Thursday, May 4, 2017

Announcements and Reminders:                            Self-Starter Scribble:  Tell about a time when you enjoyed being out in nature.

Targets for Today: I can write effective description.

Today’s  Agenda: 1. Scribble:  Tell about a time when you enjoyed being out in nature.  2. Describing setting ____________________________________________________ Place descriptions: Surprised By Blue Surprised By Blue The bright fall sun cascaded through pinholes in the familiar canopy of trees. I trotted along stepping in and out of worn tire tracks lined with fiery leaves. My mother followed, camera ready. When we reached the pond's edge,  wind was catching the water and throwing ripples across its surface. But the trees encircling the pond had already shed their fall leaves. Now the leaves lined the edges of the pond with pure brilliance. The photo opportunity was lost. We stood together in silence until something blue perched on a tall bowing branch caught my eye. My mother whistled too soon, trying to catch his attention.   He lifted his head and extended his long neck. Our eyes met. He stared blackly for a split second before spreading his enormous wings and soaring over the pond,  blue against blue.  by Tyler Reny (a student) -- from Nancie Atwell's Lessons That Change Writers_______________________________________ https://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/place-descriptions-its-about-atmosphere-not-a-travel-log/ You may need to look up the names of particular things.  Examples:  It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, arid vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. ~Charles Dickens, Hard Times From a ninth grader:  Moist and salty, a chilly breeze blows in across the swells, bringing with it the pungent smells of seaweed and fish and making me pull my jacket a little closer. Sea spray transforms into fiery prisms as the waves splash against the shore, catch the last golden rays of sun, and toss them up like liquid crystals. --https://writeshop.com/choosing-vocabulary-to-describe-a-place/ Excerpt from Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, notice the writer’s choice of adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.  “It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o'clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist.” Read more at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/descriptive-text-examples.html#452KfAl4V7iJWiS8.99 from Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills" (a song):  "The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly in slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron-foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy streets. Smoke on the wharves, smoke on the dingy boats, on the yellow river--clinging in a coating of greasy soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars, the faces of the passers-by.” Read more at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/descriptive-text-examples.html#452KfAl4V7iJWiS8.99 From  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/24/book-photos_n_4987041.html Look at the descriptions and photos for ---  Coahuila, Mexico All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy The Isle of Skye, Scotland To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf The Yorkshire Moors, England Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Florence, Italy A Room with a View by E.M. Forster 3. Outside Activities: Within a Circle--  See this assignment on Skyward. Place your yarn in a circle around natural things -- dirt, grass, tree, bush, etc. Collect specific words to use. Write an effective, vivid description of what is within your circle. On the next new page in your composition book, describe (1) something far away, (2) something within about 100 feet, (3) something VERY close up. Descriptive words: http://descriptivewords.org/descriptive-words-list-of-adjectives-for-smell/

If You Were Absent: See above.

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Vocabulary:

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