Saturday, October 11, 2014

Tuesday, October 14 - Friday, October 17

Friday

We tried the "shed some light" - word association activity again today in preparation for working with metaphor. Using the list of words created in the game, I asked you to try to write a four line poem to a politician, pop star or a subject such as poverty using one of the suggested themes:  Look closely or What’s within or I see you or You cant hide. The poem coould describe,plea, insult, instruct, compliment etc. This activity proved to be challenging. I narrowed down the focus and we just tried to use a word from the list and create a metaphor by loosely associating it with something else. More work on this on Monday!

Thursday
Once we survived the Great Shake Out! (not Shake Down : o ) we looked at an example of the type of video I would like you to produce for your poem. We will examine more examples and co-construct the criteria in a later class. Next we examined George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I Come From" looking for poetic devices such as metaphor, allusion, alliteration. You were extremely successful - great job everyone. Just before it was time to "duck and cover", we tried a word association game to push our poetry brains. I was caught off guard a few times by some clever come-backs to the calls for "shed some light!"

Wednesday
Today was the due date for the paragraphs about an elementary classmate. Before they were submitted for my feedback, I asked you to go through your own and identify the evidence of quality from the criteria sheet. Next, a peer check one of your paragraphs for evidence of quality. Next we moved on to thinking about writing a poem to help everyone improve there ability to write descriptively. Turns out a few of you have already done the type of poem I had in mind, but no matter! I can easily modify/change the type of poem. Besides, you will submit a video, not a written poem AND we will be really working on pushing your thinking and writing into a new zone even if you do the same type of poem from a previous year!
Where I Come From template

Tuesday

After silent reading, I returned your narratives "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Thank you for the feedback you gave to me now that we have completed our first ever English 10 writing assignment! I will be able to provide you with a snap-shot of your grade very soon. We marked the run-on sentence practice today as well. At the end of the class we turned our attention back to the paragraphs about elementary school kids we remember. You are to have TWO completed paragraphs for tomorrow's class so we can self and peer edit before you hand them to me for feedback.

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