Monday, March 13th, 2013

Writing Lessons

Ø  Writing Lesson #1:            Avoid clichés!

Ø  Writing Lesson #2:            Use Precise Words.

Ø  Writing Lesson #3:           Use Vocabulary Variety.

Ø  Writing Lesson #4:           Revision

Ø  Writing Lesson #5:           Vocabulary-Building:  www.freerice.com

Ø  Writing Lesson #6:           Connotation versus Denotation

Ø  Writing Lesson #7:           Advice for Revising and Editing Poetry

Ø  Writing Lesson #8:           Writing Dialogue

Ø  Writing Lesson #9:           Making Strong Titles

Ø  Writing Lesson #10:          Showing, Not Just Telling

o   Figurative Language versus Literal Language

o   Diction

o   Imagery (using the five senses)

o   Personification

Happy Monday!

Ø We only have three  Mondays remaining, including today.  J

Ø May 13^th, 2013

Today:

Turn in all items to your file cabinet folder, please.  Thanks!

Finishing Sharing

Ø  Get out your Autobio Listen sheets, please!

Ø  Finish Sharing Autobio Poems!  J

Ø  Turn in listening/commenting sheet (to file cabinet).

Big Ideas for the Next Two Weeks

1.           Showing, Not Just Telling  (Writing Lesson #10)

2.     Diction—Have that Vocabulary Variety (Writing Lesson #3) sheet out every day! 

3.     Writing Buddies

4.    Revision (Writing Lesson #4)

Review

1.      Difference between “literal” and “figurative” language—page 26.

2.     Diction (Sandra Cisneros—page 26)

3.     Vocabulary Variety—use this sheet every day.

4.    Imagery (Emily Bronte)—page 27

5.     Imagery (Hot Chocolate Sentence)--page 28

Writing Lesson #10:    Showing, Not Just Telling:  PERSONIFICATION (p. 30)

1.      You may ask, why bother with figurative language?

2.     Here is an answer, an actual Example From One of Your Sense Poems

The irridescent sunset creeps behind the towering oak trees,

playing hide and seek with the moon

Personification Handout Here

Writing Lesson:  Personification

1.     What is personification?

1.      Personification is giving human characteristics to nonhuman things.

2.     Personification allows the reader to sense more of the emotion the poet tries to create and share.

3.     Personification encourages us to view our surroundings from a fresh perspective.

2.    “Winter Trees” by William Carlos Williams

Ø  Directions:  Circle the words and phrases that give the trees human qualities.

Winter Trees

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

Question:  HOW does Williams personify the trees?

3.    Examine how John Steinbeck uses personification in his short story "Flight" to describe "the wild coast" south of Monterey, California.

Ø Circle the words and phrases personifying the wild coast.

1.      The farm buildings huddled like the clinging aphids on the mountain skirts, crouched low to the ground as though the wind might blow them into the sea….

2.     Five-fingered ferns hung over the water and dropped spray from their fingertips….

3.     The high mountain wind coasted sighing through the pass and whistled on the edges of the big blocks of broken granite….

4.     A scar of green grass cut across the flat. And behind the flat another mountain rose, desolate with dead rocks and starving little black bushes….

5.     Gradually the sharp snaggled edge of the ridge stood out above them, rotten granite tortured and eaten by the winds of time. Pepe had dropped his reins on the horn, leaving direction to the horse. The brush grabbed at his legs in the dark until one knee of his jeans was ripped.

Ø  As Steinbeck demonstrates, an important function of personification in literature is to bring the inanimate world to life.

Revision Workshop Time

Sense Poem (page 66)

1.      Read the directions, and discuss the models.

2.     Get a copy of the rubric, and review it with me.  What are you attempting to perfect in the final draft?

3.     Review your peer conference comments.

4.     Review my comments.

5.     Create a revised, final draft of the Sense Poem.

6.     Print a final copy, and use it to fill out the rubric carefully.

7.     Thoughtfully complete the rubric.

Today:

Turn in all items to your file cabinet folder, please.  Thanks!

Sense Poem Revision Turn-In Order

(to your folder in the file cabinet)

Ø  Top:  Rubric

Ø  Bottom:  Final Draft

Homework

Fifty-Word Stories—printed out and turned in as it says on your handout (not shared with me).

Due Friday:  Diction Practice = Free Rice

Ø  Reminder #1:  Make SURE you click on the link on my blog for your class, and make sure that your class group is showing in the right corner of your screen when you play.  Otherwise, I cannot see your grains, and you will not receive any points.

Ø  Reminder #2:  Do not restart at Level 1 every time you play.  Start at the level you stopped at yesterday. 

Ø  DUE DATE: 25,000 grains by classtime Friday

Ø  Everyone should play for the rest of the block.  You will be at 25,000 by Friday!  J