Tuesday, 11/18

Homework Due:

• We handed in our Fiction stories, with the rubric stapled on top.
  
• We handed in Journal #3 (two pages, minimum, over any topic, any genre you choose).

Housekeeping:

I showed everyone the blog and how to get to it.  Please use this blog to remind yourself of what we are working on in class, and to check what you missed when you're absent.

E-mail me with questions:  kwillis@washington.k12.ia.us

Writing Experiment:

#9--What are you thankful for?  Think big, but also think about the little things that make your life good.  Write a poem listing things you're thankful for.  We created one poem as a class, with each of us creating a line.  Here are some:

my pink, beat-up easy chair

a Diet Coke from Kum and Go when the mix is just right

bright sun on a cold day

chicken pot pies

my dad

laughter with friends

We spent fifteen minutes typing (some people wrote) our I'm Thankful poem, and we handed them in.

Writing Lesson:

Things to Consider When You're Making Line Breaks in Poetry

We talked about the difference between endstopped lines and enjambed lines (page 34).  We also looked at eight possible reasons poets can break lines as they do.

We did page 35 with a partner (read aloud to each other, broke the poems into lines, then discuss why we broke lines where we did).

We then discussed these choices as a class, and we got copies of the original forms of the poems to see how the writers had broken their lines.

Writing Assignment:

Autobiographical Poem (pages 44-45)

We talked about how to write his poem, and we looked at some models from last term.  

Homework

1)  Write or type a complete rough draft of your autobiographical poem.

2)  Access the blog to make sure you have the correct address.  Bookmark it, please.

3)  Check your grades online.  Mid-term conferences are Monday, 11/24.  I'd like to have things current and correct by this Friday, 11/21.