Writing for Co-op 7

[PhyllisG]

Dear Ladies,

I've had a great time teaching your students so far this year and I continue to pray that they are learning and improving in their writing skills as well. Yesterday we enjoyed a game of Jeopardy after our lesson on book reports. I'm typically not a "game player", but I certainly had fun coming up with the questions and the students seemed to have fun as well.

Overall, everyone is doing very well with their writing assignments. I was particularly pleased yesterday as I graded to see how many completed the entire assignment and how well they did. It was a super easy day of grading because I had very few corrections to make on papers. We will be finishing our summary work with this next assignment, a book report. I did remind everyone at co-op 5 to start thinking about a book they'd like to do their report on, and if they needed the extra time, to get started reading it. They can choose either fiction or non-fiction as long as it's something that they're interested in and you agree with.

Because of the scope of the writing assignment, I am requiring everyone to do some type of pre-writing (either a graphic organizer or an outline) which is to be turned in along with their final copy of their book report. They all took notes on how I'd like the book report to be laid out, but they have some leeway on the pre-writing. Also, this is a minimum 5-paragraph report. Students are allowed to write more than 5 paragraphs if they like.

NON-FiCTION: I handed out a graphic organizer to those students who thought they might choose to read a non-fiction book because it came from a set that wasn't easily linked. If your student changes his/her mind and decides to go with a non-fiction book, I will make sure to get a copy of it to you. NOTE: not everything on the non-fiction graphic organizer has to be filled out and included in their report. The entire bottom portion can be ignored. I do not want any vocabulary words in their reports, even if there is a section in the graphic organizer. If your student chooses to read a biography, I've included an organizer below.

FICTION: Please look through the links below and choose which graphic organizer your student would like to use. Again, I'm fine if they prefer to do an outline or choose another organizer they're more comfortable with as long as they use one of them.

Finally, I do plan on giving a mid-term test over the things we've been learning in class. The test will cover vocabulary, sentences and clauses, as well as any other writing content I've taught on.

Happy Thanksgiving--may it be a blessed time with family and friends!!

Phyllis

[KristyS]

Thanks, Phyllis. These graphic organizers will be helpful.