Homework for Wednesday, February 1st
On your own time please either email to me or Tweet out each of our words worth knowing in a sentence. You should have a total of 25 examples. Ensure to use the word in context to show you understand its meaning. As well, find a poem that speaks to you and email this or tweet this out 140 characters at a time. See my Tweet for an example.
Homework for Monday, January 30th:
On your own time please either email to me or Tweet out each of our words worth knowing in a sentence. You should have a total of 25 examples. Ensure to use the word in context to show you understand its meaning. As well, find a poem that speaks to you and email this or tweet this out 140 characters at a time. See my Tweet for an example.
Homework for Monday, January 30th:
Your homework for Monday is to choose three criteria the Ministry of Education would use to determine whether a book should be included in the grade 8 Language Arts curriculum. For each criteria or feature of a good novel, you are to find 2-3 different examples from your book that provide evidence as to whether your book should stay in the curriculum or go. For example, if you chose rich use of language, you would find quotes where this was used in your book, or quotes where this was absent.
For this assignment, I am looking for specific supporting details in the form of direct quotes from your novel. Please no general statements, I need evidence.
Key features of a good novel:
1. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
2. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
3. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
Final Writing Task: Five paragraph essay due Friday, February 3rd
Magazine due Monday, February 6th
Write a letter to the Ministry of Education arguing for or against the inclusion of your novel in the Grade 8 Language Arts curriculum.
Your letter must be sent to an individual or organization with the power to make decisions involving whether a novel should stay or go. Groups include the Ministry of Education, Miss Alden, or any of the admin. staff (i.e., Mr. MacKinnon, our superintendent).
To write this letter, we will be using a five paragraph essay format and you will be evaluated using the grade 9 Provincial Achievement Test writing rubric. Note that this rubric has five criteria for evaluation including: word choice, supporting details, coherency and flow.
Begin by working in groups of four to consider the following questions:
What is your favourite book of all time?
What is the best book you have read for school?
Once you have recorded your responses on chart paper, further consider and write down the qualities or characteristics of these books. What made them so good? What are the elements of a good book? Responses may include:
- suspense continues to build in a way where you can't wait to find out what is going to happen next
- an appealing character that you strongly identify with
Now write down some ideas as to what criteria the Ministry of Education might consider for whether a book should be used in the curriculum:
- rich use of language
- a message or theme that appeals to a broad audience
- age appropriate (reading level pushes a grade 8 reader but is not too difficult that they would give up)
Using the T-chart e-mailed to you, please choose three criteria you believe the Ministry of Education should use when deciding to choose a book for a particular grade. Please write these down in the T-Chart:
Key features of a good novel:
1. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
2. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
3. __________________ 2-3 examples from your book:
Your homework for Monday is to find in relation to each of the criteria you chose (remember this needs to be criteria the Ministry of Education would use), 2-3 different examples from your book that provide evidence as to whether your book should stay in the curriculum or go. For example, if you chose rich use of language, you would find evidence that this was used in your book or evidence of writing where this was absent.
