Homework: Week 31 (PDF) |
All that hard work in writing the first draft, and now you have to revise the paper! I doubt few will relate to the novelist Bernard Malamud when he said, "Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing." But what a difference it makes! “You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don't decide, others will decide for you.” ―Tony Morgan. Killing Cockroaches: And Other Scattered Musings on Leadership This week you have time to work on your paper while I'm reviewing your first draft. You know the weaknesses of your paper and have time this week to refine it. You do have other homework. Don't forget the vocabulary test coming up the last day of class. Print the practice quiz and take it as many times as necessary.
While you wait to get your first draft back, look over the document below to consider ways to improve your paper.
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." —Ernest Hemingway This week you will write the first draft of your research paper. I'm looking forward to reading about your heroes! Ask a parent or other trusted adult to help you by reading your draft and filling out the Evaluating Your First Draft form below.
Now that your research is mostly complete (you may find you need to fill in some gaps), you are to organize the information into an outline. Download the packet for this week, but don't print until you've completed it.
We will be researching and writing annotated bibliographies from our sources. Get an early start on your homework this week; there's a lot of it!
“The Scarlet Pimpernel... is the name of a humble English wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world, so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do.” —The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy This week we begin our final essay of the school year: a research paper. The topic will come from our last book of the year, The Scarlet Pimpernel. You will write on someone you believe is a hero. As you finish the Baroness Orczy's wonderful novel, I hope you'll find it stimulates your thinking on the qualities of a hero.
“It is only in our beautiful France that wholesale slaughter is done lawfully, in the name of liberty and of brotherly love” --The Scarlet Pimpernel
Below are all the vocabulary words to study for the final test on the last day of class. You may add them to Quizlet or make your own flash cards.
Reading essays written by professional writers will train your ear for writing well. This week we will read three essays. Enjoy them. They are not equal in quality, but all still well-written.
You will need two copies of the Analyzing Articles handout.
Poetry Assignment for AprilRules: You must memorize and recite the poem without error during the month of April. Choose one from the following. You must also write 4 to 5 sentences explaining the poem in your words. If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, Google it. This is worth 100 points. How to memorize a poem in a few simple steps (really)
"Sapogy and a fufaika. Knee-high, shiny leather boots and a green quilted jacket. They became my obsession; the magic garments that would make me invincible on the dark journey back from exile” (The Endless Steppe). We begin our essay on The Endless Steppe. Thoroughly brainstorm your chosen prompt before starting to write.
For your use only:
“What I ate for breakfast on school mornings was one buttered roll—a soft roll, not a hard roll—and one cup of cocoa; any attempt to alter this menu I regarded as a plot to poison me.” — Esther Hautzig, The Endless Steppe The Endless Steppe is an autobiographical story of a Jewish family who is sent to Siberia during World War II. Look for Vilna on the map of Poland above. The family traveled for two months on a crowded train to Rubtsovsk, Russia. How do you think you would fare in those circumstances? The above photo is a street scene in Vilna, Esther's home town. Below is a synagogue where the Rudomin family may have attended. Above is the railway station in Vilna, where the Rudomin family boarded the train to Siberia. Maybe the photo below is similar to the view of Vilna that Esther and her family saw from the train as they left their beloved city.
VOCABULARY TEST IS COMING In two weeks you will have your third vocabulary test. Below is the practice quiz for you to test yourself on how prepared you are.
"Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience—waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking." —Gary Paulsen, Hatchet Brian got it right; so much of living is being patient with yourself as you learn how to do things and think. So, this week as you sit down to correct your essay, remember Brian and how much he grew through the hard things he had to do.
The questions below are NOT due next week, but are posted so you can be making notes as you read.
Your essay may have the best thesis statement, terrific quotes from the text, and a fascinating argument, but if your lead and transition don't grab your readers, it may never be read. This week we'll continue to practice writing leads and transitions.
If you would like to start answering the questions as you read our next book, The Endless Steppe, I've uploaded them below. Please note: the answers are not due with this week's homework.
This short video will show how the borders of Poland, Esther's country, have changed. I suggest you at least watch the 20th century.
Your poetry assignment this week is to write an ode to an onion. In order to do this, you need to know what an ode is. Look it up. Below is an example by a fifth grade student. Ode to Drizzling Drizzle, you are a salty block of ice, a soapy bubble on the window. I hear you shattering like a glass vase. I see you, a hollow hallway. You are a soft, fresh breeze of leaves falling on the hard, dull concrete. People insult you, saying you come to make kids miserable because they can’t play. If you never happened, our plants would die of thirst. And if it isn’t good for children to play in, then I shall say to myself, I love when it drizzles. It feels so fresh. by Fadila, 5th grade “He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that—it didn't work.” ― Gary Paulsen, Hatchet, Chapter 8
I'm including an Essay Development Handout to help you follow the steps in writing your essay. You don't need to turn this in, but you do need to brainstorm and outline in order to write a good essay.
“Somebody was screaming, screaming as the plane drove down into the water. Someone screamed tight animal screams of fear and pain and he did not know that it was his sound, that he roared against the water that took him and the plane still deeper, down in the water” (Paulsen 29)
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. —Aristotle Learning to look at all sides of a topic will help you as you work to address objections to your argument.
Below are the literature questions and essay prompts for our next book, Hatchet. They are not due until next week, but I encourage you to have them close as you read the book.
"From his fine coat, from his tall beaver hat, from his glossy black boots, from his clean, chiseled countenance, from the dignified way he carried himself, I knew at once—without having to be told—that this must be Captain Jaggery. And he—I saw it in a glance—was a gentleman, the kind of man I was used to. A man to be trusted. In short, a man to whom I could talk and upon whom I could rely." --The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Chapter 3 Much of the book we are reading is about appearances. How often do we judge based on how someone looks or talks? The Bible addresses our tendency to both judge the outward appearances of others and to quickly forgive our own sins.
This week you'll finish reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. This story takes place in 1802 on a ship. The photo to the left is a ship's mast. How would you like to climb that in a storm? Don't forget to study for the vocabulary test next week! The practice quiz and key are still up under Week 14.
Reading good writing is important in learning to write well. I encourage you to read all kinds of writing and to ask yourself what makes the writing interesting or boring. This week you will read two articles and look for techniques the author has used to make the writing engaging.
The second vocabulary test is coming up in two weeks! Quiz yourself to see how you're doing, and then keep studying!
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!” --A Christmas Carol And so Charles Dickens concludes A Christmas Carol. Print out the handout below to work on your conclusion, and then type up your essay with the introduction, body, and conclusion.
Below is a checklist for you to make sure you have included everything necessary. Ask a parent to fill it out after you have written your paper. Do not turn this in.
I've provided a worksheet below to help you with your poetry assignment. You don't have to use it, but I encourage you to go through the steps.
Wishing you a very merry Christmas!
See you next year. One hundred seventy-nine years ago, Charles Dickens self-published his novella A Christmas Carol and it has never yet been out of print! If you've not heard, read, or seen the story performed, you're in for a treat! Click here to read it online. Check out the YouTube reading of the novella below. You may find it enjoyable to read along as it's read to you.
Keep a copy of your outline and your brainstorming for next week's homework!
"She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that only. She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after." –"The Necklace" by de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant was a French writer who lived from 1850 to 1893. He was very interested in the middle class, and the story we'll read this week is about a couple from this social class. Click here to read the short story "The Necklace."
"Timothy, are you still black?" (Chapter 13) We will finish reading The Cay this week and work on writing topic sentences.
"Some of the women cried at the sight of her, and I saw men, my father included, with tears in their eyes. It didn't seem possible that only a few hours before I had been standing on her deck. I was no longer excited about the war; I had begun to understand that it meant death and destruction" (Chapter 2). This week we begin reading Theodore Taylor’s novel, The Cay, and continue to work on writing a lead and creating an outline to follow for an essay.
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.” —Jack London Jack London, the author of our story this week, was born in San Francisco in 1876. He worked in a cannery, as a seaman, as well as prospecting for gold in the Klondike. His experiences serve as the background for his stories and novels. You may know his books The Call of the Wild and White Fang. To read our story, "The Banks of the Sacramento," online, click here. You may also download it from the PDF below.
"As I came to understand what Manzanar had meant, it gradually filled me with shame for being a person guilty of something enormous enough to deserve that kind of treatment." Farewell to Manzanar, Chapter 22 Consider why Jeanne and the other internees might feel shame for an act that was done against them. Does this make any sense to you? Above is a photo taken of the authors of Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband, James D. Houston, in 2007. She is now 89 years old; he died in 2009.
The vocabulary practice test and key are on the Week 6 post.
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