Making Inferences to Create Character

OBJECTIVE
Students will define and graph character traits in order to write about a memorable character.

The Memorable Person (you’re going to write about)

• Remember Paul Auster’s “He remembers” and “I remember”?
• He wrote about himself as if he were another person.
• What do you think about the character he created?
• In the next two days, we’ll be working on character traits.

THE BLUES & “The Treasure of Lemon Brown”
By Walter Dean Myers
p.334

THINK ALOUD
As you read ask yourself connecting questions, visualize, predict:
What does the story make me think about?
What does it remind me of?
What was life like for Lemon Brown?
What does Lemon Brown mean when he says, “Every man got a treasure”? How might this relate to the theme of the story?

Tell me about the Characters, please.
Glossary of Literary Terms
Character traits: unique attributes or characteristics of a character
Infer: to deduce, guess or reason
Inferences: to draw a conclusion or make a decision based on knowledge or evidence
Dynamic characters: Characters who change throughout the story
Static characters: Characters who remain the same throughout the story

Independent Writing

OBJECTIVE
Students will begin their independent writing routine.

QUICK REVIEW BEFORE YOU WRITE
Review your writing ideas from previous lessons.
Ask yourself if you’d like to use any of these ideas or use the process to create new ones.
Questions before you start?

REMEMBER TO....
Good writers write about familiar experiences and use them to write fiction (The Pigman) or autobiographical pieces (“The Jacket”).
Use details and descriptive language.
Use details and descriptive language.
Use details and descriptive language.

WRITE NOW!

• If you have a writing topic, start now.
• If you do not have a writing topic:
• Look over your past entries in Sentence Explorations and Writing Explorations.
• Take a deep breath.
• Try to think of a topic one more time.
• Okay, Okay. Raise your hand.

Creating Norms For Sharing Out

In the front of our classroom in Rm. 206 is a chair. That chair is where students share what they've written during Writers Workshop. The lesson below is where students took the time to create norms for themselves.

OBJECTIVE
Students will create norms for the readers/writers chair in order for sharing out in the chair to take place in a way that promotes a learning community where all are respected.

Guide For Responding to Author/Readers Chair & Critics

• Provides tips for responding to the writer as a critic.
• List will grow throughout the year as we move forward.

Students share out about what they expect as writers sitting in the chair and as critics sitting in the audience from their classmates.

Strategies of Good Writers

• Writers choose subjects that have special meaning to them
• Writers focus on the most important moments
• Writers expand the moments and use the six senses (what they see, hear, smell, taste, feel and touch).
• Writers tell about their lives in the first person
• Writers create fictional characters based on their own memories.

Another Word For Your Glossary of Literary Terms p.171 (Writers Notebook)
Theme: a thought or idea the author presents to the reader that may be deep, difficult to understand, or even have a moral; Themes allow the reader to understand part of the author’s purpose in writing the book.

To do: Each time you read and write, ask yourself: The most important thing about this story is…

Close
We now have another artifact in the classroom listing what students will expect from each other as writers and critics. At some point, I'll take a photo of it and post it online.

Mimicking A Sentence Pattern

OBJECTIVE
Students will remain focused on one writing idea in order to expand their ability to create viable writing topics.

5-minute silent read
“The Book of Memory, Book Thirteen” by Paul Auster
Think About It: What might have inspired the writer to write this passage after his father passed away?

TOOLS YOU'LL BE USING

• What were the effects of repetition in “The Book of Memory, Book of Thirteen” (“He remembers…”)?
• As a reader, what are the differences between third person and first person narration?

YOUR ZOOM IN
Step 1 Create a new page in “Writing Explorations” of your Writers Notebook called
“Zooming In on a Moment”
Step 2 Zoom in on a moment from your "He/She Remembers" "I Remember" piece.
Step 3 Ask yourself Why does Auster use he instead of I for his list of memories?

Can You Borrow the Writing Technique Correctly?

from “The Book of Memory, Book Thirteen”, Paul Auster

First-Person Narrative

• Make a new entry in the Writing Explorations section of your Writer’s Notebook: “I Remember: Mimicking Paul Auster”
• Start writing an “I Remember…” of your own. You have only 10 minutes.
• If you have trouble starting, turn to previous entries in your Writers Explorations section and your Sentence Explorations section.
• When you finish writing, re-read your writing for spelling and punctuation.
• First-person pronouns: I, we, us, our
  

Example: I remember a hospital bed and the doctor’s empty timelines. I remember my grandma’s pallid face and her lonely pinky wrapped in white gauze. I remember my granddaddy asking me to make a trip down the long, dusty graveled road for Grey Goose and cigarettes. I remember the thick laughter that followed, slow as dough kneaded by my mother’s hands.

Second-Person Narrative

• What is a Third-Person narrative?
• Turn to your Glossary of Literary Terms on page 171.
• Third-person narrative: The participants in the narrative are distinct or separate from the person telling the story and the person who is reading it and who its being read to; perspective from the outside looking in; a story told as its happening to someone else.
• Third-person pronouns: she, he, her, his, their, they
  

Take the Style & Use It!

• Under your First-Person Narrative, skip two lines and write your First-Person narrative as a Third-Person Narrative.
• Start writing a “He Remembers…” OR “She Remembers…” of your own. You have only 7 minutes.
• When you finish: highlight or underline your favorite lines in both passages.

Example: She remembers a hospital bed and the doctor’s empty time lines. She remembers her grandma’s pallid face and her lonely pinky wrapped in white gauze. She remembers her granddaddy asking her to make a trip down the long, dusty graveled road for Grey Goose and cigarettes. She remembers the thick laughter that followed, slow as dough kneaded by her mother’s hands.

MIMICKING A SENTENCE PATTERN
Zoom In Strategy (Read Aloud/Think Aloud)

• Is there a memory that may be a candidate for more writing?
• Return and reread the Passage
• Select a line where I have more to write because the memory is such a strong “photograph” in my mind.

Wide Angle: She remembers the thick laughter that followed, slow as dough kneaded by her mother’s hands.

Zoom In: She remembers her grandma’s voice like summer rain waking her from a deep slumber. She remembers climbing out of bed as the red fleece blanket slides slowly to the floor. She remembers her toes hitting the ice cold of the floor. She remembers her narrowed eyes twisting themselves into a smile as she listens to the conversations of adults in the kitchen. She remembers the smell of buttermilk biscuits wafting over her nose as the red Saturday morning sun rose its way into the breakfast sky.

SHARE OUT

• Read the class your favorite line. (5 min)
• What’s the difference between first-person and third-person?

What Should Be in Your Reader's Notebook

5p today marked the end of 1st quarter here in PG County. Here's what should be in your child's Readers Notebook so far since the midpoint of the quarter:

9/29 What emotions or feelings did you have while reading the text?
9/30 What is the setting of the text? Is the setting of the text important to your story? Why?
10/1 Does the setting remind you of a place you know? What is the place and how does it remind you of it?
10/2 What events are connected most to the setting? Why? OR What is an important event that occurs in the book? Where does it occur?
10/3 If you could take on the qualities of any character in the text, what qualities would those be? What character would they come from?
10/6 What would be the main character's response or take on the upcoming election?
10/7 How does the author let you know what the setting is?
10/8 Does the setting affect what the characters do or don't do? How?
10/10 Why did the author choose the narrator he/she did for the story?
10/13 Do you think the characters in your story are believable?
10/14 Give a summary of what happened in your story today.
10/15 Which character or characters do you think have learned the hardest lesson in the text? Why?
10/16 What idea image or situation meant the most to you as you read the text? Why?
10/20 What do you think will happen next in your book? Why?
10/21 If you could talk with thee author of this text, what would you ask him or her OR what would you comment on?
10/22 If you were going to recommend this text to someone, who would it be? What in this text would the person like?
10/23 What are your thoughts about the text so far? What in the text is causing those thoughts?
10/24 If you could take any passage and make it a play or skit what would it be? Why?
10/28 Does the setting make difference in how you view your characters? Why? Why not?
10/29 Choose your own dilemma?
10/30 What/who is the biggest problem facing the main character of your book right now?

On Memory

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand discovered an important link between the ability to tell stories, memory and the way mother's tell their children stories. I'm really interested in this right now because in class, we're covering Features of a Good Story. Specifically, we're discussing how students can become great writers by: 1) telling stories with a lot of descriptive language and 2) using their ability to recall what they already know and merge it with what they're learning from reading to make inferences.

The study by the Department of Psychology researchers found that Māori mothers appear to talk with their children in richer ways about significant events involving them, such as their birth.

Study co-author Associate Professor Elaine Reese says discussing past events in richer detail during early childhood has previously been linked to children more effectively storing their early memories.

"This new study provides the first evidence that Māori children experience a richer narrative environment than New Zealand European children and that these rich stories transfer to children's storytelling skill," Associate Professor Reese says. Read Full Article

The Secrets of Excellent Writing…

OBJECTIVE

• Students will continue borrow ideas from a writer (including their classmates) in order to discover writing ideas!
• Students will identify features of a good story in order to write their own stories.

THE SECRETS OF EXCELLENT WRITING
Gary Soto’s writing technique: Think about an object, scene, character, or image from the past that sparks a strong memory. When you write, you should be painting an image with words.
Image: A strong picture, like a photo or painting, that a person associates with a particular person, event, subject.

ANOTHER WORD FOR YOUR GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS
METAPHOR: A comparison of two nouns not using like or as suggesting a likeness or similarity between the two nouns.

SPARK YOUR CREATIVITY
When you are called on, respond with an event, idea or BRIEF story that the image reminds you of.


















STRONG IMAGES FROM "THE JACKET", by Gary Soto
“When I needed a new jacket and my mother asked what kind I wanted, I described something like biker’s wear: black leather and silver studs with enough belts to hold down a small town. We were in the kitchen, steam on the windows from her cooking. She listened so long while stirring dinner that I thought she understood for sure the kind I wanted. The next day when I got home from school, I discovered draped on my bedpost a jacket the color of day-old guacamole. I threw my books on the bed and approached the jacket slowly, as if it were a stranger whose hand I had to shake. I touched the vinyl sleeve, the collar, and peeked at the mustard-colored lining.”

How does Soto make descriptive images?

• Soto starts by recalling strong images from his adolescence.
• Then, he turns the image into a title.
• He allows the image in his mind (and the strong memories he associates with it) lead him as he writes.
• The titles are the word “The” plus the name of the object, person, or subject. (“The Locket,” “The River,” “The Grandfather,” “The Promises,” “The In-Between Dinner Snacks,” “The Talk,” “The Concert”)
• “The” + Noun or Phrase

STRONG IMAGES THAT MAY LEAD TO WRITING IDEAS

• the socks
• the long race
• the starter earrings
• the biggest spanking ever
• the Waycross drive-thru

IN YOUR WRITER'S NOTEBOOK...

10/16/2008 Images That May Lead to Writing Ideas

List as many “The” + noun/phrase (“the spanking”) that bring strong memories to mind as you can. You’ll share out when the five minutes are over.

Use all of your time. I want to hear a long list.

Images=people, places, events, objects

Partner Share
• Break into pairs.
• Decide who goes first.
• The first writer reads aloud his/her list of images.
• The partner selects one image that’s especially interesting and asks the writer to tell the story behind the image.
• Repeat the process.
• Each partner is given 5 minutes to read and tell story.

Next Steps
• Review your list by scanning through what you wrote.
• Circle or put a star, heart or check by the idea that you are most interested in writing about.
• You don’t have to write about the idea your partners chose.
• It’s all about you!

15-Minute Quick Write
• Once you’ve chosen your idea, skip 3 lines and begin a new entry in “Writing Explorations.”
• Enter a date and heading using the image you’ve chosen (Example: “The Drive-Thru”)
• WRITE! Remember, the details. Paint a picture by showing, not just telling us.

WRITING & THINKING CRITICALLY

1. Tell us WHY your story is important. All great stories have meaning and significance.
2. Skip 2 lines and complete this sentence: The important thing about this story is…
3. Re-read your notebook entries and notice whether or not you’ve been using any of these effective features in your writing.
   TAKE 2 MINUTES: Highlight or mark any places where you’ve used features of a good story.
   Volunteer to Read Aloud: Read an excerpt (a few sentences) from your piece and identify the feature you believe your writing illustrates.
   

So, I saw this interesting article...

I have received no word as to if this is happening in PG County or not, I just thought it was interesting in light of the fact that standardized testing for middle schoolers may now be more uniform than ever. There are some benefits and challenges to this model. It's independent reading time for my 3rd Mod, which will be wrapping up any minute now, so I'll have to discuss this later.

College Board will offer eighth grade test next fall
Group says it's for assessment, not college admission
By SARA RIMER
The New York Times
Thursday, October 23, 2008

Amid growing challenges to its role as the pre-eminent force in college admissions, the College Board on Wednesday unveiled a new test that it said would help prepare eighth graders for rigorous high school courses and college.

The test, which will be available to schools next fall, is intended only for assessment and instructional purposes and has nothing to do with college admissions, College Board officials said.

"This is not at all a pre-pre-pre SAT," Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said at a news conference. "It's a diagnostic tool to provide information about students' strengths and weaknesses."

The College Board, which owns the SAT and PSAT, made its announcement when an increasing percentage of high school students are taking the rival ACT and amid mounting concern over what critics call the misuses of the SAT and ACT and other standardized tests in college admissions.

Those critics dismissed the new test for eighth graders as just what Jones said it was not: "a pre-pre-pre SAT."

"Who needs yet another pre-college standardized exam when there is already a pre-SAT and the SAT test itself?" said Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, a nonpartisan group that has called for colleges and universities to make standardized tests optional for admissions. "The new test will only accelerate the college admissions arms race and push it down onto ever younger children."

The new test, called ReadiStep, can be completed within two hours and is divided into three multiple-choice sections of critical reading, writing skills and mathematics. It will cost less than $10 per student, College Board officials said, and schools and districts will pay for it. College Board officials described the test as voluntary and "low-stakes," and said the results would be shared only with teachers, parents, students and schools.

Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board, said the new test had been developed in response to the demand from schools and districts, which he said had requested a "tool that would help them determine before high school what measures should be taken to ensure that students are on the path to being college ready."

Caperton and other officials refused to identify any of the schools and districts that had requested the test.

OBJECTIVE
Students will identify features of a story in order to generate topics for a good story.

Another Word for Your Glossary of Literary Terms
• Simile: Comparison using “like” or “as”. Similes allow things to remain distinct in spite of their similarities. Examples: “arms feeling like braille”; “teeth chattered like a cup of crooked dice”; “girls who had been friendly, blew away like loose flowers”

IN-CLASS WRITING ASSIGNMENT
• In your “Writing Explorations” section: Describe an object or a place WITHOUT telling us what it is.
• Name it: “Features of a Great Story”
• When you finish, return and describe your object or place using similes for words like a lot, fat, pretty, beautiful, long, skinny, fat.

BEFORE EXAMPLE
Her hair was long and her legs were fat. That’s why they called her Pumpkin because of her legs. But it was her face that really made people pay attention. Her eyes were dark brown. Her lips were pretty.

AFTER EXAMPLE
Her hair was long like the Nile River and her legs her fat like a pumpkin. That’s why they called her Pumpkin because of her legs. But it was her face that really made people pay attention. Her eyes were like two dark brown almonds roasted to perfection. Her lips were like rose petals and it was as if God himself made her eyelashes.

FEATURES OF A GOOD STORY

My different mods all came up with different ideas about what makes a good story. While there were many consistencies, there were also a lot of different (and unique) opinions on what makes a story dynamite! Here are some of them:
• Gets your attention right away.
• Keeps you in suspense.
• Uses words that makes the story seem real.
• Situation and/or characters are real.
• Characters talk like real people.
• Story is funny.
• Good description.
• Good action!
• Great ending.
• The ending resolves all of the action and is final.
• Makes you think!
• Good descriptions that help you visualize.
• The settings are anywhere in the world (or not)
• Lots of drama (people arguing, fighting)

THINK ABOUT IT
•What are your favorite features of a good story? Why?
•Do you see yourself developing as a writer? Why or why not?

Homework 10/23

You may take home your Writer's Notebooks and complete any work not finished in class.

I've been a little behind in posting...

There bulk of the posts will arrive later on tonight. My laptop is acting up a little here at TJMS. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Homework 10/20 & 10/21

In at least one paragraph, describe one good or bad memory. Use descriptive words to SHOW your memory. A paragraph=5 to 8 sentences.

Summarizing the Plot

OBJECTIVE
Students will learn the defining elements of a summary in order to write a summary and present it to the class.

Tellin’ Good Stories
What are the qualities of a good story?

• Start with summarizing the story to recall important details.
• (Glossary of Literary Terms, pg 171) Summary: Process where a story’s sequence of events are identified. The main idea is to help listeners get the gist in a short period of time.

When you summarize…

• You’re talking about the plot!
• (Glossary of Literary Terms, pg 171) Plot: the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story; also called the storyline; the main conflict or main problem of the story
• (Glossary of Literary Terms, pg 171) Imbroglio: an intricate, complicated plot

YOU DO!
1. Collaborate on completing responses to the five prompts for "The Jacket" and one other story.
2. Be prepared to present your responses to the class.
3. Write neatly & large enough for others to read from a distance.
4. If you finish BEFORE time is called, you may draw caricatures or symbols to accompany your words.

FIVE PROMPTS YOU NEED TO SUMMARIZE A PLOT
Somebody: Who is the Main Character?
Wanted: What does the main character want?
But: What is the conflict? What/who is preventing the character from getting what he/she wants?
So: What does the character do to solve the conflict?
Then: How does the story resolve itself or end? How does the character move on?

Writing Ideas from Reading

From "My Name" by Sandra Cisneros:

• Stories, thoughts about names and identity
• Meaning of my name
• Nicknames
• Middle names
• Reactions
• Where you come from
• Pronounciation of your name
• How you felt receiving your name

From "The Jacket" by Gary Soto:

• Wanting something I can’t have
• Parents' misunderstanding
• Embarrassing moments
• How people treat you
• Past experiences
• Being grateful or thankful
• Respecting others

Progress Report Update

Progress reports are scheduled to be printed out by the system no later than tomorrow, Wed. Oct. 15. According to a school memo, there will be a letter sent home to parents explaining the matter.

Connecting to Memorable Quotations From "The Jacket"

OBJECTIVE
Students will make connections to texts as springboards for writing.
CONNECTIONS
Place the definition below in your Glossary of Terms on page 171.
• First-person Narration: Narrator tells the story from their perspective as they see it using the first-person pronouns I, me, my, we.
• When you finish copying the definition, turn to “My History As A Writer” to determine whether you conveyed your history in first-person.
• Count how many first-person pronouns you used.

IN YOUR WRITER'S NOTEBOOK
As you grow as a writer, the Glossary of Literary Terms will be a resource you’ll use as a reference as your Writer’s Notebook grows.

A CLOSE STUDY OF "THE JACKET"
• As we read ask yourself:
• What does this story remind me of?
• What moments in the story remind me of moments in my life or someone else’s?
• Which lines make me stop and think?
• After we read, take 5 minutes to write phrases, dialogue or thoughts that come to you in the “Sentence Explorations” section of your Writers Notebook.
• Be sure to date your entry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Your Writer's Notebook
Quotations
1. “When I needed a new jacket and my mother asked what kind I wanted, I described something bikers wear: black leather and silver studs with enough belts to hold down a small town.”
2. “I touched the vinyl sleeve, the collar, and peeked at the mustard-colored lining.”
Connections
1. I never asked my mother for a biker’s jacket, but I did ask her for a mint green wool sweater with suede patches on the elbows—the patches on the elbows were all the rage when I was in high school. But she said we couldn’t afford it, and that money didn’t grow on trees.
So…
2. In the 5th grade, grandma gave me a ‘90s version of “The Jacket”: a pair of silver plastic ankle boots.

Progress Reports Out Today!

AMENDMENT: Due to technological malfunctions, Progress Reports will not be out today. When I know something about this, I will post it.
Student progress reports will be given to your child today at Thomas Johnson.

Check their progress report and ask them questions about their performance at school.
Feel free to contact me here at Thomas Johnson MS and schedule a conference or have a conversation about how we can work together to support the goals you have for your child and the goals they have for themselves.

My email address is erin.cooper@pgcps.org and the phone number here is 301.918.8680 x311.