Week of Sept. 24, 2012

We will be continuing with our narrative writing.  Rough drafts are due on Tue.  Make sure you have at least 5 paragraphs (advanced students should have more than 5).  On Tuesday we will do peer reviews and begin revising out narratives in class.  It's always good to try to make our writing better.  On Wednesday we will finish revising and then peer edit which finally leaves us to publish on Thursday.  You will be able to type your narrative in the computer lab during class on Thursday.
You should be close to finishing your "reading contract" book, so you are in good shape to work on the Book Talk assignment which will be handed out on Friday.  Book talks will take place Wed and Thur, Oct 10-11. 

**Work on revising your narrative for homework on Tuesday.  You will have about 20 minutes to revise in class on Wednesday before peer editing.

Due Dates:

Prepositional Phrases Practice-  due Tue
Rough Draft- Tue

Rough, Revised and Final Draft- due Fri 
Reading Memo #4- due Fri

Week of Sept. 17, 2012

Narrative writing will begin this week.  On Monday we will look at the narrative rubric and read a student sample.  We will plan our essay on Tuesday and begin writing on Wednesday.  All writing is meant to be done in class!  Just come each day ready to write!
 Don't forget to read your "RC" book; you should be well into it.

Assignments:
Narrative Plan- Wed.
Reading Memo #3- Fri.

Week of Sept. 10, 2012

We will finish reading "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" on Monday and take a test (on vocab words and the story) on Tues.  The rest of the week will be focused on writing a personal narrative.  Our first step is to figure out what to write about!  We will work on the pre-writing process and also do some show-don't tell writing to get us warmed up for writing our narratives. 

Due Dates:
"Caged Bird" packet- Tue
Reading Memo #2- Fri
Bring your "RC" book on Tue.
Your life map is due on Fri, and you will have 15 min to finish it in class.  If you think you will need more time, consider it HW.

Prepositional Phrases HW (10 sentences)- Mon.

Week of Sept 4, 2012

This week we will read another memoir- "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou.   All reading will be done in class.  We will discuss Angelou's  use of figurative language and sensory details in the memoir, study vocab and root words found in the memoir and work in groups to analyze some passages.
Students, you should be reading your "reading contract' book and don't forget reading memo #1 is due on Friday.  If you need help, come see me after school!

Assignments:

Reading Memo #1- due Fri.  (example/practice memo was done in class on Tue.)
Vocab Packet- due- Mon.