Week 4: Students, diagram.

What a busy day yesterday full of fantastic learning! We began diagramming, one of my absolute favorite parts of teaching this class. :)

At home with EEL this week, stick with simple S-Vi sentences in both the declarative and the imperative purpose. We really drilled in class yesterday changing a simple declarative S-Vi to a simple imperative S-Vi.

For example, we changed the statement, "Jesus wept," into a command: "Weep." Ask them every time to identify the subject of an imperative sentence: implied "you." Even better, ask them whether it's second person singular or second person plural.

I'd suggest starting with a declarative, classifying and diagramming it on the EEL Task Sheet using steps 1-4. Then change it to an imperative and do the same. See Lesson 4 in the book for diagramming tips -- both page 56 and the teacher sheets at the end of the lesson. Also, if you and your student are not used to the Q&A for sentence classification yet, use Steps 5-7 on your Simple Steps chart to identify the subject noun and intransitive verb.

Finally, we discussed interjections and nouns of direct address in class -- what they are and how to diagram them on a straight line above the subject noun. If you have the opportunity, please work with the nouns of direct address at home.

To illustrate, here are three sentences:

• Jesus wept. (Jesus is the 1st person singular subject noun of this simple declarative S-Vi.)
• Weep. (Second person singular implied "you" is the subject noun of the simple imperative S-Vi.)
• Jesus, weep. (Jesus is a noun of direct address, implied "you" is the 2nd person singular subject noun. The comma is the key because it signals Jesus as an NDA.)

Enough EEL. IEW mimics last week's assignment, with the sole difference being Topic B: Viking Explorers. The students are responsible for reviewing vocabulary and for a rough draft.

Please note, however, that the stapled assignment pages I gave them yesterday contain next week's lesson assignment as well, which for Level A is revision, then adding an introductory statement and final clincher. Level B gives students the option of writing a third paragraph on a clear topic of choice from a source text of choice before they add the intro and clincher. Refer to the initial Lesson 8 assignment page for more information on Level B.

Erin Varnell is subbing for me next week, October 5, while we're at Disney; she will explain further. But the students will turn in a final paper with an attached final checklist when I return Oct. 12.

If you need me, please email. I'll be checking! Have a great rest of the week.