Monthly Archives: May 2016

May 25, 2016

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Learning Goal
I am learning to
Select an appropriate media text to communicate my ideas;
Produce a media text for a specific audience and purpose;
Create a plan to act on my self-assessment of my media creation skills.

Read and track your thinking (journal, post-it notes)

Review Media Text Rubric once again. Use this to guide your work.

Once your build is finished, you will need to share it out. One way to do this is to create a screencast video.  (See examples here). In your video, make sure to include the following:

  1. Your name, grade and class
  2. Explanation of what your built
  3. Explanation of how your build connects to your vision of reconciliation
  4. A tour of your build

If you have finished this, you need to work on finishing up your literary theme analysis on your novel.

Before you hand in your polished work, make sure that you have had a chance to peer edit. 

Peer Editing sheet for literary analysis or ask me for one. 

Remember to check and update the tracking sheet.

May 24, 2016

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Learning Goal
I am learning to
Identify the elements of a variety of texts
Use evidence to support my ideas;
Apply reading strategies so we can make meaning from a text;
Read different forms of texts.

We will start with reviewing ways to read effectively and then we will do our reading routine. 

Next, you will use the same process with your novels as we used with the short story last week to think about theme.

  1. Identify a topic that the story discussed;
  2. Frame your theme statement using the phrase “The author believes that…” to explain what the author is saying about your topic;
  3. Remove “The author believes that” and you have a theme statement;
  4. Ensure that the theme statement is generalized;
  5. Find evidence in the text that supports your statement;
  6. Write a literary analysis using the structure below.

LITERARY ANALYSIS WRITING STRUCTURE

Topic Sentence
Introduce evidence
Evidence = quote/paraphrase from the story
Comment = your thinking/explanation
Comment
Transition to Introduce 2nd piece of evidence
Evidence = quote/paraphrase from the story
Comment = your thinking/explanation
Comment
Close

Submit your draft to me via the Assignment Submission Page found on this blog.

Tomorrow, we will be sharing our builds to our public gallery. Please be prepared to do this. We have one day. 

Thursday, we will be preparing for our last #craftreconciliation hangout. 

May 20, 2016

Friday, May 20, 2016

Learning Goal
I am learning to
Identify the elements of a variety of texts
Use evidence to support my ideas;
Apply reading strategies so we can make meaning from a text;
Organize our ideas in writing using a variety of strategies.

Today, we will review how to write a literary analysis paragraph. I hope you are seeing the connection between how you write using your research and how you write to include evidence from a literary text. In both cases, we can use this template:

Screen Shot 2016-05-20 at 4.54.21 AM

Review the model here or on the whiteboard in the classroom. Create your own model by mimicking the models we generate in class. If you practice using this template, you will become confident in your writing, and then you will begin to develop your own style and begin to change how you use this template.

Screen Shot 2016-05-20 at 5.16.02 AM

And here is the model we created on writing a research report body paragraph:Body paragraph annotated

And we began using this template when we first wrote about our literature circle novels: 

Screen Shot 2016-05-20 at 5.23.37 AM

 

May 18, 2016

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Learning Goal
I am learning to
Identify the elements of a variety of texts
Use evidence to support my ideas;
Apply reading strategies so we can make meaning from a text;
Read different forms of texts.

We will start with our reading routines. 

Then I will share some feedback with you on yesterday’s theme lesson and we will practice one more time using the topic of “car and relationships”.

  1. Identify a topic that the story discussed;
  2. Frame your theme statement using the phrase “The author believes that…” to explain what the author is saying about your topic;
  3. Remove “The author believes that” and you have a theme statement;
  4. Ensure that the theme statement is generalized;
  5. Find evidence in the text that supports your statement;
  6. Pass your theme statement page to the person next to you;
  7. Add one piece of different evidence;
  8. Repeat the process until 3 other people have contributed to your theme page.

Then, we will write about our reading: “Powder”