October 22, 2008

Homework
1,2:
I explained to one section that I need THREE copies of the play on Friday.  I forgot about the one copy for me so I can score them.  Besides that, keep on working on the play.

3,6,7:
Students owe me a "good rough draft" of their inspirational essay.  Tomorrow we start our second topic: what is something worth fighting for?

Today
1,2:
We watched a play called 1-900-DESPERATE.   We scored it using the rubric we discussed yesterday.  We thought it had a weak ending, so we discussed what could have been done to improve the story.  I wanted them to apply that lesson to their own plays.

We also looked at a section of dialogue from a student's play that sounded unrealistic.  We gave some suggestions.  Then I gave them some time to look at each other's essays for unrealistic dialogue.  I will give them one more day to work together Thursday.

3,6,7:
Daily Drill
We read a sample essay from TeenInk.com .  The essay had most of the things I am looking for in their essays.  I like to show samples so students can see the big picture.  I plan to read more samples.  I am stressing the 5 paragraph essay this year. Today I focused on the introduction.  It should lead us into the paper and tell us exactly what the essay will be about.