Mr. W's Blog

9th graders will be writing a short memoir about a grandparent or other important older person in their lives. You will need to use the time you have between now and the end of Thanksgiving break to interview this person. We will then be drafting, revising, and editing the story. The story will then be given as a gift to your grandparent person. (Shhh. That part is a surprise.)

Schedule a date and time to meet with your grandparent or older individual. You may need to schedule a telephone interview if they do not live near you.

Choose a list of questions ahead of time to ask this person. Use the KW chart and upload it on Moodle to help you formulate questions. You can use some from the list I gave you in class, but make sure you have a few selected ahead of time. Don’t try to just read all of them from this list. If you lost your list, it can be found at http://www.legacyproject.org/guides/lifeintquestions.pdf.

Use the questions to start a conversation with your grandparent at the meeting–don’t just ask questions that can be answered in one word. You may need to ask follow up questions.

You need to write down what they say. You may use a video/audio recorder, but this is not neccesary.

It is best to get several stories so you have a lot to choose from, but your final piece must focus on ONE story only. THIS IS NOT A BIOGRAPHY.

Use the Grandparent Interview Rubric to give yourself a grade on the interview. This must be turned in right when you get back from break for full credit. (December 2) Points will be deducted for every day it is late.

Each student will contribute to our classroom community by performing a classroom job throughout the term. Please select your top three choices for a job from the list below. Appply for these positions using the Classroom Job Application. (Applications are due Friday, August 26.) Make sure to use blue or black ink and fill out the application neatly and completely. As the term progresses, you will use the Classroom Job Log.  Filling out this log will raise your citizenship grade. Remember, Read the rest of this entry »

For 9th grader’s final evaluation for Homer’s The Odyssey, you will be writing your own (much shorter) Odyssey. Use the Personal Odyssey Rubric to guide your project. It should be a fictional piece that focuses on a heroic journey back home. It should reflect the events we discussed in The Odyssey and in Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey. This paper is due Monday, January 10.

8th graders will be selecting a book to read independently. You will be creating a paper-bag book report and presenting it in front of the class after Winter Break. There is time to order a book online, or check one out from the library and try it out. You may try several books, but must committ to a book by December 10. This book must be approved by your parent/guardian AND Mr. Wenzel, by this date.

Not every student will be presenting on the same day. Students will sign up for a presentation date. So it is important to write down what day you are presenting. We will have about two or three students presenting each day.

For complete instructions on how to create a paper bag book report, see thePaper Bag Book Report Rubric(8).

Throughout the year 8th and 9th graders will be using these six traits of good writing to evaluate and revise their own work, classmate’s work, model work, and classic works. These six terms give us a common classroom vocabulary in which we can communicate about writing. They are not the only ways to look at writing, but we will focus on them in our classroom this year. 9th graders will be using the Detailed 6 Traits Rubric. 8th graders will be using the General 6 Traits Rubric. Look for more information on each trait in upcoming posts.

The six traits:

Ideas that are interesting and important

Organization that is logical and effective

Voice that is individual and appropriate

Word Choice that is specific and memorable

Sentence Fluency that is smooth and expressive

Conventions that are correct and communicative

As 9th graders are nearing the end of our book, it’s not too early to start working on your final project. Students will be creating three projects to demonstrate what they have learned from their reading of the text. They may choose projects that empasize analytical thinking, visual thinking, and linguistic thinking. Please use the rubric to guide your projects and turn it in with your work to recieve a grade. Download the Whirligig Rubric. Projects are DUE Wednesday, November 17. 3 points extra credit for turning it in early on the 16th, 1 point deducted for turning it in on the 18th, and 3 points deducted if turned in on the 19th. No assignments accepted after the 19th.

9th graders will be held accountable for the work they do in reading time on their English grades for second quarter. They are free to start and stop books as they see fit, but they should finish at least one book before the term ends. Please record your reading with the Reading Time Log.

We will be exploring the “Heroic Journey” through Whirligig, a book by Paul Fleischman. This is a short book but involves many issues that teenagers deal with. We will be reading the book in class and 9th graders are responsible for taking notes to analyze the text. Students should record quotes that seem important or signficant for each chapter, plot important events on a timeline, add characteristics to a chart about the main character–Brent, and write down words that are difficult or interesting. Students will also track the 10 steps of the heroic journey throughout Brent’s journey. Students will write a literary analysis of the text when we have finished reading. They will also create a “non-text” genre that focuses on an element of the book.

We will apply the heroic journey model to The Odyssey when we read that work as well.

As 9th graders continue to practice using the writing process, you are required to submit evidence that you are engaged in the process. I call these pieces of evidence “artifacts.”

 For one revision artifact of your final writing project for the term, please turn in your Revision Checklist along with a printed copy of your revisions using the “track changes” feature available on most word processing programs.

You are also required to meet with a peer, read your paper outloud to them, and get some feedback on your paper. The artifact for this process is the Conference Record Sheet (CRS). Please turn this in as well.

Once this step of the process is done you are ready to move on to editing. We will be meeting in the lab one more time to polish the grammar, spelling, and punctuation of your writing.