Genesis: Reading workshop continued with a focus on Socratic discussion; each day, we investigated the ideas inherent in various folklore and fable.  We also practiced inferencing with a passage from Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres.  Students continued independent reading and conferences.  In writing, I taught a minilesson on how four-line grammar analysis helps identify run-on/incomplete sentences.  Students were assessed on their ability to locate ungrammatical/run-on sentences in writing.  They drafted and shared a variety of narrative drafts with their peers.  We also read and interpreted a science fiction excerpt by Philip K. Dick which referenced James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake–we had lots of fun reading through some of the “referential” nonsense-language from that text!  Another highlight of the week was Block 5’s engaging One-Word-Story game.  Using a deck of “found” words generated by the class, we continued the “bouts-rimes” tradition with language improvisations that included poetry, songwriting, and fiction.

Legacy: In writing workshop, we considered how an awareness of social contexts impacts different genres’ writers with excerpts from a poet, science fiction writer, and Pulitzer-winning novelist.  We also developed the different strategies used in planning sheets for writing projects–clustering, bulleting, listing, tracking ideas, and others.  In reading workshop, we continued guided reading practice for social context with an excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Throughout the week, we continued independent reading/writing and conferences.  We also read and interpreted a science fiction excerpt by Philip K. Dick which referenced James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake–we had lots of fun reading through some of the “referential” nonsense-language from that text!  Using a deck of “found” words generated by the class, we continued the “bouts-rimes” tradition with language improvisations that included poetry, songwriting, and fiction.

Explorers: Our writing workshop week centered on creative and critical drafting inspired by Fahrenheit 451.  Students developed their own points of view in their writing in order to improve their “6 Trait” skills as writers.  They also reflected on their work using the rubric as a guide before turning in their collection of drafts.  Instruction has been differentiated by individual writing conferences with students on their drafts.  Example topics from this week’s conferences include revising thesis statements, clustering ideas, elaboration strategies, topic and concluding sentences, integrating interpretation before/after text quotation, MLA quotation format, editing for concise prose, colon/semicolon rules, transitions, matching pronouns with antecedents, the comma rule following dependent clauses, and others.  Using a deck of “found” words generated by the class, we continued the “bouts-rimes” tradition with language improvisations that included poetry, songwriting, and fiction.