Week 14

EEL

We reviewed how to make complex sentences.  I was also supposed to go over active and passive voice but I really felt that we needed to camp out at complex sentences.  The explanation about active and passive voice is covered thoroughly in lesson 14 of the EEL Guide and also in the Our Mother Tongue lessons that go along with this week.  Feel free to visit that info.  I will cover it if we have time next week.  Understanding this concept can really help transform writing.

Complex Sentence
Moms, if your child is not getting the subordinate (dependent) clause, please spend some time doing the exercise we did at the beginning of class.  I gave them an independent clause and they had to provide the subordinate to make the complex sentence.  A good way to do this is to split a whiteboard in half and put independent on one side and make them write the dependent on the other.  Or put dependent and make them write the independent.  This makes a good visual separation and hammers in the idea that an independent plus a dependent (subordinate) clause equals a complex sentence.

Remind students that a dependent clause always has a subject and a verb.  

This separates it from the phrase.

If your child already understands the dependent clause, move on to identifying whether it is adverbial or adjectival and have them diagram.

Memorization

Memorizing the list of 
relative pronouns (adjectival sub. clause openers), and 
subordinating conjunctions (www.asia.wub--adverbial sub. clause openers)

If your student is a first year student and is just trying to grasp first semester still, feel free to camp out there.  Second semester information can just wash over them and they can absorb whatever they pick up here and there. Moms, this semester may just be for you to learn.  Next year will be the year to hammer away at second semester.  No crying in Essentials!

IEW

This week we started a two week paper.  We are in Unit VI, Lesson 23. Our source texts are about Benjamin Franklin and we are creating paragraphs by pulling like information from the different sources and then fusing the outlines.

So, we started by identifying the topics in each paragraph of source one.  The first paragraph was Ben Franklin as printer and writer.  The second paragraph was Franklin as community helper.  The third paragraph was Franklin as statesman and diplomat. Next, we identified the topic of each paragraph in source two and three.

Next, we looked at only the two paragraphs about Franklin as a printer and writer.  The first paragraph was from source one, paragraph one.  The second paragraph about Franklin as a prater and writer was found in source three, paragraph one.

At home this week the students need to Key Word Outline (KWO) these two paragraphs then set aside the source text and fuse the outlines into a 5-7 line KWO and write their paragraph from that.

Next, they need to take out their rough draft checklist and brainstorm sentence openers, and other dress ups.  This makes the actual writing much easier.

Finally, write the paragraph, underline dress ups and add a picture if you would like.

For students who do this with little effort, please tackle a second topic and at least have the fused outline done.  That will put you in a good position to finish a second and third paragraph next week.

I will not be collecting paragraphs this week.  We will turn in final work the following week.