Romano’s Recipe for Reading and Writing

In yesterday’s shortened class we focused on literature circles.  Using the Reader’s Journey books, students were presented with Discussion Guidelines for their literature circles.  These guidelines include: listening, building on what others in their group say, questioning, and referring to their reader’s response journals.  Students were also assigned their fourth anchor novel readings. 

Homework:

• Descriptive Essay due Monday, October 5th
• Anchor Book Reading #4 due Monday, October 5th
• Reader Response Letter# 3 due Monday, October 5th

The marking period ends on October 9th.  Please encourage students to put forth their best effort over the next week.

Due to the Olympic Schedule, today’s class was only 60 minutes.  As a result, we did not get to spend any time working on our Narrative Writing Assignments.  Students were given time in class last Friday and were told to have three of their five paragraphs written for today’s class.  For next class, I would like them to have all five paragraphs drafted.  Students should pay close attention to using a strong lead, dialogue, and sensory language.  All of these have been discussed in class. 

We also analyzed a personal memoir from Dav Pilkey, author of The Captain Underpants Series.     For this, students had to mark the text using symbols discussed in class. 

Homework:

Read for 20 minutes

Rough draft of Personal Narrative due Friday

Happy Friday!  Today in class we began reading The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton.  This will serve as an anchor book for our first unit of study.  We will be reading this book together in class.  Today in class we read chapter 1.  Students took notes after we finished reading.  They will use these notes for upcoming quizzes on the novel.  In addition, they were given their first two vocabulary words from the novel.  There will be a test on these words as well. 

After our reading workshop, students continued working on their personal narratives.  At this point, their leads should be done, and they should be working on the body of the assignment.  Remind them to use sensory details so the readers feels like he/she is part of their story. 

Homework:

None

Vocabulary Words from The House of Dies Drear

desolation – loneliness

nestled – snuggled

After spending our last class discussing the six traits of writing,  reading a sample personal narrative, brainstorming memorable moments in our lives, today students focused on narrative leads.  Students were given three examples of how to start their narratives by engaging the reader.  Use of strong avtion verbs, dialogue or reaction was suggested.  Students received a hand out on these various techniques.  Then, they began working on their own leads for their narrative. 

Homework:

•   Lead paragraph for Personal Narrative due Friday

After starting the class with a writing warm up connecting our Essential Question with our anchor book, we proceeded to review students’ responses to the literary analysis of “The Amigo Brothers.”  For the remainder of the class, our focus was nouns.  In class we differentiated between common and proper nous as well as abstract and concrete. 

Homework:

• Type or neatly write a poem using the noun worksheet handed out in class.  (See below for example)
• 2nd Reader Response Letter due Thursday
• Anchor book reading #3 due Monday

Sample Poem:

Chrissy Romano (Proper Noun)

mommy (Common Noun)

calendar, cell phone, car (3 concrete nouns)

friendship, love, and encouragement (3 abstract nouns)

wife, teacher (2 common nouns)

Chrissy Romano (Proper noun)

Today, students received their grades for their first vocabulary test based on their anchor novels.  Please ask your sons/daughters to see their grade.  Some students were required to have them signed.  Students who did not do well will have the opportunity to do a retest, if they write sentences using all of their vocabulary words.  This is to insure that students have completed some level of preparation for this retest.   

I am pleased to say that almost every student in the class received an A on today’s literature assessment which dealt with recognizing the different elements of plot in a story. 

Homework:

• Reader’s Response Letter due Friday – Reader Response Letter Rubric
• 15-20 sentences to improve vocab test score (this must be done in order to take Friday’s retest. 
• 2nd Anchor book assignment readings due – Quiz Tuesday

What do Maya Angelou and Dav Pilkney have in common?  Both were author’s whose memoirs were studied in today’s reading class.  Our class discussion revolved around non-fiction texts sharing the qualities of character, setting, conflict and plot with pieces of fiction.  Students reviewed external and internal conflicts as well.  In addition, the reading strategy of marking the text while reading was taught.  Students, after reading an excerpt from, IKnow Why the Caged Bird Sings, had to respond to the text by answering four posed questions.  These questions were evaluated, and the grades can be found on Pinnacle. 

Homework:

Study for Friday’s vocabulary test.  Words can be found in my previous post.

Complete Reinforcement Worksheet for Narrative texts