English 8 students began their new schedule today: Monday will be for covering a specific writing genre (argument first period). Tuesday will be for writing and conferencing. Wednesday will be for...
Archive
What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Trust and Assessment
English I Honors students began the third story and analytic topic, which is the question of the trustworthiness of narrators in stories. We read and briefly analyzed "In the Family." English 8...
Shaffer Planning and Analysis
English I Honors students worked today on planning their second major Schaffer paragraph, this time on "Thank You, Ma'am" and its use of indirect characterization. English 8 Strategies students...
Character Schaffer, Scrambled Schaffer, and Two-Adjectives
English 8 students continued with the introduction to the Schaffer model by looking at a puzzle: groups of four received a full Schaffer paragraph, but the sentences were on strips of paper in...
Schaffer Intro, Characters, and Sensory Memoirs
English 8 Strategies students began the introduction to the Schaffer writing model today. We went through an overview of all the components (topic sentences, concrete details, commentary sentences,...
Pair Editing and Pair Planning
English 8 students finished up a few days of peer editing practice while English I students began their first substantial writing assignment. Creative writing students had a final day of portfolio...
Quotes and Group Editing
English 8 students worked on group editing as we gradually whittle our way down to pair work in anticipation of a year of workshopping. Students read a letter to them from one of last year's...
First Short Story and Peer Editing
English 8 students, after their starter writing (Prompt: Most people have vivid memories of certain events from childhood. What sticks out in your mind? Pick one particularly strong memory and...
Analysis
English I Honors students today continued with the difference between summary and analysis by looking carefully the analysis portion of yesterday's work. With a little help, students saw that...
Analysis and Peer Work
English 8 students began working on their workshop skills. Today was a frustrating day for them as I was doing more formative assessment, having students perform tasks with minimal instruction and...
Formative Completion and Schaffer
English I Honors students spent another day exploring the Schaffer model. We analyzed our homework topic sentences to see which fulfilled the Schaffer guidelines before working in groups to add CDs....
Schaffer Practice and Formative Assessments
English 8 and creative writing students began their initial formative assessment, a writing assignment designed to give me information about students' understanding of and comfort with the writing...
