definition for each of the following 10 words:

• Verb
• Adverb
• Direct Object
• Conjunction
• Participles
• Adjective
• Subject
• Articles
• Prepositions
• Pronouns

Write or take five compound-complex sentences from the reading of “The Transformation of Arachne into a Spider” and then digram those sentences.

4th period’s folders will be pick up on Tuesday for complete grading, including the homework. 3rd period will have their homework graded during class on Tuesday.

Students were also reminded that if they miss a preplanned day of school (have a prearranged absence) due to a field trip of any kind, they are still responsible to use the blog and if necessary the notes from another student to have the work made up prior to the start of the next class period.

Students in any of my classes are expected to take personal responsibility for making sure that they use the resources provided for them to be independently successful learners.  I am always available before school and most of the time during Academic Lab, but I do not expect students to return to the next class period not having met their obligation to the prearranged absence agreement by not being prepared for the next day’s class.  This is not the same thing as our school policy of allowing students who have unexpectedly been ill and required to miss class the same number of days they missed to get class work made up.

Students were reminded that the lesson plan has been posted for the four day week, next week and that they should review it on the Weekly Lesson Plan page.

 

After diagraming three sentences today, we focused on the OPTIC Strategy for reviewing visuals. We

Viewed, Analyzed, and discuss Roots, a magically real self-portrait of Frida Kahlo, by Frida Kahlo. Roots focuses on an introspective look at Kahlo in an autobiographical depiction of magical realism. Students analyze Roots and explore how a visual depiction of magical realism can also communicate a human truth. Using the OPTIC Strategies graphic organizer the classes discussed the following components of the painting:

O: A woman lies on the parched earth. She appears to have a tree for a body and roots growing from her chest.

 

P: The earth–cracked, scorched, parched earth; a large crack in the earth threatens to engulf the women/tree. The woman–she appears to be a fallen tree. Her elbow is propped on a pillow, and she rests her head in her hand. Her hair flows from her just as the roots flow from her chest. The roots–the roots appear to have veins that are red with blood flowing through them.

 

T: Roots–self depiction of her roots (or her desire to establish roots). Roots can refer to feelings of being tied to the land of her people or her desire to bring forth life in which she would be the roots of life.

 

I: The woman depicted appears to be a tree of life. Her blood is nourishing the parched earth. A pillow rests beneath her head as she contemplates. The blood of the women flows out from her heart through the vines and roots into the parched ground. There could be a symbiotic relationship as both appear to be living off the other.

 

C: This is a representation of Kahlo’s desire to give birth as depicted by the birth of vines and establishment of roots (or family).

 

Then students used this information and details from the painting to fill out the next two or three rows of their Dialectic Journals, demonstrating the links between their reading of the painting and the criteria of magical realism. 

Students were reminded that they have a grammar quiz tomorrow. Their second week participation points will also be added, and the honors classes will turn their folders in for grading.

 

 

Roots

What human truth does this myth express?

How do the magical elements develop that truth?

 

There is only one Friday in every week! Today is that day, Friday.  What a great first week of the second semester we have had.

Today I Read “The Transformation of Arachne into a Spider” aloud while students follow along. Students underlined unfamiliar words and names of people and places during this first reading.

Homework: Do a second, independent reading of “The Transformation of Arachne into a Spider”

• Using pencils, identify all of the sentence breaks with vertical slash marks, treating colons and semicolons as periods.
• Then highlight every other sentence so that you can group ideas and events as we continue to work with this text.
• Locate the subject(s) and verb(s) in each sentence by marking them with S and V.

This homework assignment must be done by the start of your class period on Monday. We are doing our first flipped grammar lesson on sentence diagraming and you will use this homework during the lesson. Be sure to come to class prepared by having this homework completed.

The first grading of Reading Logs and Unit Folders started today:

3rd Period folders were picked up today.

5th Period folders will be picked up on Tues. 1/ 10

Honor’s folders will be picked up next Fri. 1/13

Today we looked at three questions:

1. What is truth?
2. What is fiction?
3. Can fiction reveal truth?

By first viewing “Magical Realism is Still Realism” by Salman Rusdie, and then annotating the text transcript of the video we attempted to answer those questions.  We learned that Rushdie explains that since there is no truth in fiction, it does not matter if the fiction is magical or a made up story about an ordinary person. When we read literature, we read in search of the human truth or the part of the story that speaks to us as humans.

Each pair of students then wrote an objective summary of the transcript.  Mrs. Scales provided a model for a strong objective summary:

What is truth in fiction? All fiction is by definition “not true.” The characters and their problems and their situations did not exist or occur in history. So we do not read literature for real truth, but human truth. We read fiction to recognize the parts of the character and how he or she relates to others, comparing that to our own lives. If we can accept that those characters are not real then we can accept that magical elements of stories are unreal in the same way. No more or less. When an author adds a magical element, such as a flying carpet, the author must write to make that magical element real. When that magical element is explained practically in the story, it becomes real. We read these magical stories (fairy tales, fantasy etc.) for the same reasons we read regular fiction: human truth. It does not matter if there is a flying carpet, we read to relate to the characters and the situation.

Tomorrow we will use the same transcript to start defining magical realism and setting the specific criteria for the genre.

 Semester 2 for English 9 started today in Mrs. Scales room with the start of a new unit on Magical Realism.  Every student received a personalized folder and the following information.

Participation points will start being given every week. The only thing you have to do not to lose your participation points is show up with everything on the following list, and actively participate in class.

You lose your participation points for the week if you show up without any of the above, or do not read for the entire independent reading time. This is non-negotiable and based completely on Mrs. Scales observation. The weekly participation points are 25 points. Over the semester that equates to 450 points. These are not points that you can make up once you have lost them.

Students were also told that they will probably need to add paper to your reading log. All of the texts and handouts for this unit should be kept in the folder, organized in a way that works for you. We will be rereading, and using the handouts more than once, so you must keep everything for the entire unit in this folder. I will ask for your folder at different points during the semester and grade the work that has been done. This means that I may have you annotate a text and not pick it up for grading the day you do it, but might grade the annotations the next time I pick up your folder. If you lose or allow your folder to be torn up, it will be your responsibility to replace it to receive any additional grades for the unit. Your reading log entries must be dated and can be used as a place to take notes and complete assignments.

Through the study of various fictional works and literary criticism, students read literary and informational texts to understand the style and characteristics of “magical realism” and the interconnectedness of texts over time and space. Students will express their understanding by examining how authors transform source material and how literature can reveal “real human truth” and be used as a vehicle for social commentary.

All of the bolded words or concepts were discusses and notes taken in students’ reading logs.

Vocabulary words that you will hear a great deal and need to understand during this unit include, but are not limited to

A-List Word Evaluate

Existentialism

Alienation

catalyst

metamorphosis

en medias reis

Novella

Myth

Magical Realism

Arachne

Pallas

Ovid

Franz Kafka

These are all words that will be used and defined for you as we move forward.

Finally, the Essential Question for this unit was presented. Each student was instructed to write the entire question out in their reading logs. At the end of the unit students will be assessed on their ability to write an essay answering this question.

Extras credit was offered prior to the Christmas break. Extra credit book recommendation posters were collected and students were instructed to make sure they had the Goodreads 2017 Challenge set up prior to their class start time tomorrow for that extra credit.