Monday (11/02) – Friday (11/06)

Students began a new unit. This is Collection 3. The focus is narrative voice and point of view. The writing target is the persuasive essay. I presented an overview of the unit, its targets and goals. I read to students a sample persuasive essay that demonstrated both the persuasive elements and satire which is also addressed in this unit. Narrative voice will deal with diction or word choice and syntax or structure of the sentence for presentation of thought. Students will read and analyze Collection 3 stories which are on pages 203 – 305. I presented students with a starter list of topics for their consideration for persuasive essay topics.

Monday (11/09) – Friday (11/13)

This week students read and processed “What Happened During the Ice Storm” (214 – 215), “The Storyteller” (219 – 226), “Housepainting” (231 – 241), and “Evacuation Order No.19” (243 – 257). We also worked on all academic vocabulary presented in each of these stories and vocabulary skills such as suffixes and contextual meanings presented at the end of the readings. With the readings we addressed and studied narrative voice, diction, point of view, and syntax. In processing the readings we recognized and discussed reading focus, literary focus, literary perspectives, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. At the end of the week students answered questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 on page 257 to check and evaluate how well each is learning these skills. Students were given word search, scramble, and cryptogram worksheets to help with learning the vocabulary.

Monday (11/16) – Friday (11/20)

This week students read Julia Alvarez’s “My First Free Summer,” “Exile,” “All-American Girl,” and “Antojos.” They also read “Islam in America,” Patel’s “We Are Each Other’s Business,” Julio Cortazar’s “The Bear’s Speech,” and Sebastian Junger’s “Larger Than Life.” We worked on narrative point of view, diction, and syntax along with vocabulary development. Our discussions centered on assimilation, pluralism and the American melting pot. Our target was to identify these elements in professional writing and to foster tolerance within ourselves and thereby into the society we impact. Students were given word search, scrambles, and cryptograms to help with vocabulary improvement. Students did some writing to practice and identify the employment of diction and syntax in their own writing. We discussed the conclusions, interpretations, analysis, synthesis, symbols and themes in the readings. Next Tuesday students will have a unit test on these materials in Collection 3 of our textbook.