We had great discussions this week about our Writing, Literature, and Grammar.
The prompt we started with for the Quick Write was "Clothes make the man." According to the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the phrase was found recorded in the early 15th century, but it comes from an earlier saying in classical Greek, "the man is his clothing." In essence, clothing can both reveal and determine status. I asked the students to write about one particular piece of clothing -- their shoes.
For the Words of the Day, I chose words from the book A Word A Day by Anu Garg. (I may also continue to use SAT words, but they seemed a bit common place and not as fun.) Our words this week were collective nouns used for groups of animals. Did you know that a group of ducks swimming together is a "paddling," while a group of ducks flying is called a "team?"
sounder -- a group of wild boars
nide -- a nest or group of pheasants
skein -- a flock of geese, ducks or other similar birds in flight; a ball of yarn
skulk -- a pack of foxes
bevy -- a group of birds or animals; a group or collection of any kind; an abbreviation for a beverage (used in the UK)
We had a quick check in with our current writing assignment. The Pre-Writes for the Mystery Story was to be done today. (While it was due this week, they don't need to hand it in until next week when they hand in their rough drafts.) We talked about how it was going and especially the challenges in writing fiction. We had a variety of "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" and "thumbs side-ways." They need to think a little differently for this kind of writing. The sticking points seem to be incorporating clues, coming up with motives, and avoiding sounding stupid. I have great faith in this creative group.
We then dove into our reading selections, "Scandal in Bohemian" and "The Red-Headed League." We read the first portion of the first story and compiled a list of qualities for Sherlock Holmes. In the second story, we especially noted his powers of observations.
And finally, we closed out the class with a Grammar discussion. Phrases and clauses are the focuses for this semester, and we started with Prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases are used either as adjective phrases describing nouns or as adverb phrases describing verbs. I've attached two links at the bottom to instructional videos about Prepositional phrases from EDpuzzle.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read "The Speckled Band" and "The Engineer's Thumb"
-- 4 Study Guide Questions
-- Mystery Story Rough Draft
-- Grammar Worksheets: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 (but not Exercise B)
Links for This Week:
Blog Posts:
-- Class Notes
From EDpuzzle:
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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