Middle School Writing

November 19

Next week is our last class before Thanksgiving-Christmas vacation! Now, I know that all of you are excited about NOT having writing homework for SIX weeks, and I’m excited for you!  But, from now until next Tuesday, you have two big assignments to finish:

  1. The final draft of Viking Guy is due. Today I explained the criteria for this paper, and I gave you a handout regarding the rules.  Make sure you follow my guidelines!  If you lost your paper or need an extra, I’ve linked it below.
  2. We’re reciting “Turk and Runt: A Thanksgiving Comedy” next Tuesday, and I’ve invited your moms.  Practice your lines!

Check sheet Viking Guy

November 12

Not only are verbs the action words of a sentence, but they are also important “time keepers.”  Today we reviewed past, present, and future tense; then we learned that there is another tense — one that indicates the “past-of-the-past”.  That one is extremely useful when you’re writing a fiction story!

The “past-of-the-past” tense is called the “past participle” tense.  It ALWAYS has a “have” or “had” with the main verb. Like this:

Bill had swum across the lake before he found his puppy.

Olaf had exercised three days a week before he discovered the weight machine.

Mrs. B’s students had written personal narratives before they learned picture writing.

See?  Cool, yes?  The past participle verb forms allow you to include background to your stories, which is what you’ll do this week.

  1. Write the rought draft of your “Viking Guy on the Beach” picture.
  2. Include backstory with past participle verb forms!
  3. Make sure that the first sentence AND the last sentence of each paragraph state what you see in the picture.
  4. THIS IS A ROUGH DRAFT.  Next week I will ask you to tweak it one more time before you give me the final draft.

We also rehearsed a Reader’s Theater play called “Turk and Runt” and each of you has a part.  This week, please practice your lines:

  1. Read slowly and speak your words clearly.
  2. Show emotion!  Ham it up!  Sometimes we think we’re hamming it up when we’re not…so go overboard.  I promise, if you’re too much of a ham next week, I’ll reign you in.  Ha
  3. Do NOT memorize your lines.  This is “readers” theater — no memorizing.
  4. Have fun.  I’m going to invite your moms on the last day of class.

November 5

Students who were absent today:  I will send you the handouts in a day or two!

It’s time for Picture Writing!  If you’ve done this before – either with me or with Mrs. M – you’ll remember that you can be creative with your story details, but that you still must follow a couple of rules.  Here are the rules:

  1. The first sentence is your topic sentence and must state ONLY what you see in the picture. So, look at the pictures carefully to notice any details which change from picture to picture.  Don’t reveal any details which show up in a later picture.
  2. Use details to make your paragraphs fatter. Think about any background information, a name for your characters, what he/she is doing, what he/she is thinking or feeling, how a character got to this place, etc.
  3. Your last sentence of each paragraph will reflect the topic sentence, but we’re not there yet!

I gave you “Viking Guy on a Beach” for your work this week.  Without beginning your draft yet, write a KWO.

Dress-Up gang please do Exercise 10b on page 62.  Write on your own paper!

Teeter-Totter gang please do Exercise 26d on page 152.  Be creative!  Don’t write the same type of parallel constructions for each of your sentences; instead, try new ideas.

October 29

Today we used a literary device called “personification” to write about a pumpkin.  Your job this week is to turn your sentences into a poem.  See the example poems on the back of your handout.

And please write the final draft of your next personal narrative.  Remember to write in 3rd person POV, include dialogue, setting information, and follow Freytag’s pyramid for your plot, which is a lot to remember.  Plus, I’m expecting no less than two double-spaced pages for this assignment.  You will give me your “interview handout”, your rought draft, AND your final draft.

Dress-Up Group:  Do Exercise 9a.  I know, I know…we worked on this a bit in class today.  That’s fine; you can do it on your own now.  Instead of writing out the sentences this time, I’m going to let you write just the NEW, SPECIFIC adjective for the underlined words in the sentences.  Like this (but don’t steal my words!) —

  1. Nice = Green, Soft = fuzzy.
  2. Large = log, Small = tropical

TT Group:  Do Exercise 26a on page 150.  Just write “yes” or “no” on your paper!

October 22

It’s time for you to interview your adult person again, but this time ask him/her to tell you a story.  Emphasize that the story must have taken place in “one moment of time” — not over a period of time with lots of things happening.  You can even let your person read YOUR narrative so that he/she has a good idea of what you want.

Write the rough draft.  Write in 3rd person POV.  Include dialogue.  Bring me your rough draft next week.

Then, both groups please complete Exercise 2f in your exercise book.  Write answers on your own notebook paper.

October 15

Today we learned about the structure of a fictional story plot using “Freytag’s Pyramid.”  You’ll hear a lot more about Freytag’s Pyramid as you take more English Literature classes; in the meantime, when you read a novel or watch a movie, see if you can pick out the “exposition”, “inciting incident”, “rising action”, “climax”, “falling action”, and “denoument.”

Your next writing assignment is going to be another personal narrative, but this time you will write it using a story from another person’s life.  To get ready for that, I asked you to practice your interviewing skills this week.

  1. Use the handout called Student Interview Practice to ask an adult some questions. You’ll need an ADULT (someone who is at least 18 years old) who you can talk to for about 15 minutes.
  2. Write answers to the questions on the handout.  Do NOT write in complete sentences — you are just taking some notes right now.
  3. Dress-up group, please do Exercise 8c on page 51.  Use your own notebook paper!
  4. TT group, practice with correlative conjunctions again; Exercise 25f on page 147.  These can be confusing!  Be careful to write good English sentences.

October 8

“Good morning, Middle School writers,” remarked Mrs. B.  “Are you ready to learn how to punctuate dialogue?”

“Awwww,” grumbled Ferdinand.  “Dialogue is tricky and I don’t like to use it!”

Mrs. B laughed.  “You know, Ferd,” she teased.  “You’re a smart student.  I bet you’ll pick up on the picky rules very quickly.”

And he did.  Be like Ferdinand.  Add dialogue to your personal narrative and impress your teacher and anybody else who reads your story!

Your homework:

  1. You’ve written a rough draft of a personal narrative. Now, add at least FIVE lines of dialogue (it doesn’t have to be all together, though), and turn your final draft in next week.
  2. Also, give me your rough draft with your final draft!
  3. Dress-up Group, your assignment is Exercise 8b on page 50. Write out the sentences on your own paper, add a who/which clause, remember punctuation, and underline the who/which.
  4. Tetter-Totters group – oh, boy. Correlative conjunctions with cook your noodle if you’re not careful!  Please do Exercise 25d on page 145.  Write out the sentences on your own paper, add the correlative conjunction, and make sure your sentence isn’t a mess when you’re finished!
  5. Lastly, you all did so well writing the rough draft of your business letter that I’m not going to make you write the final draft!  You’re welcome.

October 1

Here’s your homework for this week –

  1. Rewrite your friendly letter, paying attention to the suggestions I wrote on your rough draft. Your final draft must be double-spaced, either typed or written by hand.  Be sure you have someone check your spelling and punctuation before you turn it in!
  2. Using the “Personal Narrative Handout” I gave you today, draft your story. Remember that it must read as a story and have story elements:  characters, setting, plot/problem.
  3. Dress-up group, please do Exercise 7d on page 47. Write the sentences (or type them), making sure that they each begin with a capital letter and end with a period (or exclamation mark, or question mark).  Also, underline the “because” word in each one.
  4. Teeter-totter group, please do exercise 25b on page 142. Write your sentences on your own paper; do NOT write in the book.  Also, obey all spelling and punctuation rules – especially those pesky commas!

 

September 24

We’re writing one more letter this week, and it’s more complicated than the “friendly” letters you’ve written so far.

A “business letter” is also known as a “letter of complaint.”  If you receive bad service at a restaurant, if you order a t-shirt from a local small business and it comes with a hole in the armpit, or if you take your bicycle in for a tune-up and then the front wheel falls of afterwards, you have a complaint. You will appreciate a refund or an exchange from the business, right?

BUT FIRST, realize that rudeness is bad.  “Be kind to one another,” is a commandment we all should take seriously!  Plus, I guarantee you’ll get better service if you write kindly to the business, even if they messed up.

So, today I gave you three possible scenarios of a legitimate complaint.

  1. Choose one.
  2. Write a rough draft of a business letter, following directions on your handout.
  3. Bring it next week.

In addition, here are your style exercises:

For the “dress ups” group, do Exercise 7b on page 45.  Write the sentences on your own paper so that you can turn them in.

For the “teeter totters” group, write good “adverbial teeter-totter” sentences from these examples:

  1. Leatherback sea turtles, ___ and ___, crawl across the Florida beaches ____________________.
  2. All the Olympic gymnasts, ___ and ___ performed their routines ______________.
  3. Martin ___ and ___ smashed the tarantula as it _______________________.
  4. Our dragon ____ and ____ fired his breath at the __________________________________.
  5. The ancient clothes dryer, ___ and ___ squeaked and ___________________________.
  6. The tall fir trees, ___ and ___ swayed in the storm while __________.
  7. Seven tiny caterpillars ___ and ___ moseyed across the patio as __________.

September 17

Thank you for the fun letters you wrote to me!  I think it’s a treat to get a personal letter in the mail, don’t you?

Write another friendly letter, this time to a friend or a relative.  Today we thought about several friends who would enjoy hearing from you, and then I had you choose one person.

Next, I had you list topic ideas of what you could include in a friendly letter.  I said that the best letters are about just ONE topic, not a list of seventy-three things you did over the summer, for example.  Heh.

You get to choose ONE topic to write about to ONE friend. Now, do this for homework:

  1. Write a Word Cache for your topic. Make it as long as you can!  Bring it to class.
  2. Next, write the letter. You will mail it, but not until you show it to me first.  Bring it to class next week.

We have two groups according to your “dress-ups” skills.  The Dress-Ups Group will do Exercise 6c on page 42.  This time, WRITE ON YOUR OWN PAPER so that you can turn it in.  This means that you will write the sentence and add an “ly” word into it.  Be sure that your “ly” word answers the question “how?”

The other group is the Teeter Totter Group.  You guys will write “adjectival teeter-totter” sentences using pages 107 – 111.  Now I know that some of you have already completed these pages, so I want you to do 19c again with new sentences.  Write them on your own paper so that you can turn them in next week.  Thanks.

Student Writings

 

Dear Parents,

This page is the “homework blog” for your child’s Middle School Writing class.  Each week your child will find his/her current homework assignment right here.

Lest you hear that, “we don’t have any homework this week, Mom!”, rest assured that I always give homework, that it is due one week from the assigned date, and that I give only a one-week grace period for late work.  Work submitted beyond the grace week will not be accepted.

(Exceptions to that grace week rule apply to students who were ill, and they may have an extra week or two.)

Since you and I are in this together, parents, please train your student to check this space each week.  Then, check that his/her homework assignment is completed and ready to turn in on class day.  Thank you.

Below is the homework assignment for this week, due on September 17:

  1. Write a letter to me, telling me about yourself. Address it to “Mrs. B”, make it about a page long, and put it into the stamped envelope I gave you in class.  If you mail it by Friday, I should receive it by Monday.
  2. As I explained today, we are determining which of you will concentrate on “dress-ups” and “openers” now, and who is ready to move on to advanced style exercises. For today, this is what we’ll do – if you are brand-new to Middle School Writing class this year, your assignment is below.
    1. Turn to pages 37-39 in B’s Complete Exercise Book. Read them to yourself, but don’t panic!  I’ll explain them better the next time I see you.
    2. Do Exercise 6a on page 40. You may write your answers in the book, unless your mom doesn’t want you to.  In that case, you may either copy page 40, or you may write out the sentences on notebook paper.
  3. If you had me for your teacher last year in Middle School Writing class, do this assignment instead:
    1. Read page 96 in B’s Complete Exercise Book.
    2. Do Exercises 17a and 17c. You are welcome to write in the book.  But, if your mom doesn’t want you to write in the book, copy the page OR write it on notebook paper.
  4. Lastly, make sure you know your mailing address for next week.