AC Language Arts

Please forgive me for the lapse in blog updates! On February 3, I was attending a collaborative meeting with McClure’s 7th grade language arts team. On February 4 and 5, I was out of school with a terrible sinus infection. (I started on antibiotics on Friday, so I’m hoping I avoided passing any infectious germs to my students!)

Students were given part of the class period on Monday (2/1) and Tuesday (2/2) and the ENTIRE class period on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (if needed) to draft and revise the “trust” piece. On Thursday, students were asked to have at least the rough draft completed for Friday. Since I ended up having to be absent on Friday, however, completed drafts were not checked until today.

*Click here to download the REVISING CHECKLIST for “trust” piece.

*The FINAL DRAFT of this piece is DUE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12. Remember, the maximum length for this piece is 1000 words.

Today we continued working on a written response to this prompt:

Write about an occasion in which you needed to put your “trust” in something or someone.

For this piece, students will be assessed on IDEAS and STYLE only. In class today, we discussed how to write with VOICE (which is a huge part of STYLE):

♥Write honestly and from the heart;
♥Share personal feelings about the topic;
♥Speak directly to the reader;
♥Use language that can bring the topic to life for the reader;
♥Care about what is written;
♥Write to be read;
♥Use more expression than that found in an encyclopedia article;
♥Give the reader a sense of the person behind the words;
♥Connect with the reader.

Remember: Your VOICE is the HEART of the piece!

This week’s DGP sentence is a quote from Frank Crane:

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.”

In addition to labelling the parts of speech in this sentence, we also discussed what we thought Crane meant by this statement.  We explored the concept of trust using the definition and images in this PowerPoint presentation.

In our journals, students created two lists answering these two questions:  WHO do you trust? and WHAT do you trust?

After sharing from our lists, students began drafting a response to the following prompt:

Write about an occasion in which you needed to put your “trust” in something or someone. Tell the whole story.

Through this piece of writing, we will be focusing on the domains of IDEAS and STYLE.  In addition, some of the pieces may be selected for entry into the Leslie Walker Writers of Promise contest sponsored by the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project.  (Ms. Smith is a 1997 fellow of the KMWP.)

Today was our first DEAR Friday.  In many schools, DEAR is an acronym that stands for “Drop Everything And Read.”  I have committed to designating at least every other Friday for the remainder of the school year as a DEAR Friday in order to help students reach their independent reading goals.  On DEAR Fridays, students may do one or more of the following:

~read in a book they have chosen for independent reading;
~work on their evidence of reading for a book they are currently reading (or have finished reading); and/or
~visit the media center to turn in, check out, or renew a book.

Independent reading evidence can be turned in…
…ANY day during homeroom;
…ANY day at the VERY BEGINNING of langauge arts;
…DEAR Fridays, any time during the class period.

The last day to submit evidence of independent reading for the 3rd nine weeks will be Monday, March 8th.

Don’t forget our “Questions of the Day”– an easy way to review for the CRCT and earn Maverick Money!

After reviewing and discussing the judges’ ratings and commentary for the 5 sample essays we’ve been examining this week, it was time for students to demonstrate their understanding of the four domains of the Georgia Writing Assessment. In class today, students individually rated and gave commentary for a new sample essay. If you were absent today, here are the directions for the graded assignment:

1) Read and rate the sample essay. Use your own sheet of notebook paper to write your RATINGS (1 – 5) and COMMENTS supporting your ratings.
2) USE THE RUBRICS!!!
3) This will be a graded assignment, and I will be reading all ratings and supporting comments.

Set up your paper like this:

Ideas: ____
(comments)

Organization: ____
(comments)

Style: ____
(comments)

Conventions: ____
(comments)

Download a copy of the rubrics HERE.

Download a copy of the sample essay HERE.

This week, we have worked together in groups to discuss and rate five student essays responding to the following prompt:

Writing Situation
Your class has been given the opportunity to design a brand new television show for children. It could be a news show, a talk show, a game show, a cartoon, or any kind of show you want for children.

Directions for Writing
Write a report to be read to your class in which you explain your idea for the new children’s television show. Be sure to include specific details so that your classmates will understand what the new show will be like.

After rating the essays both individually and as a group, students were then able to see what the official raters had scored each essay and read the comments justifying their ratings. The discussions have been *very* interesting!

To see the sample essays and view the raters’ scores and comments, click HERE to view the PowerPoint.

p.s. Remember– if you have trouble viewing a file from home, follow the suggestions found under the tab– “Trouble Viewing Files? Click Here!”

In addition to working on this week’s DGP and finishing the essay rating activity from last Friday, students had the opportunity to view a video previewing some of the titles available at the Scholastic Book Fair at McClure this week. We heard book talks for the books listed below:

The Big Field by Mike Lupica

Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez

The Princess Plot by Kristen Roie

I So Don’t Do Mysteries by Barrie Summy

Lone Wolf (Wolves of the Beyond, book 1) by Kathryn Lasky

Ruined: A Ghost Story by Paula Morris

Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor

The Chronicles of Vladmir Tod #3: Tenth Grade Bleeds by Heather Brewer

Today after turning in all work related to the Current Issues Project, students began a simulation of the Georgia Writing Assessment. Students will finish the practice writing assessment tomorrow in class. 

“Georgia’s performance-based writing assessments are administered to students in grades three, five, eight, and eleven. Student writing samples are evaluated on an analytic scoring system in all grades to provide diagnostic feedback to teachers, students, and parents about individual performance. The writing assessments provide information to students about their writing performance and areas of strength and challenge. This information is useful for instruction and preparation for future writing assessments” (Georgia Department of Education).

To view last year’s topics for the 8th grade Writing Assessment, as well as sample papers and the raters’ comments and scores for those papers, click HERE.

“Writing is easy:  All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” 
~Gene Fowler

Today we traded revised drafts and did some proofreading for one another, focusing on those pesky pcits (pcit = parenthetical citation). Click HERE to download the PowerPoint we used to practice finding common errors with parenthetical citations.  Click HERE for a good resource to help with parenthetical citations.

IMPORTANT:  If you received a zero because you did not have your revised draft in class today, you can email Ms. Smith your revised draft by Sunday evening to earn partial credit.  If you wait until Tuesday 1/19 to show Ms. Smith your revised draft, you will only be eligible for 50% credit.

The final draft of your persuasive piece and your works cited page are DUE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20.