Monday, September 26 - Friday, October 3

Monday, Today we went to the library to pick up a book for silent reading. From this point on, we will read daily in class for 10-15 minutes. After we read for a while today, we looked back at our Listmania Lists and thought of some more story ideas for the following prompts: the most important lesson in my life; finding joy; making decisions.
Tuesday, Daily reading began today and we talked about the Novel Autographs (example link) that you will post in the room for each novel you finish reading. After silent reading, we looked at two examples of quality narrative writing from Grade 10 students. Using the examples (#7 , #10 ) we identified the elements of quality that made them strong narratives. At the end of the class we wrote out the various elements we identified as criteria statements and put them on strips of paper for use in tomorrows class. Great job pulling out what the writers had done well.
Wednesday, October 1st already. WOAH. Today we used the criteria strips from yesterday and organized them into the following groups: subject/topic; style/voice; structure/organization; conventions. I was impressed that the class came up with pretty much all the important criteria necessary for a quality narrative. Once the criteria were established we did our first in-class write of a rough draft narrative. The topic/prompt for the narrative was: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am looking forward to reading the stories about this one!
Thursday, Today we self-assessed, then peer-assessed our narratives from yesterday using the criteria (criteria link) that we had developed in class. I also asked you to identify descriptive elements in your writing by highlighting them: use of the 5 senses, vivid verbs, figurative language. I also asked you to label the type of story starter you had used in your narrative: dialogue, challenge belief, jump right in to action, onomatopoeia... At the end of the class the draft narratives were due. My job is to look them over and give you feedback to help you improve your narrative writing.