August 29, 2019

SEMINAR 9 / ENGLISH 9
We began the period with fluency writing. If you missed it, you missed it. There will be fluency writes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Students made a list in their journals of things that reminded them of childhood. I gave them the following categories:

1. Food

2. People

3. Places

4. Games/books/movies/TV

5. Smells

6. Activities

We listened to Kelly Normal Ellis' poem "Raised by Women" and annotated a copy (click here to print). Classes also reviewed and annotated the mentor texts with the focus on what could be used for imitation (for ideas, craft, and structure).

For this poem, you will be required to:

1. Start/end the poem and stanzas in the way Ellis does.

2. Include hyphenated adjectives (boogaloo-dancing, for example).

3. Use relevant dialogue

After reviewing the poem and determining what a good imitation of a "raised by" poem would contain, the class began to sort through their lists and determine what they may want to write about. 

We will draft on Tuesday. Period 2 is the grade-level assembly for ninth graders.

SEMINAR 10
If you were absent: 
We began the period with fluency writing. If you missed it, you missed it. There will be fluency writes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Today we began working towards our first writing assignment. We started the period by completing the identity questionnaire linked here (Identity poems and questionnaire). If you can, print it and fill it out OR answer the questions in your notebook. These answers will be shared semi-publically, so do not write something you don't want others to know.

After completing the questions, students partnered and shared their responses. Your partner will be selected for you if you were absent. 

You will be writing an identity poem about your partner using the mentor texts (also linked above) as inspiration. Classes also reviewed and annotated the mentor texts with the focus on what could be used for imitation (for ideas, craft, and structure).

We will begin drafting in class on Tuesday. 

Tomorrow (Friday) is grade-level assemblies (period three for tenth grade).