Greetings!
It's hard to believe that we're in December already and that there are only 2 weeks left. I feel like I'm just getting to know the students, so I'm already looking forward to working with them again next semester!
For our Quick Write, I chose from the long list of ideas that the students put together. Here are the prompts for this week:
- Option 1: Do you like to take pictures or be in them? Why?
- Option 2: Do you re-watch TV shows or re-read books? Explain.
- Option 3: Share a story about a long car ride.
After the Quick Writes we enjoyed some more obscure, Christmas-related words for our Words of the Day:
natal -- fr. Latin natus, "pertaining to one's birth" -- often this word is used to describe the star that appeared over Bethlehem, i.e. Jesus' natal star [Note: nativity also comes from the same root.]
epiphany -- fr. Greek epiphainein, "to reveal" -- a festival, manifestation, or commemoration; traditionally, Epiphany is on January 6 and is a celebration of the the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).
poinsettia -- fr. John Poinsett, an ambassador to Mexico who brought this plant to the attention of botanists -- a plant of large green leaves and large red blossoms that is used to decorate at Christmas.
wassail -- fr. Old Norse, ves heill, "be well/healthy" -- a greeting of good cheer; also hot mulled cider, drunk traditionally as an integral part of wassailing, a Medieval Christmastide
swaddling -- fr. Middle English, swathlen, to bind with clothes -- longs strips of cloth used to wrap or bind. Jesus was "laid in swaddling clothes."
Note: For the Spring semester, I've encouraged students to bring in unusual or interesting words that they find.
Following our beginning of class activity, we had a thoughtful discussion about the role of grammar instruction. I had read a study about teaching grammar in 3 different ways: through direct instruction, in the context of student writing, and in the context of reading quality material. In this study, students in the writing-only and reading-only groups scored higher on a post-test. For that reason, I like to incorporate as much of my grammar instruction with the students' own papers and with the literature we read. As I mentioned to the class in response to a question, this does NOT mean that I will discontinue grammar lessons. In the study, those who experienced grammar through direct instruction still learned a lot!
The bulk of our class time was given to the My Antonia student presentations of their book projects. I love seeing the creativity of the class and encourage them to find a way to respond to their reading that fits who they are. We had a short dramatic interpretation of Jim's encounter with the snake (thanks, Michael, James, Ethan, and Carson), a waltz lesson from Nalani, a quiz from Ava, some amazing sketches from Ingrid, and a game of My Antonopoly from Tyler. (I've post pictures and videos on the blog -- see link below)
Here's the schedule for the next two weeks:
December 10
Jesse T
Josh
Bennett
Jessie M
Anna
Kara
Michael S
Ellie
Josie
Maddy
Grace
December 17
Philip
Elliot
Leighton
Zach
Peter
Levi
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Quick Write for 12/3 (for those absent)
-- Discussion Question -- How improved (GC)
-- Comparison/Contrast Rough Draft
-- Comparison/Contrast Pre-Write
-- Verbals Practice #1
-- Verbals Practice #2
Links for This Week
Class Notes Blog Post 12/3
Have a wonderful weekend!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment