Amanda's First Blog

Agenda

Blog · Corrections

RJ✓

reader's workshop

STEP-UP to Writing

HW

RJ 4.3 T.O. p.167-180

Well, today it is my turn to write the blog. Thanks, Kelsey (said with sarcasm). We started today by correcting Kelsey's blog. Kaio, for once, shared his own summary, instead of volunteering Ulyses. (Did I spell it right?) Ian, as usual, reads his summary, and points out how auto correct changed Ponyboy's name to "Pon bboy" (I think). Sophie, Edie, and Sean told me to give them a blog shout-out, so that is their shout-out. Maybe they will get another one later.

We then annotated The Outsiders. We discussed if Ponyboy was going through the stages of grief. We also annotated about how the reason Pony can handle Johnny's death and Dally can't, is because Johnny was the only thing Dally cared about. Ms. Nakada also made a connection to Ponyboy's inability to walk in a straight line to when you spin around with your head on a baseball bat. We then discussed Dally's death, and how Ponyboy ends up in the hospital since he is sick. We also talked about how Randy's visit to Ponyboy shows that he still cares.

Next, we went into reader's workshop while Ms. Nakada checked reading journals for the side of the room she didn't get to yesterday. Sophie then called my name and told me to call her out again. I will grant her wishes by saying: Sophie read The Hate U Give, Edie read Nineteen Minutes, (which is apparently Raven's favorite book) and Sean pointed his book up to me so I would write is down. He read The Boy in the Black Suit. Now for the usual Ariel shout-out. At the moment, she is not in the room. She wrote her name down on the board under the chart that says "STAY" and as she left, Mr. Borowski looked in her direction and said "Really?" I actually don't know if he was talking to her though. Edie then started laughing about something. Since I had some extra time and didn't have anything to write about, I also just want to point out that apparently this computer or website doesn't recognize "Sophie" as a real word because there is always a red line under it.

The next thing we did was take out our English notes and do "Step-Up to Writing".  Ms. Nakada then stopped what she's saying to tell Jacob to stop reading his book. We learned that Step-Up to Writing is a color-coded system/ strategy to help provide organization and structure. Ms. Nakada said that the model for Step-Up to writing is like an upside-down traffic light. When we got to the yellow color on the "stop-light," Ms. Nakada asked what drivers do at a yellow light. Henry and Sean both said speed up. In a short summary of what Step-Up to Writing is: Green means GO! Topic sentence/Thesis statement. Yellow means SLOW DOWN! Reasons, details, facts. Red means STOP! Explain, evidence, example.

This is really unrelated and probably irrelevant, but I turned around to listen to what Ms. Nakada was saying, and Edie and Sophie started making weird faces at me, and I made weird faces back. People probably thought we were crazy.

The bell than rang in the middle of Ian sharing his quick-write. Sophie pointed out how my blog is basically a whole essay, and yes, I am aware of how long this is. I'm sorry if I bored the heck out of you.