We had a good class today. Each week I do my best to challenge the students as writers and thinkers and to have some fun and lively discussions. Today's Quick Write included some thoughts about learning and play. April 21, 1782 was the birth date of Friedrich Froebel who wrote a lot about children learning through play and music. He started the first Kindergarten in 1837 and was one of the first to develop educational toys. I gave the students 3 options: 1) Write about learning and play; 2) Write about a kindergarten memory; 3) Write about your earliest memory.
Our Words of the Day were word-related words that linguists or those interested in phonetics might use:
dittography -- the accidental repeating of a letter, word, or phrase in a text; ex. rememember
eye dialect -- the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to a character quality; ex. enuff, cuz, wuz
epenthesis -- the additions of one or more sounds into a word; ex. film -to- fillum, something -to- somepthing; drawing -to- drawring
idiolect -- a language unique to a person; ex. Yoda
I handed back the Rough Drafts of the Evaluation Essays. The students chose some great topics; I always learn so much from reading their essays. The first item of discussion was the format of the evaluation. A good essay of this type requires the writer to set up criteria at the beginning of the essay; these are then used to explain the value and worth of the subject of the essay. I also talked with the students about other common errors in their essays: which vs. that, then vs. than, less vs. fewer.
During the Literature portion of our class, we started with a short story by Nella Larsen. This story is about race and forgiveness. Some students had not read it, so I encourage them to take time -- it's a quality story. The next order of business for class were the assigned Poems. I know that not everyone enjoys the poetry to the same degree, but talking and thinking about words and meanings in the context of poems helps them to grow as thinkers.
Speaking of poetry, I end every Spring semester with poetry presentations. Our classroom is the scene for a "Poetry Jam," a combination of a Poetry Slam and Poetry Out Loud. Students will give poetry recitations in a "team competition." They can begin looking for 3 poems to present. We will talk more about this next week.
And finally, a comment about classroom behavior. This has always been a class that enjoys good-natured discussions. Unfortunately, throughout this school year I have had problems with small side conversations, and sometimes students communicate with facial expressions or gestures from across the room. Today I stopped class and pointed out how distracting this was to me, the teacher, and to the rest of the classmates. Parents, check in with your students and remind them to be attentive during class. Students, the extra communicating during class needs to stop. As I have told other classes, don't make me use my "Mom voice."
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Final Draft of the Evaluation Essay
-- Poetry: Wilcox (p. 33); Thayer (p. 34); Dunbar (p. 41 - 43); Frost (-. 44 - 50); Sandburg (p. 53 - 54); Williams (p. 60 - 61); Hughes (p. 75 - 78)
-- Write 3 Discussion Questions for any poems
-- No extra Grammar
Links for This Week:
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment