November 2-6

Hello parents!

Sorry that this didn't get updated yesterday. Things are a little bit crazy for me right now! Here is a look at the week ahead:

Monday: New vocabulary a vocabulary quiz (from last week's words)
Tuesday: Essay workbook pages and essay
Wednesday: Look at released items and begin writers' workshop
Thursday: Continue writers' workshop
Friday: Writers' workshop

The plans for this week aren't necessarily set in stone right now. It kind of depends on how long it takes to do this writers' workshop, which we have begun this week. Basically, the kids will be looking at student essays on released items from old EOI tests, as well as other students' essays and their own essays. As a class, we will work on how to make the released item essays better, and then we will break into groups for the other aspects of the workshop. This is the first workshop that I have ever done, so I'm not completely sure how long it will take to get some of this stuff done. This is why I say that the lessons for this week are kind of "up in the air" for right now. The point of this writing workshop is to hopefully make their essay- writing skills better. They will be taking another EOI test at the end of next year, so I'm working on helping them with that. We will be looking at several samples of writing and trying to make it better, and hopefully, they will get some ideas from others on how to make their writing better.

Monday in class, we learned new vocabulary words, and they will have a 10 point quiz over these words on Friday. Today in class, they are doing two workbook pages over writing essays, and I have asked them to choose one of the topics and write a 5 paragraph essay over it. Technically, this essay is due tomorrow, but I understand that, although I wished it would be number one in their hearts, essay writing sometimes takes a backseat to other things in life. I hope that they will have those ready by tomorrow, but they don't actually NEED them in class until Thursday. The essay and workbook pages from today are a 20 point homework assignment.

Thursday and Friday, we will continue with this writers' workshop, and Friday there will be a quiz over the vocabulary words from today. This week, the only homework that they have in my class is tonight's essay and to read for their reading logs, which are due again on November 13.

Have a great week, and I apologize again for the late post!