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http://www.webertube.com/video/5403/utah-english-quest

It is not too early to start preparing for Utah English Quest.

http://www.ucte.info/index.php/english-quest

Here are the books for this year’s event.

Maze Runner by James Dashner

Matched by Ally Condie

Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me by Kristen Chandler

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Manhunt by James L. Swanson

This year, Tuesdays are dedicated to writing workshop. Writing workshop is a structured time of working on various writing projects. Students will be engaged in different steps of the writing process. This could include brainstorming, typing/writing, revising, editing, publishing, meeting with a classmate for help, meeting with Mr. Wenzel for advice, etc. To learn more about the writing process, we will be using the internet.

 Here are two helpful websites.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-writing-process/

http://writing-for-kids.com/writing_process.html

Find at least one other resource and record your notes on the Writing Process Notes form.

Your Writer’s Notebook is a place to keep thoughts, feelings, memories, and just about anything that pops into your head. What you put in your notebook may become writing that you want to revise and share with others.

 For our class, please have a notebook in which the pages were not meant to be removed. We’ll be adding to it just about every day, so it needs to withstand constant use. (An old fashioned “comp book” works great. Just fix up the cover so it doesn’t look so dull.)

Read an excerpt called What Is A Writer’s Notebook Anyway? from Ralph Fletcher’s A Writer’s Notebook for

 more info. Or an essay by author Joan Didion on her Writer’s Notebook.

Click here for everything you would ever want to know about Writer’s Notebooks in the classroom.

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 »

I have the honor of presenting a breakout session at this year’s UCTE Fall Conference at BYU. My session, which I developed through the Wasatch Range Writing Project, is titled A Teacher’s Digital Life. It is basically the story of my journey in using technology in the classroom, starting with just a laptop up to my current digital life of moodle, blogs, and digital storytelling.

Here are some websites I mention in my presentation.

Google Products  http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Library Thing http://www.librarything.com

Good Reads http://www.goodreads.com/

My Shelfari Profile http://www.shelfari.com/o1518033494

Cogdogroo Story Tools http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools

Bubblr http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

Make Belief Comics http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Bitstrips http://www.bitstrips.com/

HR projects http://www.misterdoubleyou.com/English_Class/Movies.html

English Companion Ning http://englishcompanion.ning.com/

National Writing Project Resources http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/resources.csp

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.

8th graders final assignment for the quarter is a personal narrative. A personal narrative is a true story (non-fiction) about something memorable that happened in your life. Your work should include an introduction with an interesting lead; a body with sensory detail, dialogue, and action; and a conclusion that wraps things up and tells the reader why this event was important, or what you learned from the event. Have a first draft ready on October 19. The final draft is due on October 26/ We’ll be sharing the final drafts in class in the last week of the month. A rubric is forthcoming.

Also, if you are having trouble remembering what a personal narrative is, we read some examples in class like Gary Soto’s Broken Chain and/or a story about goats and a train-track!

We have finished reading Seedfolks and are now wrapping it up. 8th graders final project for the book is a three part project. Each student will complete a character chart, design a map of the community garden in Cincinnati, and create a writing piece in a genre of their choice.

1. Seedfolk Character Chart – this is a fairly straightfoward assignment. Complete the chart using your book and reading strategy guides. Make sure you fill in each cell for full credit. Some columns contain Level II and Level III questions, so you will need to make inferences and use your own thoughts and opinions.

2. Garden Map – your map must include the 11 different gardens within the garden. It must have a key which tells who developed each garden and what they grew. These will be entered into our map competition and a prize will go to the top cartographer in each class. If you need grid paper you can download it here: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/grid%20paper%20small.pdf

3. Writing Piece – choose your own genre in which to write a piece about Seedfolks. You could write another chapter to the book, write from the point of view of a character that does not have his/her own chapter, write about your own experiences with community projects–it’s up to you. If you need help selecting a genre you can browse the Short Genre List. Remember the list is only a small sample of the expanse of genres that exist.

8th graders are using reading strategies to get a deeper understanding of what they read. We are practicing these skills on a book called Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman. We are reading it chapter by chapter and using the  Reading Strategy Guide to record our strategic reading/thinking. Becoming a better reader helps students become a better learner. The strategies we use can improve understanding in all content areas.

For a brief explanation of some of the basic strategies, check out the following websites:

http://udleditions.cast.org/strategy_intro.html

http://www.bu.edu/education/readingclinic/documents/Comprehensionbrochure.pdf

What do you mean “writing process”? You write a paper and turn it in, right? Not really. Most real-world writing that is going to be seen by somebody else goes through a writing process. You can find information about the process all over the internet.

The Steps:

Prewriting

Drafting

Revising

Editing

Publishing

Click on ABOUT then WRITING & RESEARCH to see the author’s writing process artifacts