We continue to work on our poetry. Students have a variety of assignments to keep them busy. Today I threw them another curveball. I don’t know why, but they tend to groan when I say things like, “Pick one of your poems, but don’t ask any questions.” Today’s curveball had them removing all of the pronouns from that poem. The idea was for them to think about using specific words and removing words that are unnecessary. It also served as a review lesson on what a pronoun is and what it isn’t. It also gave me a chance to play a little Schoolhouse Rock for a few of the classes.

There was a considerable amount of grumbling as students were forced to go back and revise their work. It did, however, force them to really think about what and how they were conveying their ideas. Students also worked with a partner to help them revise and edit their work. Despite the grumbling, students seem to be very proud of the writing they’ve done.

Students will turn in two poems at the end of class tomorrow. It is entirely up to the students which two poems they turn in. I am going to encourage as many students as possible to turn in their door poem – either tomorrow or later. I’d like to submit them to the Bus Lines contest being run by the Charlottesville Albemarle Transit Authority.  If your child turns in a door poem, I will send home a permission slip for the contest.

The last two triads took their triweekly today. Everyone else worked on their typing in library. We’ll be back to a regular schedule tomorrow – where we will be working on more poetry. Students have been given a few different assignments to generate ideas for their poetry. Two poems of the student’s choice will be turned in on Friday. They will have tomorrow (before Spanish) and all of Friday to work on those poems, so I do not anticipate them needing to work on these at home.

The Walker Book Fair will open next week, March 4 and run through Community Night, March 12. Ms. Flowers, our librarian, is hoping for volunteers who would be willing to help her out during that time period. If you can spare some time either during the school day or during Community Night, please contact her at rebecca.flowers@charlottesvilleschools.org or 245-2412. Your support is always greatly appreciated!

Today most students took a reading triweekly. As a result, I only saw two classes. We took our “Fun with Words” poem and I asked them to pick their favorite line in that poem. They then had to create a second poem with that line as a starting point. There was plenty of grumbling and wondering if I lived to torture them. I had to confess that I’d done this activity during a writing class I took several years ago, so that while I felt their pain, I also knew that it was a great way of generating ideas.

Students have vocabulary homework with week. Flash cards are linked below. Students have packets with due dates on them. The quiz will be next Friday, March 8.

Group A, C, and D:
Group B
Group C
Group D

Today we did a fun (for me!) activity. Students were given a 8 lists of words. They were told to circle one of the words on the list – any word they wanted – one they thought was interesting, intriguing, one they didn’t know, one that sounded cool – any reason at all. They were not told why they were doing this, only that they must. They were then required to write a poem using the words they circled. The word from the first list had to go in the first line, the word from the second list in the second line, etc. It was a difficult assignment and required them to really think of a way to weave all of their words into a cohesive poem.

When they were done, we moved on to oxymorons and homophones to write some silly poems. In some classes we had a little extra time so that students could share their poems. They will continue to share poems as the week goes on.

Students took a quick stems review quiz today. It was just to get them back in the habit of thinking about stems and applying what they know. Yesterday in Spanish, a few made the connection between the Spanish word for “before” and their knowledge of the stem for before.

Today was one of my favorite days in the poetry unit. Students were given a piece of white construction paper and asked to fold it in half. I played them four musical selections, though I used YouTube – they could not see the video. Their job was to draw a picture based on what they were hearing in each of the four sections of their paper. There were no other rules or explanations.  I’ve posted links to the YouTube videos below. There was some grumbling during Vivaldi. One student was unhappy that, in the middle of her happy picture, the tone of the music changed and “ruined” her whole picture. They’ll eventually be writing poetry based on their pictures. I’ll also use this lesson to reinforce the idea of word choice – how are music and writing related? How does using specific vocabulary create tone in the same way a composer creates tone using musical instruments?

In anticipation of our review quiz tomorrow, we played vocabulary bluff today. This is always a fun time! Students can be very competitive and these games can be intense.

Students then had Spanish, where they reviewed author’s purpose.

Today’s first task was to talk a little about the museum. Students answered a survey about the museum – relating what they learned about their subjects, other students’ subjects, other students and themselves. We then moved back into the “normal” swing of things with a starter. It was a tough one.

We then moved on to poetry. We talked about what poetry was and what it wasn’t. We reviewed poetic terms like alliteration, onomatopoeia, similes and metaphors. We also read two poems, Oh Captain! My Captain!  and Jabberwocky to show that poetry can be both serious and silly. Students will be encouraged to do a lot of writing during this short unit. Our goal is to have work to turn in for consideration for the Unfinished Jigsaw, as well as submit poetry to the current Bus Lines Poetry Contest. As students begin to write, I’ll send home permission slips. Students are required to participate in the activity, they are not required to actually submit their poetry for the contest, however.

The poetry unit will be short but fun. In addition to helping students come to appreciate a wide variety of poetry, I’d like for them to focus on word choice in their own writing.

Today we started to take down our museum. I dare say that students had as much fun deconstructing the museum as they did constructing it.  Students will have a stems review quiz on Friday. They were given a list of all the stems we’ve done so far this year. It’s really just a way to get them back into the swing of things before we start new vocabulary next week.

We’re going to debrief about our museum experience tomorrow and then we’ll jump into a quick poetry unit.

In Spanish, students worked on determining the author’s purpose based on headlines written in Spanish. This required students to use a Spanish-English dictionary to translate the headlines and then they had to draw conclusions using that information.

Mr. Bock sent out a reminder last week that parent-teacher conferences would be held this Wednesday from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. Please contact me if you’d like to meet on Wednesday. As always, if Wednesday doesn’t work for you, let me know and we’ll work out a time.  Have a great Monday!

email: esposic1@charlottesvilleschools.org

phone: 245-2412