FOURTH SIX WEEKS
Guess what! We get to write again. I love writing with my students. We start off the year with a research paper. Although writing a research paper does sound boring, we'll try to make it interesting.
Daily Video:
(usually posted between 4:30 and 5:00 pm)
WEEK 5 AGENDA
Feb. 1 - Feb. 5
Monday:
1. Students are working on their PowerPoint presentation.
a. Set it to kiosk mode.
b. Create buttons. (Use action buttons, block arrows, or pictures as your buttons.)
c. Animate some buttons, or animate some of the text, or animate some of the images.
HW: Work from your digital locker.
Tuesday:
1. Continue working on your PowerPoint.
2. Print out your report. (You should have a copy in your school folder.)
HW: PPT needs to be ready for tomorrow.
Wednesday:
1. Presentations in class.
HW: None.
Thursday:
1. Discussion on comma rules for a mini-project.
HW: Create a booklet of comma rules.
Friday:
1. Library Day
2. Reading Day
3. Turn in booklets.
WEEK 4 AGENDA
Jan. 25 - Jan. 29
Much of this week is devoted to a Reading and Writing Benchmark. I do have laptops in the room, so as soon as we finish the benchmark, the sooner we can get back to our multimedia research project.
Monday:
1. Reading and Editing Benchmark.
HW: A few students have not submitted their research report online.
Tuesday:
1. Reading and Editing Benchmark continues.
2. Writing Benchmark.
HW: None.
Wednesday:
1. Complete the Writing Benchmark.
2. Multimedia Research Project
HW: Multimedia Research Project. It's due Feb. 1st.
Thursday:
1. Multimedia Research Project.
2. Complete the Writing Benchmark, for those who were absent or lost time yesterday.
HW: Mutltimedia Project
Friday:
1. Multimedia Research Project
HW: Multimedia Project
WEEK 3 AGENDA
Jan. 18 - Jan. 22
Monday:
1. School Holiday
Tuesday:
1. Write a summary of what you have researched and discovered about your topic up to this point. This is a 10-minute exercise.
2. Continue researching your topic, taking notes and citing your sources.
HW: Research.
Wednesday:
1. Complete your research and gather up your notes and sources.
2. Start working on your research paper. It must be typed.
HW: Research report. Work from Digital Locker.
Thursday:
1. How to write your Works Cited page.
2. Continue typing your research report.
3. Work on your Works Cited page.
HW: Research Report and Works Cited page. Work from your Digital Locker.
Friday:
1. Do Not Print Your Paper!
2. Submit your paper through Digital Locker.
3. Paper is due by the end of class.
4. Reading Day.
HW: None.
WEEK 2 AGENDA
Jan. 11 - Jan. 15
Monday:
1. Lecture about research assignment and effective research strategies. (Handout)
2. Brainstorming and generating questions on topic to research.
3. Research paper will be due on January 22.
4. The multimedia project will be due on February 1.
HW: Come up with 4 or 5 topics and have several questions for each topic.
Tuesday:
1. Lecture: What type of source information should I write down? Books, Magazines, Newspapers, Online Sources, Internet. (Handouts)
a. Class work.
2. Lecture: What should go in my notes? Should I use index cards or my notebook?
a. Class work.
HW: None.
Wednesday:
1. Prepare calendar to keep track of work.
2. Working with laptop carts to gather information online. (Only internet source.)
HW: None.
Thursday:
1. How to use library sources with Mrs. DiPronio, librarian.
2. How to use boolean searches with Mrs. DiPronio, librian.
3. Research in the library, take notes, and write down source information.
HW: Research from home, take notes and write down source information. You can save notes to your digital lockers.
Friday:
1. Research in the library.
2. Take notes and source information.
HW: Continue research at home.
WEEK 1 AGENDA
Jan. 4 - Jan. 8
Let's start this week with some writing. My goal is to have this writing lead us into our research topics, but I don't think every student is going to write a paper related to their research. I hope it does, but we'll see what happens.
Monday
1. Teacher workday.
Tuesday
1. Writing an essay about ourselves. Original Topic: This I Believe. Due: Friday, Jan. 8
2. Brainstorm, write and work on a draft of your essay.
HW: Work on your brainstorming, your ideas, possibly your draft.
Wednesday
1. Writing a draft. You must have a draft by the end of class.
2. Checking students' papers for grammar, sentence variety and ideas.
3. Saving your work to the server and to your digital locker.
HW: Open your digital locker from home. Finish your draft at home. Save your work to the digital locker. (OR show up with a complete hand-written draft so we can edit tomorrow.)
a. Check for punctuation, spelling, capitalization. Is there dialogue? Check for quotations and commas.
b. Check for paragraphs, indentation only, do not skip lines.
c. Check for ideas and themes. Do not simply report about an incident. This is an essay.
d. Check for sentence variety: simple, compound, complex, and parallel structure.
Remember: Save your work to your home computer, and then re-load it to your digital locker. This updates the version in the locker.
Thursday
1. Editing our drafts. Look for a better introduction and conclusion. Use the "imagine" format, the "bookend" format, or the "reflective" format.
2. Try moving and shifting paragraphs around. Does it make your paper more interesting?
3. Begin typing or writing your final draft. It's due tomorrow.
4. Save to server, and upload to the digital locker.
HW: Write your final draft at home. Bring in a completed essay, or save it to the digital locker so we can print it here.
Friday
1. Turn in your essay at the beginning of class. Or open your digital locker, save to the server, and print.
1. Reading Day
HW: None.