AC Language Arts

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.

Today in class we discussed what we would expect a person to know about a book if he or she had truly read the book: characters (major and minor); setting; plot details; theme or moral; the most exciting parts; whether or not they liked the book; etc. We then applied this to our independent reading evidence, discussing how we should PROVE that we’ve really read the books we say we are reading each nine weeks. After examining examples of acceptable evidence, we journeyed to the media center to sign up for Destiny accounts (we can now renew books from home– cool!) and check out books for independent reading.

In class today, students traded rough drafts and completed an analysis of their partner’s essay. Students who did not have their rough draft in class OR who are new to AC language arts completed the analysis using the sample essay (”The Cat’s Out of the Bag!”).

If you were absent today (Wednesday 1/13/10), you need to download the analysis sheet and sample essay and complete the assignment for a grade: