Please at home only use journals for journaling on pleasure books and prompts that I assign. Most of the time I assign a prompt at school, however I may sometimes have you do one at home.
The KWO, rough drafts, and final drafts need to be on separate notebook paper with the proper checklist stapled or paper clipped to it. When it is time to turn in they need to go in the In/Home folder.
I hope this allieviate any confusion with finding papers.
I have taught the use of checklists at school so I wanted to give you a heads up as to when to use them.
There are three different checklists: one says dress-ups at the top, this one is to be used with rough drafts when students are looking for where to add or create dress-ups. In the ly, adj, and verb box students are to write the word they are going to use and on their rough draft circle the word in which the dress-up is replacing or describing.
The other checklist is to be used with their final draft which will help them make a good grade on the paragraph. Since students are not typing papers yet instead of double-spacing please have them skip lines and write in cursive. A clincher is simply a final sentence to a paragraph that ties back in the information from the title and topic sentence. However, it is not repeated word, for word.
The last checklist is just for you to review. I use this one when I grade so you can see if they missed points, why. It is like a ruberic. In writing, the only assesstments will be final drafts.
Dress-ups simply mean a way to "dress up" our writing. Some writing is like jeans and a t-shirt and we want it to be with a nice blazer, cute shoes, stunning jewelry, and a great handbag. However, we don't want 20 necklaces and a hat, scarf, and 5 socks, either. So the checklist help them add the interest without over doing it. Once you start using them you will love them because it makes writing easily gradable and less objective.
Dress-ups: ly word (and ly adverb) added to a sentence; quality adjective - strong verb (this one instead of adding the student finds one of their verbs and changes it to make it better); a because clause - adding one to any sentence in their writing; who/which clause - choosing a who OR which clause to add; www.asia - when, where, while, as, since, if, although - choose 1 to add to the writing. Help them know not to add each of these to the same sentence! (overkill)
Sentence Openers: ly word (just at the beginning of the sentence); clauses - any of the above at the beginning of the sentence; vss - very short sentence, ing and ed - starting the sentence with a verb ending in ing or ed- this are more advanced; prepositional phrase at the beginning of the sentence, and subject - just putting the subject first (if the or a is used before it that is o.k.) example: The girl is nice.
Please remember if a copy doesn't come home you have the packet. At the beginning of each unit a new packet will come home with all the information you need to truly teach, therefore, the copies will always be in there. Since they are small the parent partner should send larger copies of Learning masters -but if they don't that is where you would find it.
You will now be teaching the lesson they are reading at times. In the packet I have you go over the introduction section, the discussion sections, the map sections, and sometimes even more sections. The activities mentioned are helpful so I desire us doing more of them and slowing down some in history so that it will be enjoyable and a learning process. Continue to help them highlight and take notes on what they read. After a few paragraphs have them tell you everything they learned/remembered to make sure they are comprehending the reading.
