Week 22: Write and review some more!

Apologies for posting late!

In class Tuesday, we reviewed all seven sentence patterns and then modified and diagrammed one of the seven with adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases and dependent clauses (both relative pronoun and subordinating conjunction). It amazes me how much we've covered this year and how well they've absorbed the information! Our review exercise allowed me to see that it does overwhelm them to be asked to recall all of it at once, but a little Q&A helped break the process into bite-size pieces. Then they rose to the task!

Continue reviewing EEL at home this week as you deem appropriate. Next week, I plan to cover verbals and verb forms. For many of them, this will be info that, for the moment, is nice to know rather than necessary to know. So we'll have fun with it in class, but I don't expect mastery this year.

We began our final IEW assignment of the year! Hard to believe, but hooray! I know everyone will be glad for a break from writing. We are doing Lesson 18 in the book, which is a research report. In class, I handed out photocopies of key word outlines and rough draft checklists to use at home for Topics A, B and C on an ancient personality of their choice. The rough drafts are due next week; final drafts will be presented in costume on Week 24.

During class, I demonstrated several steps for this "research" process:

• Select 2-3 source texts that are brief, interesting and informative! (The KWO sheets I distributed have room for two sources, but a third could easily be incorporated if needed.)
• READ the source texts.
• Brainstorm one to three topics (one per body paragraph). For instance, if I were writing about Alexander the Great, I'd write about his childhood as the son of a king, his military conquests, and his early death.
• RE-READ the source text one time per topic, completing the key word outline for one topic at a time. What is interesting or informative about this person? Include that information on the KWO.
• Once the KWOs are completed for each source text, complete the fused outline and write the rough draft paragraph.
• Remind them to keep it simple. Revision, dress-up and polishing come NEXT week!

Please remember to adjust the length of this paper to your child's level and your family's spring schedule! Options range from no final paper at all, to one to three body paragraphs, to a five-paragraph paper that includes three body graphs, plus intro and concluding graphs.

See you Tuesday!