Today you handed in your POWERFUL WORD CHOICES from yesterday's text, "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. We discussed some of your choices and then moved on to talk about the storyline or the PLOT.
The plot tells of a man who struggled against nature while traveling through the woods in negative eighty degree weather. Because he walked with a dog by his side, we can easily see a contrast between the dog and the man. Dog (INSTINCT): -knew that the man would provide shelter, so he stayed with the man -stayed by the fire, but not too close -walked carefully on fragile snow to ensure that he didn't step on thin ice instead -ran away from the man when the man turned violent Man (LOGIC): -was planning ahead for the spring -took along a dog so that he would be safer while traveling alone -tried to kill the dog so he could warm his hands inside the carcass and eventually make a fire The reason that this INSTINCT vs LOGIC is that London was a NATURALIST. We'll talk more about that on Monday. Have a
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POS: Parts of Speech
**How did we use it today? We were reading along in our fabulous short story by Jack London when we happened upon a great sentence. So we put it in our notebooks and labelled the Parts of Speech. This is what we came up with: He (pro) smiled (v) agreeably (adv) to (prep) himself (pro) as (conj) he (pro) thought (v) of (prep) those (adj) biscuits (n), each (pro) cut (adj) open (adv) and (conj) sopped (adj) in (prep) bacon (adj) grease (n), and (conj) each (pro) enclosing (adj) a (adj) generous (adj) slice (n) of (prep) fried (adj) bacon (n). Snow: We began to read "To Build a Fire", by Jack London. You can find the story on this website under ELA11R/Short stories. Your HOMEWORK is to read the rest of the story and underline POWERFUL WORD CHOICES throughout. Word Choice: When we first began reading London's work, we took a closer look at his word choices. He said that there were UNDULATIONS in the snow. The author stated that the man FLUNG a look over his shoulder. These are great examples of unexpected and energetic language. Imagine if the author had said the snow looked like waves or the man looked behind him. This is not very exciting imagery. But he chose POWERFUL WORDS INSTEAD. I hope you make the same choices when you write so that your reader can be moved by what you say. I am finding that I have to sets of students: those who are acing the whole grammar idea and those who struggle. I plan to continue working with grammar until the strugglers are acing basic grammar, too. So if you are an ACER, you may want to pull aside a STRUGGLER and help him.
Today we reviewed the concepts of SUBJECT/PREDICATE. (See Parts of a SENTENCE Prezi on the Grammar page of this website.) This website may help you, too. http://www.myschoolhouse.com/courses/O/1/55.asp Have a great day! -Mrs. Coller Today we had a quiz. You had to know the parts of speech and be able to label each word in a sentence.
After the quiz, we reviewed a bit, then moved on to the PARTS OF A SENTENCE PREZI. So far, we only learned about subject and predicate. Click here to see my awesome Prezi. Have a great night! -Mrs. Coller I noticed that there are a few of you who immediately caught on to the parts pf speech and can figure them out pretty fast. For those people, I say: Good job. The review sessions and classwork this week have simply afforded you the opportunity to get few good grades in the grade book.
For those of you who needed a few more examples so that you could get a better grasp on the subject, I understand. Determining parts of speech can be tricky. In fact, grammarians sometimes even argue over how words are used in sentences. There are whole websites and entire corporations devoted to the understanding of grammatical structure. This past week, I gave you a packet of worksheets that allowed you to practice determining parts of speech. Click on any of the links below to open them in Adobe. Worksheet - Identify Parts of Speech Worksheet - Identify Adjectives Worksheet - Identify Adverbs Worksheet - Identify Nouns and Pronouns Worksheet - Identify Prepositions Worksheet - Identify Action and Linking Verbs Students reviewed these a bit, worked on extra examples on the board, and asked questions on Friday before they handed this in to me. Next week, we are going to have to know these so that we can use them to work with Parts of a SENTENCE. (There is a Prezi on this, too!) Get ready. Have a great day. -Mrs. Coller Today we read "A&P" by John Updike. If you missed it, hover your mouse over this blog, then over Short Stories, then click on the A&P pop-up.
This story is told from the point of view of a teenaged boy who sees three girls come in to the store while he is working. After we saw the events unfold, we looked at some literary terms that are used by the author in this story. Here is a list of what we found:
Today we will be taking a pre-assessment for ELA11R.
Good luck! -Mrs. Coller Okay, Folks. Now that you have learned the parts of speech, we will move on to parts of a sentence. But I have not forgotten that you forget information easily. We will have quizzes next week to see if you can remember your parts of speech.
Also next week, you can look forward to a pre-assessment. This test will take one period and will be graded for my use only, not for the grade book. It has been designed after the Regents exam, so get ready. TODAY in class was picture day. I hope you enjoyed the break from class. I'll see you next week. -Mrs. Coller Today we began to look at the eight parts of speech. Don't worry. We will use these words so much in the following year that you will not forget them again. (Hehee!)
Click here for the PREZI: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_e24kdjdbtw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Have a great day! -Mrs. Coller Hello, all.
As you know, this is my blog. I will attempt to write daily updates here to keep you all informed of notes, study tips, homework assignments, etc. If YOU have questions for me or need to get a hold of me for some reason, feel free to come to this very page and click on the pink word, "COMMENTS", above. When you do so, please be sure to give me your name and your question/comment. Since this website is hooked to my phone, I may actually hear it and leave you a reply. However, don't rely me answering you immediately because I try to have a life outside of school, so I may be doing something other than listening for my phone to notify me of a new email. At the beginning of this week, you learned the rules for MRS. COLLER'S WORLD, which are available on this website's home page. On Thursday, the class took a quiz, so you should be able to see your grade on mygradebook.com. If not, pick up your quiz paper from the bin by my classroom door. Today we began to take notes on what I will teach you this year. I am excited for a wonderful year, so I hope you are, too! Have a great weekend. -Mrs. Coller |
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