Thursday, 1/8/2009

Howdy!

All I Ever Needed to Know,  I Learned in First Grade

We read Robert Fulghum's poem of a similar title, and we spent some time talking about how many of those things we learned as kids are still good guidelines for adult life.  We spent ten minutes writing Writing Experiment #210--your list of things you learned in first grade (or as a young child) that you still feel are good ideas.

Ogden Nash Poems

We read Ogden Nash poems, and we talked about where the humor comes from in these little pieces.

We spent ten minutes writing two of our own, modeling our poems on Ogden Nash's:

1)  Create rhyme.

2)  Keep the poem short--two to eight lines.

3)  Play with the language--mess around with grammar and/or pronunciation.

4)  Write on a topic a six-year-old can grasp (animals, people, etc.).

Life at Thirty

In fourth block, we finally read the last of the Life at Thirty papers, and had the reveal.

Workshop

We used the last forty minutes to work on whatever we needed to.  Most people finalized their prose revisions and filled out their pink sheets.  Prose Revisions were due today, at the end of the block.

Grades and Earthbook Subs

I began talking with people about their grade printouts and about which four pieces they want to submit to Earthbook next week.

Homework

1)  Revised Poems, with green sheets thoughtfully completed ( X 3 )

2)  Portfolio