February 26

Vocab quiz 4 is completed. We will only have one or two more units left for vocabulary in the semester.

Exemplification essay - the first draft - is due for Monday's class and peer review.

We almost finished our grammar review -- the active/passive and parts of speech sections will be for Monday's class. In addition, complete the practice quest to further prepare for the actual quest next Tuesday/Wednesday.

February 24

After a competitive turn reviewing vocabulary on the buzzers -- don't worry, they will be back when we finish all of our vocabulary in a few weeks -- we spent quality time peer and teacher reviewing your exemplification paragraphs on the sybaritic lifestyle. If absent, you will need to share your exemplification with  me for feedback.

Next, the official assignment for the exemplification essay. I do have hard and digital copies of this assignment available upon request. The first draft will be reviewed on Leap Day! The final draft deadline is Friday, March 4, at 3:30 p.m.

Last, a grammar review handout for Friday's class. This is available in hard and digital copies upon request.

Sybaritic Exemplification

After finishing up our new vocab words, we spent the hour practicing the steps of exemplification.
1. Set up a Google document in which you can later share your work.
2. Brainstorm a list of all people, items, symbols, places associated with a sybaritic lifestyle.
3. Write a thesis statement in which you define/explain a sybaritic lifestyle.
4. Highlight/asterisk 3 examples from your brainstorm that you will use for your writings.
5. Order the examples 1, 2, 3.
6. You will then construct a body-like paragraph for each example. For each paragraph, you will need to incorporate one example of citable evidence from either a database, website, or the like.

We will use these paragraphs to peer edit tomorrow.

Evil

Due to the blood drive, we had a few absences today. Hence, I decided to save some of the work for Friday.

What did we do? First up, we had a verbal vocabulary quiz over units 3/4. Then, we copied down the next 10 words (the remainder of unit 4 and the first two words of unit 5). Second up, we began our class exemplification regarding evil. Using a common thesis (Evil actions reflect a lack of morality), each student constructed an exemplification paragraph on a specific example of evil. If you were absent, you will need to choose a person/group/idea of evil and construct a body paragraph exemplifying this evil. Classmates have already chosen Kim Jong Il, Hitler, Lucifer, Joker, Stalin, Rumpelstiltskin, Osama Bin Laden, and the Illuminati.

After vocab and exemplification analysis, we will work with prepositional rules and common errors in writing.

Prepositioning to Evil

To start class, we reviewed our vocabulary words in anticipation of the verbal quiz tomorrow. Then, the fun began: prepositional phrase short stories! In order to raise our awareness of prepositional phrases, you created and constructed short stories composed of prepositional phrases. Sound easy? It would be if you could use verbs! To finish class, we brainstormed anything and everything associated with evil -- our topic for our class exemplification tomorrow!

Narrative Peer Edit Day

In order to have peer feedback and mechanical review, we divided into three groups today and read each aloud in order for you and your partners to assist in the revision process. The final draft of the narrative essay will have a deadline on Wednesday at 2:45 p.m.

Narrative Samples

After vocab quiz 17 -- it's over and time for unit 18 tomorrow -- we read a couple of narrative samples from my previous classes. Overall, the narratives focused on a precise theme, provided memorable imagery, utilized literary elements, and left the reader with a clear understanding of the narrator. To wrap up today's agenda, you were assigned the narrative assessment, which involves your pick for the prompt. For Wednesday's class, you will write a working introduction to start your narrative. The first draft will be due Friday, and class will involve peer editing.

Warming Up on a Winter Day

After determining that hyphen usage regarding adjectives may be arbitrarily assigned (thank you multiple grammar books, theorists, and my own ethos), we continued forward with our narrative warm-ups. For tomorrow, have an idea which narrative path you will be forging: a game narrative, a future narrative, or a prompt for an application/scholarship essay.

Meanwhile, we will review vocabulary and maybe have a partner quiz this time around. I will finish the last narrative chat with D. You will find out more about the particulars for the narrative assessment. And, we will talk clauses and dip our toes into the punctuation pool.

Only Daughter Pronouns

Today was focused on the narrative sampling "Only Daughter" and theme, time, character, dialogue, and imagery. After gaining a little participation points, we moved onto pronouns and reviewed subjective/objective differentiation including who/whom and the lack of apostrophes in possessive pronouns.

Second Month of the 2016

The time is moving fast on this school year. As a result, we are diving into our second mode of discourse: narrative writing. After sharing dialogue and guessing age and gender of your characters, we completed a mini vocab quiz and copied down the next 10 words. For the last part of class, we read "Coming to an Awareness of Language" by Malcolm X and identified the key components of narrative: theme, time, character, dialogue, and imagery.