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.

November 19, 2014

Summary of the Book

                

On Friday, November 21, 2014, there will be an inspection of the summary of the book you chose to read for the book report. 

The elements of a narrative like title of the book, characters, setting,plot, conflict, etc. need to be included. There will be two (2)grades attached to this. 

The summary must at least be two pages long.

November 9, 2014

Revised notice: Monday, November 10,2014, is the last day for turning in late work whose grades will be included in the 2nd 6 weeks average.

Book Reports: We will have new procedures in checking the progress of the book report for the 3rd 6 weeks. This will be discussed in class.

Upcoming activities: This week of November 10-14, 2014, we will be going over the 2nd six weeks test in revising and editing. Most of all, we will practice writing the strategies for the expository essay we have studying during the past week.

Congratulations to the 7th grade writing students! We have gotten 96% passing on the STAAR based and formatted test you recently took. Our prospects for writing look bright!