Word on the Street

Moldy Bread Contest Winners

1st Period

• Colby Brooks - Grossest
• Alex Ramirez - Most Colorful
• Corina Havelka - Smelliest

7th Period

• Monisha Rao – Grossest
• Grey Davis – Smelliest
• Drew Thiel – Most Colorful

8th Period

• Emma Harden’s Dad – Grossest
• Zach Todd – Smelliest
• Amy Oliver - Most Colorful

3rd Period

• Sam Sasser - Grossest
• Will Baggett – Smelliest
• Sarah Hay - Most Colorful

4th Period

• Bradley Keegan - Grossest
• Alex Loeser – Smelliest
• Kevin Tran- Most Colorful

Homework – Students should finish the rough draft self-evaluation that was started in class today. Revising Moldy Bread

All classes worked on their rough drafts of the Moldy Bread Essay.  Rough drafts and moldy bread are due Friday, October 30. Students were given a pass to bring their moldy bread to my room when they arrive at school in the morning.  Bread should be in a sealed container with the student’s name, first and last, clearly visible.

For more information, please see Monday’s post or the blog tag “moldy bread essay.”

8th Grade Wildcat Day – No class

Thursday students will work on their rough drafts in class. These will be due at the beginning of class on Friday.

All Classes worked on the rough drafts of the moldy bread essay.

We discussed that essays could be organized chronologically, by sensory details being described (one paragraph smell, one paragraph looks, etc.), as a cause-effect essay (what the student did to to the bread and the result), or as a comparison-contrast (if students tried to mold more than one type of bread or tried different things on different pieces of bread).

All Language Arts Classes – We went over the requirements of the moldy bread essay rough draft which is due on Friday, October 30.  Students will have at least one class day (Tuesday, October 27) to work on their rough drafts in class, and students might be given Thursday as well. We have to see how it goes tomorrow.

Handouts:

Rubric & Check Lists

Essay Format

Graphic Organizer – Prewriting/Planning Moldy Bread Essay  – This is due in class Tuesday, October 27!

Rough Draft Requirements

• Can be typed or handwritten
• If typed, two pages, double-spaced
• If handwritten, four pages, skipping lines, front only
• Rough Draft Due in Class on Friday, October, 30

Moldy Bread Schedule:

• Tuesday, October 27 – Using graphic organizer completed for homework, writing workshop to work on rough draft in class.
• Wednesday, October 28 – Wildcat Day – no class
• Thursday, October 29 – Possibly another writing workshop day to work on rough drafts and information about bringing bread to class on Friday.
• Friday, October 30 -Rough Draft and Moldy Bread due in class.  Moldy Bread judging for smelliest, most colorful, and grossest.  Students need to have three different colors of highlighters so they can work on their self-evaluation of the essay in class.  After the self-evaluation, students will be assigned a partner for peer editing of the rough draft.  If students do not finish peer-editing in class, they will be given time to finish up this step in class on Monday.
• Monday, November 2 – Any pairs that did not finish peer editing will be able to do so, and students who have finished peer editing will have time to work on revising their essays.
• Friday, November 6 – Final Moldy Bread Essay is due. Students will follow the check lists on the back of the rubric to prepare the essay for submission.  Students will be turning in all of the following: rubric/check list, final essay, peer-edit worksheet, rough draft, self-evaluation/revising worksheet,  graphic organizer for planning/prewriting essay, and observation log.

Language Arts Advanced – Students were given several due dates for Hound of the Baskervilles.

Tuesday, November 3:

• Book must be completed
• Turn in chapter responses for chapters 12-15
• Turn in Vocabulary Ch. 12-15

Friday, November 6:

• Unit Test – Hound of the Baskervilles
• Annotation Check
• Students will be able to use annotated book for at least one essay question.

Monday, November 9:

• Hound of the Baskervilles Unit Projects Due (For information, please see the tag “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” The handout describing the project and the rubrics that were distributed to students are available there for downloading if you have lost your copy.)

All Language Arts Classes – In preparation for writing the rough drafts of the moldy bread essay, we reviewed figures of speech with a focus on similes and metaphors (p. 41) and then we discussed how figures of speech can be used to describe sensory details.  We discussed imagery (p. 19) and read “Mrs. Flowers” p. 19 and examined the use of imagery and figurative language in the story.

Language Arts Advanced Homework:

• Bring Moldy Bread Observation Log to class on Monday to begin work on rough draft in class.
• Hound worksheets on figurative language and sensory details.

Language Arts Homework:

• Bring Moldy Bread Observation Log to class on Monday to begin work on rough draft in class.
• Find a common household object and write a simile or metaphor to describe it using at least four of the senses (taste if possible, what do you think it would taste like?).  We will then read these and try to guess what you are describing. Example – a pencil – hard as a rock, sharp as a knife, yellow as a school bus, sometimes squeaks like bad breaks on a car…

I will not be at school on Thursday.  Here are the plans I have left for the substitute.

Language Arts – Students will watch the Shelley Duvall Tall-Tale video version of “Pecos Bill.”

Homework: None

Language Arts Advanced -Students will take the test on chapters 1-8 of Hound.

Homework:

• Vocabulary Ch. 10-11 due Monday, October 26.
• Read/Annotate/Respond to Chapters 10-11 due Monday, October 26.

Language Arts – We continued our look at folktales by reading “Pecos Bill and the Mustang.” 

Homework: None

Language Arts Advanced – Students turned in Caught’yas 16-20, chapter responses for chapters 8 and 9, and worked in cohort groups discussing chapters 8-9.  We reviewed the verbals gerunds and participles.

Homework:

• Study for test tomorrow on Chapters 1-8.  Test is 23 multiple choice questions on comprehension, 10 matching questions on characters (some are minor characters!), and two short answer questions.
• Hound grammar worksheets on sentence types, clauses, and complements are due tomorrow before the test.

Language Arts - Students took the Sneaky Tricks and Whopping Lies Test.  Grammar worksheets from Friday were collected.

Homework: None

Language Arts Advanced – Students worked on chapter 7 in cohort groups. 

Homework:

• Study for test
• Complete grammar worksheets on sentences, clauses, and complements to turn in Thursday before test
• Read/Annotate/Respond to chapters 8 and 9.

Language Arts Classes – Students were given the period today to work on their study guides and prepare for the test tomorrow.  Students could also work on the grammar worksheets that are due tomorrow.

Homework

• Pronoun worksheets given out on Friday are due tomorrow (Tuesday)
• Test tomorrow (Tuesday)

Advanced Language Arts – We reviewed “the other” complements – subject complements: predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives in the grammar book. 

Homework:

• Test Thursday, October 22, chapters 1-8 of Hound.
• Three grammar worksheets due on Thursday, October 22
• Hound Vocabulary 8-9 due tomorrow (Tuesday)
• Read/Annotate/Respond chapter 7 of Hound due tomorrow (Tuesday)