Today I continued meeting with students one-on-one to discuss their essays.
The students took notes on Complex Sentences. Here are the notes. We also read "My Brother, Martin" (Lesson 2). Then the students answered three comprehension questions using RACE. I reminded them that RACE is similar to writing the Body Paragraph of an essay. I provided an example before the students worked on their own. Questions: 1. What details does the author include to support the idea that Martin was like most kids? The author includes details to support the idea that Martin was like most kids. According to page 52, in "My Brother Martin," the author states that he would dangle fur animals to scare people, and he loosened the legs of the piano bench to trick his teacher. This shows that Martin loved to play pranks on people which is what most kids like to do. 2. Based on what the author says on page 50, do you think the King children were close to one another? 3. What evidence does the author give to show that segregation laws were unfair? (pg. 54) 4. What evidence does the author give to show that there was cruelty and injustice toward black people?
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Today we took a lot of notes and wrote down the definitions for the new words. Hopefully the students wrote everything down.
We discussed Author's Purpose. Author's Purpose is the reason for writing. Author's write to inform (information and facts), persuade (to convince), and entertain (a story, to read for fun). This can be tricky if the story contains more than one author's purpose, and the student has to pick the main one. For example, the movie "Titanic" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet clearly uses inform and entertain. The MAIN author's purpose is to entertain because the focus of the movie was the relationship between the two characters and not on the actual events of the Titanic. Afterwards, we took notes on Prefixes. We learned il-, ir-, im-, and in-. They are Latin and mean "not". The students wrote examples in their binder: illegible, irresponsible, impatient, injustice. Then we took notes on Compound Sentences. The notes can be found here. While the students worked and had opportunities to read and complete Reading Plus, I continued meeting with students one-on-one to work on their essay during Writer's Workshop. Please make sure that you follow the Expository Essay Format. We also talked about AR. The deadline is October 11th, and way too many students still haven't taken a single quiz. I reminded them that it's two quiz grades. They have opportunities to read every day in class, and they are suppose to be reading 20 minutes at home. We will continue Writer's Workshop tomorrow. Today we started our body paragraphs. Together we discussed the format of a body paragraph. It closely resembles RACE (Restate, Answer,Cite, Evidence and Elaboration)
We spent a good chunk of time discussing what is a topic sentence. We wrote a topic sentence in the introduction that tells the reader what the whole essay is about. Writing a topic sentence for a body paragraph tells the reader the focus of that specific paragraph. According to our planning sheet, the first body paragraph talks about the differences. That means that our topic sentence for that paragraph has to tell the reader "Hey! I'm going to talk about the differences here." For example, "Alligators and crocodiles have many differences." Once the students had their topic sentence, they simply had to follow the format that I provided for them yesterday. I provided the students an example of a body paragraph for their essay: "Alligators and crocodiles are as different as night and day. According to Source 1, the author states that alligators lay between 20-50 eggs, while Source 2 mentions that crocodiles lay between 25-80 eggs. That sounds like a lot more crocodiles in the world! The incubation time, which is the amount of time it takes the eggs to hatch, is also different. It takes alligators about 65 days to hatch versus the 90 days for the crocodiles. Once hatched, there is also a significant difference in size! A baby alligator is only 6-8 inches long while the baby crocodile is a whopping 12 inches. That's double in size! Who knew that even these baby reptiles can be so different?" As you can see, I have a topic sentence, I cited my sources and talked about what I found, and then I elaborated on my facts. I keep reminding the students to follow the format. I allow the students to use any and all notes to write their essays. Body paragraphs are typically 6-10 sentences long, and there are at least three of them in the entirety of the essay. The students' responsibility is to write those three body paragraphs by Friday (two paragraphs on differences and one paragraph on similarities). One paragraph should have been completed in class. Today we officially began writing our essay. The writing prompt? "Write an essay explaining the differences and similarities between alligators and crocodiles." Here are the sources and here is the Expository Essay Format and here is the planning we completed together in class.
During centers, I spent my time with the students in small groups to discuss introduction openers. First impressions count. If the introduction doesn't grab the reader's attention, he/she will not be interested in the rest of the essay. One of the easiest forms to grab the reader's attention is by asking a thought-provoking question. A question that requires more than a yes or a no...a question that makes the reader think...a question that makes the reader say, "huh, wow...I never thought of that." The students came up with some good questions for this particular essay: "What is it like to live on land and in water?" "Did you know that some reptiles are closely related to dinosaurs?" "What is it like to have existed for over 200 million years?" "Did you know we still have dinosaurs living with us today?" These questions, and a few others, are so much more interesting than, "Ever wonder what alligators and crocodiles are like?" or "Did you know there are many similarities and differences between alligators and crocodiles?" Anyways, after discussing that first sentence, the students then had to "answer it." This particular answer is mostly to draw the reader's attention to the actual topic of the essay: alligators and crocodiles. It doesn't necessarily have to actually answer the question. For example, "What is it like to be a reptile? They are very interesting creatures, especially alligators and crocodiles." After that, it was simply to write a topic sentence stating what their essay will be about....without saying "I will talk about..." or "Read on to learn more." The topic sentence is simply restating the prompt. For example, "There are many similarities and differences between alligators and crocodiles." The introduction is short. Usually 3-5 sentences. But it's enough to make the reader want to keep reading. An example of a good introduction paragraph is: "Ever wonder what it's like to have lived for over 200 million years? There are reptiles that have lived for that long and are closely related to the dinosaurs. That's impressive! Two of these reptiles are alligators and crocodiles. They are very interesting creatures. While alligators and crocodiles have some similarities to each other, they also have many differences." Short, sweet, and to the point. Doesn't it make you want to continue reading the essay to learn more? Tomorrow, we will write the body paragraphs. The goal is for me to begin one-on-one Writer's Workshop on Friday. I will sit with each student to revise and edit their essay. Wow! It's been an interesting first day back after missing so much due to Hurricane Irma. For the most part, the students did really well getting back into routine. We reviewed the new vocabulary words (the students should already have the definitions from before the hurricane), and we read "Invasion from Mars" (Lesson 6 in the textbook). We reviewed Kinds of Sentences for grammar (notes were also taken before the hurricane), and we also took notes on suffixes -y and -ous. Here are the notes.
We started our first essay today. The writing prompt is "write an essay explaining the similarities and differences between alligators and crocodiles." The students read the sources, and we planned together. I gave each student a sheet protector to make sure they don't lose any sections of their essays. I collect EVERYTHING for several grades. Here are the notes we took for the planning. Tomorrow, the students begin writing their essays using their notes. Interim reports go out on Friday. We made it through Week 2! The pace is going to pick up next week since we will start writing our first essay. This week was full of lots of notes preparing us for what's coming. The students received a rubric to help them understand how their essays will be graded. We also continued practicing Subjects and Predicates, and we worked on story structure and comprehension questions for our current story, "Because of Winn-Dixie" using RACE.
R - restate the question A - answer the question C - cite the source E - explain using evidence and elaborate This is very important to understand and practice because it will be used in the body paragraphs of the essays. The students saw their PreWrites, so they know where they stand. Our goal is to write essays that can score a 7 or higher by March 6th. We can do it! Next week, we are starting a new story, so there will be a new set of vocabulary words to learn. We're also learning about different types of sentences and starting our first essay. Massage those hands and sharpen those pencils! You will need them this week! Everyone should have their username/passwords for Reading Plus and AR. Please let me know if you are missing any of them or if something doesn't work. Next week, I will provide username/password to Think Central so you can access the Journeys textbook. Reading Plus officially starts next week (3 SeeReaders and 3 ReadArounds). You will also receive the AR contract for the first quarter. Enjoy the long weekend! |
Mrs. Wilkie4th grade Reading and Language Arts Teacher. Archives
April 2018
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