February 8, 2015

Narrative Essay Revisited

                    Last week, we reviewed the elements of a good narrative essay. We analyzed a narrative piece with a score of 4 and identified the effective strategies employed. With the use of these, your narratives will soar.

District Benchmark No. 2

                    Schedule of DBM2 for writing will be this week, February 10, Tuesday (Day 1) and February 11, Wednesday (Day 2). Be ready!

Revising and Editing Review

                    Tomorrow we will review as many revising and editing questions as we can. You will be given handouts for independent review at home.

Book Report

                    Book report deadline is February 13 - this Friday! Remember you should follow the format of the cover page and the contents. This report must be printed.

Creative Writing

                    Presentations of acrostic poems and fables will be this week. Many have finished the projects. The quality of most of them is excellent!

February 2,2015

Expository Essay Revisited

          After reading William Zinsser's "Simplicity", we launched another expository essay where we wrote the introduction and the conclusion first, applying the advice of Zinsser to simplify sentences and taking away clutter. It was a bit challenging at first, but most managed to get it right.

           Today we are going to finish the body paragraphs as much as we can.

Creative Writing

            Today we continue creating and finalizing our rhyming acrostic poem. Possibly some students will be able to present.



Comma Rules Continued

          The test on comma rules was eye- opening. There was some confusion about how to identify and apply the rules of FANBOYS,OPENER, INTERRUPTER,LIST, and CLOSER (FOILC) to sentences.

When sentences from student compositions were re-examined for comma mistakes, there was strong improvement. 

Homonyms

          The commonly misused and misunderstood homonyms like TO, TWO, and TOO, YOUR and YOU'RE, ITS and IT'S, THERE,THEY'RE, and THEIR were reviewed. The student responses to questions were promising.

          We are going to have a quiz tomorrow, Monday, January 26.

January 14,2015

Comma Rules

          The lessons on comma rules seemed to have gone smoothly. We have compressed four weeks' amount of lessons into a week.

           We will have a graded oral recitation this week as well as a written test. So study your notes. Afterwards we will apply these comma rules to your writing.

Book Report



             Here is the schedule of deadlines for the book report:

January 13    Physical/ electronic copy inspection

January 16    First summary

January 23    Second summary

January 30    Final summary

February 10   Printed book report due

Creative Writing

              This semester we are focusing on great people for our biographical sketch. One new feature that was added was the ten practicable things you can imitate from this person.

               The work has to be printed and then reported/presented in front of the class. There will be question and answer sessions to follow.





Upcoming Events for 7th Grade Writing

January 6, 2015

WECOME TO SECOND SEMESTER

2015

Pre-AP Strategies and Resources

                    This second semester we  will utilize Pre-AP resources and strategies for our writing activities. Writings of published authors will be used as models to learn from and imitate. Pieces about clarity and brevity in composing sentences will help greatly in polishing your own writing.

                      We will go in-depth in mastering common skills like commas in sentences, irregular verbs, homonyms, some frequently misspelled words, and more. If we have time to spare, we might go into diagramming of sentences.

                      BE ALERT! There will be lots of re-writing that will happen. As E.B. White said, "There is no great writing. There is only great re-writing."

Creative Writing

                      Since there will be 8th graders who have signed up for this elective, projects like biographical sketch and rhyming poems will be elevated to a more professional level and researched as such.



December 7, 2014

GT Writing

Monday will be a review day for narrative and expository essays in preparation for the district benchmark for writing on December 9 (Tuesday) and 10 (Wednesday). Revising and editing questions will be asked.

Final Summary for the Book Report Novel

Some students need to step up to their reading of their novels to be able to submit the final summary.

Printed Book Report

Printed book report with a prescribed format and font will be due on December 12 (Friday).

Creative Writing

The four-stanza rhyming poem for Christmas is ongoing.

December 2, 2014

NOTICE:  Deadlines and important dates for December

Dec. 3, Wednesday   Progress report day   2:00-5:00 p.m.
             (A grade of 100 for those whose parents come)
Dec. 5 Friday  Final summary of novel due
Dec. 9-10 Tuesday-Wednesday  District benchmark for writing
Dec. 12 Friday Printed book report due

Narrative and expository essays are going to be on the test.

Creative Writing

Final product for fables are due this Wednesday.