Hopefully I have at least a couple devoted readers, and to you I sincerely apologize for my late post today. After a 14.5 hour day yesterday, complete with a car-deer accident, and 2 (yes 2) trips back home between the end of the school day and the start of the open house, I spent most of today catching up. Additionally, Mr. Cornwell and I left at the start of 6th hour to take Calder to his appointment, which meant my conference hour was spent writing up my sub plans.
In any case, here I am! Since both classes are currently working on the same unit, I figured I would write one post to cover everything. This week students have been reviewing strategies to apply to information and narrative reading, especially in relation to answering questions about the text. We have just recently begun writing in response to these reading selections as well. After brainstorming with each class, we acknowledged the fact that most students do not use quoted evidence in letters or essays they write. We’re working on finding supporting evidence, paraphrasing parts of the reading selection, and finding small portions to quote directly in their writing.
Next week we will be refreshing students’ memories about narrative writing, responding to student work, and perhaps taking a second look at writing in response to reading. To all the parents reading this post, if you could contribute a comment telling me a way in which reading and writing impact the work you do, that would be a great way to share the real-world connection with my students!
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September 16th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Yikes!!! I hope everything is OK with that car-deer accident. That is never a good way to end a week. I can think of a lot of things I would rather do. As far as how reading and writing effect my work. I can tell you how NOT being able to read and write effects my work. I work in an ER where the we ask the patients to write down why they are at the ER to be seen (new HIPPA law, not for those pt’s that are to ill to write). Many, many of the pt’s can not do this simple thing. Sometimes I can figure out what they intended to say, sometimes I have no idea, the spelling or penmanship is that bad (the penmanship problem is not always the patient, sometimes it is the doc also). I will also tell you how it impacts me as a mom trying to write a comment on my daughters English teachers blog. Geez, I have to look up how to spell the words and wonder, “is she looking at this and thinking, yep, that is what was wrong with how they taught English back then”. It is a scary thought. One example is looking up in dictionary.com which effect or affect to use and I’m still not sure I have it right. It takes courage to write to an English teacher, oh sorry, Language Arts teacher, whatever you youngin’s call it now a days
Mary
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September 16th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Ummmm… I just noticed how long my comments were. Maybe too much morning coffee… yikes! Goal for next week, cut down on the coffee.
Mary
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September 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Mary,
Don’t apologize in the least for your lenghty responses! I love it! And I know what you mean about worrying when you’re writing to an “English” person. No that you’re not alone! I feel that way often when I write to and/or speak with colleagues as well. In the classroom I try to tell kids that we can balance the “proper” or “standard” English with the fun, slang words that are entering our everyday vocabulary. Just the other day, we created a new word for our Grammar Sentence – it was “noun-eriffic!”
I really value your feedback and look forward to other parents (and students) getting on board too. I think this could become a really valuable learning space for all participants! Thanks again!
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