Book Reports

      There were some extremely well-written book reports. One was on Bless Me, Ultima. The student made a brilliant analysis of the elements of a novel. Her insights into the characters were penetrating. Kudos to you, Kaitlynn O!

Narrative Essay

       Seventh grade writing students, congratulations. Your narrative essays revealed maturity of thought and effective use of techniques. I'm happy with many of your pieces. Numerous students got 3's and 4's!

Expository Essay

       This coming week we will be writing an expository essay, employing the various strategies we discussed in class. Notable among these strategies are funnel, quotation, turnaround, and controlling idea in the introduction (FunQuotTurnC).

        For the body paragraph, we have reason, explanation, caution,anecdote,fact,example,opinion (RECAFEO).

        The conclusion has reflection,insight,opinion (RIA)

Second Six Weeks Test

      We will have a full blown revising and editing test on the week of November 3-7. I know we will have a hundred percent passing this time!

October 15, 2014

Riddles

No. 1

                 A painter had to paint 100 houses, and he had to number them. He wondered how many sixes he was going to paint.

Note: Don't use paper or pencil. Your fingers are acceptable.

No. 2

                 A rich caravan owner willed 17 of his camels to his 3 sons. To the first son, he wanted to give 1/2; to the second, 1/3; to the third, 1/9. Find out how many each one will receive without cutting some camels.

                 A wise and clever camel owner had a brilliant solution which satisfied the old rich man as well as his sons.

October 13, 2014

 

Narrative Essay

      We studied the narrative essay last week. Many of you did wonderfully after the revising. There were jumps in scores from a 2 to a 4! As E.B. White wrote, " There is no great writing, only great rewriting."

       If you follow the basic rule of narrative writing, which is, "Show. Don't tell." , you will have an effective story. To be able to apply it, you need to have strategies of making your writing irresistible.

Some strategies are 1) the use of dialogue, 2) the employment of active verbs, 3) the application of precise words, 4) reactions (thoughts and feelings), 5) quote, 6) sensory images, and 7) describing a character.

      The conclusion can end with a lesson, insight, or change in your attitudes.

Grammar

       We covered many rules about sentences like the structures of simple, compound, and complex sentences.

        Coordinating conjunctions for, and , nor, but, or, yet, so (FANBOYS), are used in compound sentences.

        Subordinating conjunctions although, as, after, while, when, unless, until, before, because,if, since (AAAWWUUBBIS) are used for complex sentences plus the relative pronouns who, whose,whom, which, what as well as the pronoun/conjunction that.

         There were comma rules involved.

 

September 22, 2014

Focus

         We have narrowed down our subject to a very specific topic, a key to focus in a personal narrative. 

Using Action and Dialogue

          To capture the attention of the readers, action and dialogue play a big role. They serve to SHOW what's happening in the story, not "tell".

Riddles for the Brain

#1  Add only one symbol to the Roman numeral nine and change it to an even number.

IX

             #2  " Forward I'm heavy, backward I'm not. What am I?"

Week of September 8-12, 2014

Prewriting

This week we covered one strategy for pre-writing called writing territories. In it we brainstormed possible topics that included ideas about ourselves, our roles on life, our interests, and our beliefs. We touched on  traveling, eating, reading, reincarnation, karma, and spirit in man!

Subjects and Predicates

Basic concepts like subjects and predicates were reviewed with an eye to making diagramming later on more understandable and efficient.

Sentences

     Our class activity focused on six concepts which were elicited by only ten questions! That was awesome!   Here were the concepts:

• Subjects and predicates
• Natural order of sentences  (subject-predicate)
• Inverted order (predicate-subject-predicate)
• Fragments
• Run-ons
• Comma splice

     We also found that favorite has now become a verb! You can now say," I have favorited you on Facebook!" When you type this word in the computer, the spellcheck tells you it's misspelled, but it's not. The computer has to keep up with the explosion of language!

The Writing Process

1. Why is writing a process?

2. What is the most important word that describes the writing process?

3. Explain your answer.

4. Describe the steps of the process in order.