Monday
Enter the Twilight Zone. One technique writers use to create rhythm in their writing is to use repetition. We’ve talked about literal repetition in writing poetry. Now it’s time to learn about grammatical repetition or parallel structure. Rod Sterling (who created The Twilight Zone) is a master of parallel structure. We will study examples. Then you will write your own “Zone” writing. Today choose a school appropriate topic to write about. Then brainstorm words and phrases that describe that topic.
HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes–memoir first. Choose five words for Weekly Word Study.
Tuesday
Twilight Zone, continued: Take the words and phrases you came up with yesterday. Use them to fill in the blanks of the introduction to the Twilight Zone. Once your rough draft has been approved by me, you can type your zone. Fit it onto one page, but use as large as type as you can. Feel free to add a picture behind it, too.
HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes
Wednesday
We will finish up your Twilight Zone writings. If you are done, bring your book to read. We will go to the Scholastic Book Fair the second half of class. Bring your money and support our school library. Of course, you can always buy your favorite 8th grade Language Arts teacher a book for Christmas!
Homework: Read 30 minutes. Word Study due tomorrow.
Thursday
The Veteran’s Day program is this morning at 9:00 am. The remainder of my classes will have a reading day. Bring the novel you are reading to complete your project and READ!
HOMEWORK: Word Study due today. Three-five pages of writing due today! Read 30 minutes. Get your reading log signed.
Friday
Give me and your classmates a reading update on your novel. You’ve had it over a week now and should be halfway through. Begin with a short summary of what you have read so far. Then ask 2-4 questions. End with a response that gives your thoughts about what you are reading. Click here for an example. Who is the story about? What do you think of this character? Why? When and were does the story take place? How does the setting influence the story? What are the main problems the character faces? How are they dealing with it so far? What do you think will happen next? Post your thoughts on what you are reading in a new blog post on your blog. The title of the post should be the title and author of the book you are reading.
HOMEWORK: Reading Log due TODAY. Read over the weekend.
1. What books have you read this year? List titles and authors.
You can find the books I’ve read this school year in earlier blog posts. Most of the August books were read after school started since I was on a mission trip the first week of August and didn’t take any book but my Bible. I read a few more books in September and October. I’ve read 85 books since January. Since August, I’ve completed 22 books.
2. Which book has been your favorite? Why?
It is way too hard to choose just one. Here are my favorites for October: Incarceron and Things Hoped For and Twenty Boy Summer left me with the most questions to ponder. Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was just good fun. I fell in love with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, even though I haven’t succeeded in getting my students to read it.
3. How many hours have you read so far this year?
I have read 60 hours and 25 minutes so far this year. That number is probably a little low because I don’t count much of my online reading. I follow several book and author blogs. Of course, that total doesn’t include any of your writing that I’ve read this year.
4. When and how do you make time to read during each week?
Believe me, I know about busy schedules. In addition to teaching (for some reason, I can’t spend all day reading novels) and grading papers and planning lessons, I have to maintain our home–laundry, dinner, dishes, cleaning, repairs, etc. I also volunteer as the youth leader at my church, with Reins to Recovery (a therapeutic riding center), and at a montly soup kitchen. Oh yeah, I also put miles on the car chauferring my daughter around. BUT I make time to read. I often read at breakfast since we all eat at different times in the morning. I keep a book handy to read when I have to wait somewhere. I keep a stack of books I want to read piled on my desk so I don’t spend time wondering what to read next.
5. What have you learned about yourself as a reader (are there new authors and genres you discovered, is reading harder or easier than you thought, have your attitudes changed)?
The Centurians of 2010 has been a great challenge for me–to read 100 books in one year. I usually don’t read that number of books. I’ve been proud of the variety of books I’ve read, too. Some have been popular adult books, not just young adult. I’ve even enjoyed some nonfiction. I’ve been slow to enjoy nonfiction, but it’s not all bad. Well written nonfiction can be just as entertaining as good fiction.
6. What goals would you like to set for yourself as a reader?
I definitely want to continue and meet the challenge of 100 books. I have just 15 to go. I suspect November will be a slower month since I’m reading lots of memoirs, but Christmas vacation is coming!
Jack is back, and he is in Miss Stretchberry’s room for another year of poems and more. Jack still misses his dog Sky, but now there is a mean, fat cat to torment him as he waits for his bus in the morning. Unfortunately or not, Miss Stretchberry loves cats and even has a cat with kittens. While Jack comes to terms with cats and kittens, he argues about what is real poetry with his uncle Bill, who says real poems must “rhyme/ and have regular meter/ and SYMBOLS and METAPHORS” (Creech 6-7). As always, Jack knows more than he tells at first.
I tore through this book way too fast, eager to find out what secrets Jack would reveal. I now want to go back a savor it. Sharon Creech has packed this volume with more poetry from William Carlos Williams and Walter Dean Myers and Edgar Allen Poe and TS Eliot and Valerie Worth. Jack asks–and learns to answer for himself–what makes a poem.
76) A Dickens of a Cat and Other Stories of the Cats We Love ed. by Callie Smith Grant – I miss having a cat 🙁
77) Incarceron by Catherine Fisher – definitely surpassed the billing. I’m still thinking about the questions it raises.
78) Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith – I found the combination of grand biography (complete with footnotes and photographs) to be funny.
79) Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler – a beautiful, haunting story of grief and learning to love and live again
80) Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney – an underlying fear lies underneath everything until it is resolved in a fast moving climax. Cooney expores blood diamonds, immigration, and faith in this slim book.
81) The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly – ooh…I want Calpurnia to become a scientist
82) Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz – the Silverbloods are finally revealed
83) Things Hoped For by Andrew Clements – rather than focusing on the phenomena of turning invisilbe, Clements turns to other things that are not seen as the focus of this sequel–things such as music, family, faith, and friendship.
84) Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech – Jack is back in Miss Stretchberry’s room with more poetry and more secrets to reveal.
85) Outlive Your Life by Max Lucado – a very readable call to action.
My favorites this month? So hard to choose–Incarceron and Things Hoped For and Twenty Boy Summer left me with the most questions to ponder. Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was just good fun. I fell in love with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, even though I haven’t succeeded in getting my students to read it.
Monday
We have the computers back! Now is the time to add your revisions from last week to your draft. Remember, you don’t have to recopy–just add the new stuff you’ve written to your draft.
HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes–memoir first. Choose five words for Weekly Word Study.
Tuesday
If you have not done so, complete your second peer conference for your memoir. What do you want help with? Digging for details? Adding thoughts and feelings? Editing for conventions?
HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes
Wednesday
Edit and turn in your memoir. Add this convention to your Proofreading List: Watch out for too long or too short paragraphs. You have until the end of library tomorrow to turn in your memoir. Remember, the library computers do not cooperate with logging in to your accounts!
Homework: Read 30 minutes
Thursday
Library. After we finish your partner quizzes and check your Weekly Word Study, you should find a book and READ!
HOMEWORK: Word Study due today. Three-five pages of writing due today! Read 30 minutes. Get your reading log signed.
Friday
Blog Post: Reflect on what you have accomplished as a reader so far this year. Copy the following question into a new blog post on your blog. Give thoughtful answers in complete sentences.
1. What books have you read this year? List titles and authors.
2. Which book has been your favorite? Why?
3. How many hours have you read so far this year?
4. When and how do you make time to read during each week?
5. What have you learned about yourself as a reader (are there new authors and genres you discovered, is reading harder or easier than you thought, have your attitudes changed)?
6. What goals would you like to set for yourself as a reader?
HOMEWORK: Reading Log due TODAY. Read over the weekend.
Halloween is the perfect excuse for reading a spooky book. Neil Gaiman suggests that Halloween should be an excuse for giving a spooky book. Stephen King and various other writers and readers have jumped on board, too. Now there is a new website to promote and support this new tradition: All Hallow’s Read. Check it out. What scary book would you give away? Who would you give it to? (HINT: That section of my bookshelf is pretty skimpy. I’ll take them for our classroom library!)
I have some recommendation for spooky reading to give you. I have to confess, I don’t do much horror, so you won’t find many recommendations for Stephen King, Dean Koontz (the few books of theirs that students have talked me into reading gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards), RL Stine or Christopher Pike (just gross). But here are some of my favorites:
Mary Downing Hahn writes excellent ghost stories. The Old Willis Place (a Young Hoosier/Survivor book a few years ago) follows Diana and Georgie, who finally get up the nerve to break the rules that have bound them and confront an angry violent ghost who haunts them from their past. She has many other popular ghost stories, too.
Elaine Marie Alphin started with books that combined ghosts and history. Ghost Soldier and Ghost Cadet both explore the stories of Civil War soldiers killed in battle. It is her contemporary suspense books, though, that really scared the socks off me. In Counterfeit Son, Cameron believes he is the son of a serial killer. Can he pull off posing as one of the victims to get a new life?
Would you want to grow up in a graveyard, raised by the ghosts who live there? That is what happens to Bod in The Graveyard Book. He escapes the murderer who kills the rest of his family by running into the cemetery. The ghosts protect him until he has to confront his past. Besides, this book has one of the best opening lines I’ve ever read: “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.” Neil Gaiman is also the author of the spooky Coraline, which I haven’t had the pleasure of reading yet.
For more Halloween fun, head over to Write-Brained for hauntingly good quotes, thought-provoking choices, and inventive pumpkin carvings.
What are your favorite spooky/scary books?
Andrew Clements writes a compelling follow up novel to the thought-provoking Things Not Seen. In Things Hoped For, Gwen is living with her grandfather in New York City as she studies violin. The week before her auditions to the top music schools in Manhattan, her grandfather disappears, leaving only a mysterious message on the answering machine. He instructs Gwen not to worry and not to let anyone know he’s gone. Gwen does not need more stress as she prepares for auditions, but she cannot keep the outside world from pressing in. She meets Robert, another student in town for auditions. Her great-uncle Hank keeps coming around, demanding to speak with her grandfather. There is a mysterious shopper, William, follows Gwen and Robert. Finally, Gwen discovers something in the basement freezer that brings the NYPD crashing into the once quiet house.
This is a remarkable story about the importance of things that cannot be seen–music, family, friendship, and faith. Through it all, Gwen learns that her story is not as simple as she would like to think and that she is stronger and braver than she ever realized.
Now I’m waiting for the book order to come in to find out what happens in Things that Are.
Here’s the slide show for sentence endings we did in class today:
Sentence Endings slide show
Here’s my Backing Up memoir without paragraphs.
Backing Up no paragraphs
Read through it. Where would you make a new paragraph? How do you decide where to start a new parapgraph?
I have two essay contests with deadlines fast approaching! If you have your memoir in good shape (you know who you are), you can choose to write the essays during class for pages of writing. If you work quickly, you can even turn them in for editing by me.
The first contest is sponsored by our very own Student Council in conjunction with our upcoming Veteran’s Day program. If you missed the announcements during homeroom, here it is again:
Topic: I want to say thank you to a Veteran because…
Length: less than 500 words–all written by you, one of our 7th or 8th graders
Must be typed or written neatly. Use correct grammar and punctuaction.
Turn in to Mrs. Lubker in room 144 by 3:05 on Friday, October 29.
The winner will read their essay at the Veteran’s Day program and win $50.
If you are still feeling patriotic, you can also enter the Patriot’s Pen contest sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Theme: The topic this year is Does patriotism still matter?
Length: Less than 300 words
Deadline: Turn in to Mrs. McGriff by Friday, October 29 so I can get them in the mail.
Check out the flyer on the back bulletin board for more information.
A couple of years ago, Mrs. Coquerille gave me a very unique hat. Here it is:
How would you describe this hat? Here are some of the words you came up with in the first round: weird, wacky, ugly, vibrant, colorful, orange and red and green, scary, red fins, green dots, flashy, polka dotted, childish, fishy, black dot on front, dog face, big eyes, unique, tacky.
It’s starting to wake up, but it’s not quite there yet. Look at the hat again. What do you really see? How would you describe the colors? What kind of hat is it? What do the fins and tail look like? What do the eyes remind you of? Dig deep to bring out those details that bring this hat to life.
Here are some of those details: two bulgy eyes as big as golf balls, googly eyes, banana yellow with grass green polka dots, a red horn sticks out in front like a giant pimple, red fins flap out the sides like ears or like rocket flaps, black lines edge the bill, crimson horn, deer in the head lights look, red drug free sticker on front, fire truck red floppy tail sticks out by velcro straps in back, black mouth open like about to eat a hot dog, thin, flaky fins.
Now that you have dug for details, describe a character–me–walking into a room wearing this hat. Leave your best description in the comments. Now go and dig for details in your memoirs.
