Literary Terms Quizlet Link

http://quizlet.com/14616908/literary-terms-flash-cards/

IXL Goals for Nov. 20 through Dec. 4

By Friday, November 20, the following IXL exercises should have been done:
7th Grade: A.1, A.2, A.3, and X.1

By Wednesday December 2, the following IXL exercises should be done:
7th Grade: Q.1, Q.2, Q.3, Q.4

By Friday December 4, the following IXL exercises should be done:
7th Grade: Y.1, Y.2, Y.3

All IXL exercises must be completed to 80 percent in order to receive full credit.

(Bonus points will be given for those completed to 100 percent)

SELF-EDITING CHECKLIST

Self-Editing Checklist

⃞ Are the first letters of all proper nouns CAPITALIZED?

⃞ Are the first letters of the first word in all sentences CAPITALIZED?

⃞ Are all RUN-ON SENTENCES corrected by either inserting a conjunction (examples: and, or, but, etc.), or by splitting them into two sentences, or by re-wording?

⃞ Did I use the spacebar to put ONE SPACE AFTER (but not before) all of my COMMAS, and PERIODS? [This does NOT apply to commas and periods that are used inside numbers (as in math), only to those used after words.]

⃞ Do I have PARAGRAPHS and are they INDENTED by using the TAB key?

⃞ Am I using PROPER GRAMMAR?  Remember that every sentence’s verb must agree with its subject.  So constructions like “She have” and “They has” are WRONG.  (Should be “She has” and “They have.”)

⃞ Have I been careful NOT TO CONFUSE WORDS that are often confused?  Examples: there, their, they’re; and to, too, two; its, it’s. etc.

⃞ Have I SPELLED ALL MY WORDS CORRECTLY?  Pay close attention to the “red-line” function on your Chromebooks.  It’s true that sometimes it red-lines correctly-spelled words that Google Chrome doesn’t recognize.  But in most instances it redlines words that are truly misspelled. PAY ATTENTION TO THE REDLINE FUNCTION!!

⃞ DO ALL OF MY SENTENCES MAKE SENSE? It is VERY IMPORTANT that you READ OUT LOUD to yourself all that you have written, and that you LISTEN TO YOUR OWN VOICE READING IT to make sure you have not left out words or put words together in ways that DO NOT MAKE SENSE?

⃞ Have I avoided CONVERSATIONAL words like “Well.”  as in statements like “Well, I’m going to tell you”?

⃞ Have I avoided REPEATING MYSELF?  One error eighth-graders often make is repetition of ideas or thoughts that are unnecessary.  As in: “The sun is a very large star.  It is huge.”  Also, have I avoided fluffy sentences such as telling the reader what you’re about to tell them?   Don’t do that!

⃞ Have I CAPITALIZED all instances of the pronoun “I” as in “What do I know?”

NEWSROOM PROJECT

GUIDELINES FOR “NEWSROOM” PROJECT

PHASE 1 – RESEARCH (Put the following things in your on-line WRITING JOURNAL at classroom.google.com) (2 weeks)

1. Consider yourself a “reporter” who is trying to get the facts on a particular topic.  By now you have used your own curiosity to choose a topic.
2. Find at least 25 different facts about your topic (REMEMBER TO SAVE LINKS AND SOURCES because you’ll need to cite them on your FINAL-WRITE)
3. Gather and save graphics for your topic.  These would include:

1. photographs (which you can save from the internet)
2. charts, graphs, or diagrams (which you can save from the internet)

4. Find an interesting story/narrative which relates to your topic.
5. Think of question to ask an expert about your topic. Contact an EXPERT by email, direct-message, phone, getting from him/her the answer to your question(s).

PHASE 2 – PRE-WRITE DRAFTING (Put the following in your on-line WRITING JOURNAL after the gathering of facts) (1 week)

1. DEVELOP A THESIS STATEMENT FOR YOUR ARTICLE
2. Considering your thesis statement, write out the narrative that you plan to use to present the facts surrounding your thesis statement.  (Find a “hook” to lead your readers into your article/story.)
3. Select the most important facts you want to use and try (as best you can) to fit them naturally into your narrative/story.
4. Edit your work, ask Mr. Stephens and classmates to read and edit your work.

Phase 3 – FINAL-WRITE DRAFTING (which will be done a google-classroom form that Mr. Stephens will provide) (1 week)

1. Write your story as you want it to appear in magazine form
2. Make your citations at the end of the story

Bumpus Goes to Birmingham Project

Here is the rubric for the Bumpus Goes to Birmigham project.

Bumpus Goes to Birmingham

Writing Project

Once we return from our field trip to Birmingham, you will use your field trip experience to write about the events that took place in 1963.  Make sure your project includes the following elements:

Required elements (you must complete both)

_____        Personal photograph

_____        Photo analysis

Optional elements (choose three)

_____        Ballad (include two verses and a chorus)

_____        Creative nonfiction (memoir, diary)

_____        Fiction (short story, novel chapter)

_____        Persuasive text (letter, speech)

Product Format (choose one method to format your work)

_____        Power Point presentation

_____        Scrapbook (hard copy)

Photographs

—you will have the opportunity to take pictures while you visit downtown.  We will get a chance to view a variety of statues, monuments, buildings, and Civil Rights posts.   Take as many pictures of these as possible.  You will use your photos to embed as pictures in your project.

--you must choose one of your photos to analyze.  This picture needs to be something that evokes emotion or makes an argument.

Photo analysis

--your analysis must be at least one paragraph in length.  Make sure you choose at least two elements from your picture to describe within your paragraph

Ballad

--you may choose to write a ballad about the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing or the Children’s Crusade.  You should include 2 verses (at least four lines long) and one chorus (at least one line long).  Remember that a ballad tells a story.  Your poem should tell a story about the  bombing or crusade.

Nonfiction

--In this piece, you will need to take on the persona of someone who participated in either the church bombing or children’s march.  The writing should be an accurate retelling of what happened to this person during the event.  Feel free to write this text as a diary entry.  This may require a bit of research for you, but your text should be written in your own words.

Fiction

--this piece needs to show that you understand the elements of historical fiction.  Although this text should be based on either the children’s march or church bombing, you need to include elements of fiction as well.  You may write this up as a short story or a chapter from a novel.  Perhaps you would like to rewrite Chapter 14 of The Watsons Go to Birmingham.

Persuasive text

--This text may be written as a letter to the editor or as if you are an historical character making a speech about the events of the Civil Rights Movement.  Make sure you include at least two persuasive strategies in your writing.  This text should include an introduction, body , and conclusion. 

Where do I go to learn to review my poetry info?

You go to classroom.google.com and check out the entry for March 19, 2015.

Poetry Review

Go to this site and spend twenty minutes there in preparation for a quiz on these items.
http://quizlet.com/22417260/flashcards

Practicing Direct Quotation Punctuation 1

Go to the following link and do your best to answer ALL of the questions, then submit!
http://bit.ly/1Lf5dIU

Thesis Statement Writing

Here is the video, Common Core Writing 1: Thesis Statements,  with which you were to complete the work packet Mr. Stephens handed out on Tuesday, February 3:

 *If you were--or have been--absent, go to https://classroom.google.com/u/0/h in order to get the packet that accompanies this video.

Outsider book online!

Here's the link that will take you to The Outsiders on line:
http://theoutsidersbook.blogspot.com/2005/09/whole-book.html

Connecting to The Outsiders - Chapter 1

For a story to be especially enjoyable, it needs to connect to your own life.  I have written a few questions based on quotations from Chapter 1 of The Outsiders to help you connect issues in the book with your own life.
       Please go to the Google Form at this address

http://bit.ly/1sGssIP

and thoughtfully answer the four questions you find there.  Thanks!

Lesson for Tuesday, January 6

Once again, I have a video lesson prepared for you. It will ask you to complete IXL 7th-grade-level exercise O.2 in which you must distinguish between the four sentence types. YOU MUST REACH AT LEAST 90% on the exercise.  On the video I answer most of the problems myself. But before I do, I try to explain the concepts. After you have finished your IXL assignments, you are to go to GOOGLE CLASSROOM and write your own paragraph using the four sentence types.  HINT: on the video I model a paragraph like this for you. As you will see when you go to GOOGLE CLASSROOM, the sentence-writing assignment is due by the end of tomorrow (Wednesday). You should be finished with the IXL assignments by the end of TODAY.
      Now, here's the video:

Lesson for Monday, January 5, 2015

Happy New Year to every student on 8-4!  I am away today at a workshop for Language Arts teachers at Old Berry School (which some of you may know as the location of Crossroads--yikes!). So I have video-ed today's lesson which is designed to make sure you know the four basic sentence types:

simple sentence

compound sentence

complex sentence

compound-complex sentence

The video lesson runs about twenty minutes. During the lesson you will watch me do some of the IXL problems that you will have to do AFTER you watch the video.  Once you've watched it, go to IXL 6th-grade, L.2.   Even if you've done this one before, I want you to do it again. (I will tell you all of this on the video.)  As always you must reach at least 90 percent on IXL.  When or if you get one wrong, be intelligent: figure out WHY you got it wrong before going on to the next one.  When the incorrect screen pops up, read what's below it in order to understand your error.  THIS EXERCISE WILL GO INTO THE GRADE BOOK!  So start your third 9-weeks with a GOOD GRADE!