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  November 2009

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1. Complete this online survey
2. Update your portfolio with your writing scores and your reading log

If you did not meet standard on any writing skill, you will need to revise your memoir.  Revisions are due by Tuesday, December 1.  The score for your revision will replace the score you have now.

It is imperative that you use TRACK CHANGES in order to show me what changes you made to help your memoir meet standard.  I want to see what you added and what you cut out.

Read the memoirs from people in your table group, then discuss which memoir  from your group you think other students should read.  Use the comments section for this post to communicate which memoirs need a broader audience.  Explain why your group recommends this memoir.

In class today we:

1. Listened to the following interview.  Students that have not met standard on theme then worked with me to identify themes from the interview.
2. All students will create their own Story Corps interview (no more than four minutes in duration), which is due Wednesday, December 2. Click here for the details.

In class today we:

1. Listened to the following interview.  All students worked to develop inferences about this person in preparation for the reading assignment, which is due next Tuesday.
2. Had some independent work time to finish up memoirs, read, or work on the reading assignment.
3. Turned in our final memoirs to the server (using the appropriate file format: period_lastnamefirstinitial_memoirfinal.doc) and posted them to our blogs.
4. Did a read-around in groups before selecting one from each group to share with the whole class.

In class today we:

1. Listened to the following interview.  Students that have not met standard on text-to-text connections then worked with me to identify connections between today’s and Monday’s interviews.
2. Peer edited our memoirs using the following protocol: Person A reads the memoir just for punctuation and highlights errors in brown.  Person B reads the memoir just for capitalization and highlights errors in red.  Person C reads the memoir just for spelling and homonym errors and highlights those errors in purple.
3. I met with students to discuss their memoirs.

We’ve got a lot going on this week as we finish up writing our memoirs, continue reading a memoir and prepare to complete the reading assignment, and we begin to extend our work with memoir into interview.  Class will be crammed packed with whole class, individual, and small group activities so be sure to use my blog to help you keep straight on your responsibilities.

In class today we:

1. Listened to the following interview.  Students that have not met standard on summary then worked with me to summarize the interview.
2. Self-assessed our memoirs using this form.  I will conference with students who do not feel that they have a draft that meets standard yet.
3. Peer edited our memoirs using the following protocol: Person A reads the memoir just for thoughts and feelings and highlights thoughts and feelings in LIGHT BLUE.  Person B reads the memoir just for visual/sensory details and highlights those details LIGHT GREEN.  Person C reads the memoir and provides a detailed PQP (Praise, Question, Polish) on a separate piece of paper.

Use this document to help you determine which elements from your two versions should be included in your final memoir.

On the back of the file above, you’ll brainstorm different titles for your memoir.  In class, we went over the elements of a quality title.  In short, the title tries to capture the importance of this memory or serve as a way to get the reader’s attention rather than just serve as a description of the event (”My first trip to the lake” would not be a great title).

Pull together your draft for your final memoir over the weekend and bring it ready for review at the beginning of class Monday.

We quickly went over paragraphing in class and then had some time to work on our memoirs.  Here’s a brief summary of today’s lesson:

• Paragraphs primary purpose is to make writing easier to read.
• Paragraphs help organize and connect your ideas.
• Paragraphs also help to create space in your writing for the reader to take visual breaks.
• You can create new paragraphs anytime there is a change in: speaker, ideas, focus, setting, or action (plot).
• You can indent paragraphs without a space between them or not indent paragraphs with a space between them.

I will be out of the building both of these days.  Students will work in class on the following:

• Participial phrases – Create 15 original sentences using participial phrases with the phrase at the beginning, middle, and end of the sentence for five sentences each.
• Homonyms (homophones) - These are words that look or sound alike, but have different meanings (their/they’re/there, your/you’re, to/too/two, its/it’s).  Complete a quick worksheet to refresh yourself on the difference between these words.
• Fourth memoir – Select one of your first three memoirs to revise (use this checklist to help you make a solid pick).  Draft a new and different type of lead (action, reaction, dialogue) for this memory and completely revise the memoir.  This draft should look nothing like the other version as the purpose is to see this memory again from a different perspective [re (again) + vise (see) = see again].  Your fourth memoir is due Friday 11/13.
• Memoir reading - Continue reading your memoir and begin looking for evidence of the main characters words or actions that demonstrate his/her characteristics (personality).  Keep track of this evidence on the inference graphic organizer.

For those of you who like to tackle projects, here’s a competition about solving environmental issues in your neighborhood.  Looks like a cool opportunity to form a team on work on something meaningful.  Click here for more info.

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