Friday, August 30, 2013

Friday, August 30, 2013

1.  If you haven't yet, hand in your disclosure signatures sheet with the VIP sheet on the back filled out.  
     All disclosures are due by the end of this week. 

You will have a substitute teacher, since I will be recovering from knee surgery.


2. A Bevy of Prompts 
  • Today you are going to experience a variety of prompts.    
  • The substitute will give you five to ten minutes to work on each.  
  • You may complete the prompts in any order.
  • Write each new prompt on the next page of your notebook.  
  • Do as much as you can in the time allotted for each, then be willing to move on to the next one.  
  • The substitute will give you instructions about how you will share each piece of writing. 


__________________________________
A Bevy of Prompts:

April 3 -- Prompt 1

 April 3 -- Prompt 2

Sharing
Before you share, tell the people you are sharing with which prompt you are responding to.
1:  Use your appointment clocks and pair share.  -- Use your two o'clock appointment.
     If you do not have an appointment, find someone else who does not until everyone is paired.  If you are still left over, join a group of three. 

2:  Get together with your six o'clock appointment, then find another pair of students to join.  
If you do not have an appointment, find someone else who does not until everyone is paired.  If you are still left over, join a group of three. 

3.  Three volunteers will share what they have written.

4.   Use your appointment clocks and pair share.  -- Use your eight  o'clock appointment.
     If you do not have an appointment, find someone else who does not until everyone is paired.  If you are still left over, join a group of three. 

5.  The teacher will draw names for three students who will share. 

6.  Get together with your twelve o'clock  appointment, then find another pair of students to join.  
If you do not have an appointment, find someone else who does not until everyone is paired.  If you are still left over, join a group of three. 

7.  The teacher will draw names for three students who will share. 

8.  Three volunteers will share what they have written.


The Railway Children


The Railway Children

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like a lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.

We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,

Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.
Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
Mr. Heaney died August 30, 2013.

In 2008, Heaney told All Thing Considered that "I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Every now and again, you write a poem that gives you self-respect and steadies your going a little bit farther out in the stream. At the same time, you have to conjure the next stepping stone because the stream, we hope, keeps flowing."


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

1.  If you haven't yet, hand in your disclosure signatures sheet with the VIP sheet on the back filled out.  
     All disclosures are due by the end of this week. 

2.  Prompt:  Write about one of these photos.  



3.  Me-Bags

4.  More on Writing Bad Fiction 
See the examples "The Redwoods" and "Mouse Alert." http://cavemanenglish.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/52271632/D20387-01TraitsLessonsIdeas.pdf

5. a. Write a brief piece of "bad" fiction or nonfiction (memoir).  Select a subject that you could make better. 
5. b.  Now, make it better! 

   


Young Writers


http://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/community/novel-trends/year-old-pens-another-novel/article_87a502f8-0c14-11e3-9663-001a4bcf887a.html

Monday, August 26, 2013

One Word Story




http://www.reading.org/general/Publications/blog/engage/engage-single-post/engage/2013/10/15/moo-moo-moo-writing-a-single-word-story#.Ul3lw5S9Xa1

Monday, August 26, 2014



  • Pick up your composition book, or pull it out of your backpack. 
  • Make sure you have your name and class period on the cover of your composition book.



1. Picture Prompt:  In your composition book or on a half-sheet of lined paper, write a response to the video  projected on the screen.  You could write a description, a commentary, a poem, a brief story, or whatever you're moved to write based on that picture.  Your response should be about a half-page or so long.  Give it a title and today's date.  
You could write about National Parks, camping, travel, the music you're hearing,  the beauty or value of nature --  anything you see or hear or feel as you watch. 


2. Capitalization lesson


3.  Me-Bags

4.  What makes a Bad Story?


5.  (if time)  Writing Your Own Stories 
Did not do #5

Bad Beginnings

Did share the last two bad beginnings.