April 2012: Please see the "HOMEWORK TRIMESTER" THREE page of my website for
a description of the 6th grade research unit. There are also links for
printing copies of assignment sheets, note-taking sheets, and source cards
for researching at home if necessary. This page has much information on our
current unit. Please check it out.
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Week of December 5th: We continue to analyze the author's craft techniques
used throughout ROPE BURN by Jan Siebold. In this collection of personal
narratives, we are finding several examples of descriptive language,
thoughtshots, show-don't tell, sarcasm, exaggeration, humor, and wonderful
transitions. The students are enjoying the stories as they try out their own
writer's voice. We will continue to read ROPE BURN as we experiment with
different techniques in our personal narratives. Stay tuned for specific
information and deadlines for the upcoming personal narrative assignment.
Week of November 28th: We continue to focus on complete sentences this week
and we are working on recognizing and correcting sentence fragments, run-ons,
and comma splices. We know that a sentence contains a subject, and predicate,
and expresses a complete thought. This will lead us into our personal
narrative unit and reading the book, ROPE BURN to study the author's craft
techniques used.
Weeks of November 14th and 21st: SENTENCES! We have been focusing on writing
clear, concise sentences, and have been studying sentence structure. This
will lead us into recognizing sentence problems, and learning ways to correct
them. We also spent two days working on the poetry component of the Social
Studies National Parks project. These concrete poems contained nouns,
adjectives, and verbs, and continued our focus on the writing trait of word
choice. We also explored what was important to us by completing a HEART MAP
that will lead to future writing assignments.
Week of November 7: We have been learning how to form possessive nouns, both
singular and plural. The challenge has been in applying this skill to our
writing. There will be a quiz on this on Friday 11/11. Next week we will
introduce the 6th grade personal narrative writing unit and will read samples
of wonderful narratives while analyzing the authors craft techniques used.
Week of October 17: We are forging ahead with nouns after learning how to
identify them in sentences, and use more specific nouns in our writing. We
will continue to focus on the writing trait of WORD CHOICE as we choose
precise nouns in our writing. This week we will learn to form plural nouns,
and focus on the exceptions to the rules (see page 18 in the notebook :
singular and plural nouns). After several lessons of practice and
application, there will be a quiz on forming plural nouns on 10/28. This week
we also read poems about Autumn and wrote and illustrated our own "found"
poems looking for nouns along the way. In addition, we will continue to
reinforce editing and revising skills through Daily Oral Language (DOL). The
first DOL Quiz will be on 10/26.
Week of September 26th: We will continue our focus on word choice with a
spotlight on specific nouns. There is no school on Thursday 9/29. The
decriptive paragraph is due Wednesday 9/28 (see the homework page for details
and helpful hints). There will be a homophone quiz on the words we have been
reviewing through DOL (to, two, too; there, their, they're; your, you're) on
Wednesday 9/28. We continue to learn to live like writers in A-4.
Week of September 19th: We have been honing our descriptive writing skills
with a focus on generating ideas, organizing those ideas, and drafting our
descriptive paragraphs. The grammar focus this week is on nouns and how
specific nouns are necessary to write descriptively. Students have enjoyed
reading "The Monkey Garden" and "Japan", short stories in The Writer's Craft
textbook, as samples of wonderful descriptive writing. We have focused on
sensory details, similies, and precise word choice. On Friday we will edit
and revise our drafts so that they are ready for publication. The descriptive
paragraph is due (typed) on Wednesday 9/28. Please see me for a pass to the
Media Center if you need to use a school computer.
Week of September 12th: We are moving full steam ahead into Daily Oral
Language practice and introducing the Six Traits of Writing. We begin our
descriptive paragraph unit and our grammar focus will be on nouns.
Week of September 5th: We are busy gettting to know each other in these first
days of Language Arts
class. We are establishing expectations and routines, organizing classroom
materials, and laying the foundation for a wonderful year!
Please check back from time to time to learn about our units of study and all
of the fabulous learning taking place in A-4!