First, sixth, and seventh periods all had a stems quiz today. First and sixth continued working on the persuasive techniques unit. Seventh period worked on using our pre-writing from Friday to create an essay.

Second and fourth periods spent literally ten minutes going over gerunds and gerund phrases before spending the majority of the class planning their project, tentatively due Friday 21 October.

Homework

• First and sixth periods: decide on a topic of national importance (death penalty, illegal immigration, balancing the budget) that can be used for your coming persuasive writing sample.
• Second and fourth periods:
  • Use each of the following gerund phrases in a sentence of your own. You must use one phrase as a sentence subject, one as a sentence object (direct or indirect), and one as the object of a preposition. Underline the gerund phrase.
    • getting up in the morning
    • arguing among themselves
    • refusing any help with the job
    • sharpening my pencil
    • listening to Scott Joplin’s ragtime music
  • Additionally, continue planning for the Odyssey project. I’ve created two new tools for you to use.
    • A planning forum (for writing your instructions — I wanted to make a wiki, but that would be too much work to make it separate for each group).
    • An online chat (for corresponding in real time — I’m not sure how well it will work, so someone needs to try it and see how well it works.)
• Seventh period: none.