Romano’s Recipe for Reading and Writing

This week we have been discussing the power of persuasion through advertisements, editorials, speeches etc. Students had the opportunity to create an advertisement for a product and generate a slogan which would help persuade the consumer to purchase the product.  Uses for the products and slogans were incrporated into the assignment.  We will continue this discussion and work on creating pieces of writing that will attempt to persuade the reader to do something.  I can’t wait to hear and read how the students will appeal to the reader! 

In addition to our daily reading of Stargirl and Touching Spirit Bear, we began working on Masterpiece Sentences in class on Thursday and Friday.  Masterpiece sentences start with students being shown a picture.  the students are then asked to answer two questions: who or what did something and what did they do.  Once they have done this, they are told that they have identified the subject and the predicate of the sentence.  The next step requires that different students answer questions such as how, where, to whom, why etc.  These answers are placed on sticky notes and are then added to the subject and the predicate they have already written.  As a class, we revise the answers to the questions to form a more descriptive sentence.  Thus, students are beginning to show and not tell.  We will use this technique to edit their narratives that were due today. 

Important – Any student who did not submit their narrative by today, must have it on Monday to avoid receiving a 0 for this assignment. 

Today’s class began with the usual Stop, Drop and Copy.  Students are required to write the night’s homework in their agenda and have it signed.  After that, we read chapter 15 in Stargirl.  Students were encouraged to participate in the stand up/sit down which involves students answering questions about the chapter we have just read.  Next, students worked on their narrative writing assignment.  I have conferenced with all of the students about their assignment, and it is imperative that students continue working on their narratives at home.  We finished off the class by reading two chapters of Touching Spirit Bear.  Students were required to answer two questions about the reading for their Exit Ticket. 

Homework – Work on narrative