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Writing Process Review


The writing process is just that: a process. It’s okay to take a step back if you need to change or correct your work.
To get started, here are the steps:
  1. Pre-write: brainstorm, know who your audience is (your readers), know your purpose, and organize information. Overhead an interesting conversation? Heard a quote on TV or the radio, or found an interesting website or blog? Those can be inspiration for writing.
  2. Draft: Start organizing your ideas into topic sentences, supporting details, and create more solid sentences and paragraphs.
  3. Revising and Editing: Use your tools for making your writing better: a friend, a parent, read it out loud to yourself. Keep in mind the Six Traits: ideas, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.
  4. Evaluate and Proofread: Check with a “fine toothed comb.” All of the punctuation, grammar and usage should be checked. Example: do you use an “&” when you should use “and?” Do you have fragments or incomplete sentences? Do your subjects and verbs match? (“I is the biggest girl” is incorrect — “I am the biggest girl” is right.)
  5. Publish: Whatever format you need to turn it in, make sure you follow the guidelines.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

http://www2.pylusd.k12.ca.us/glk/jlaurich/Images/writing_process.gif

http://www.writingfix.com/

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fine-toothed+comb

http://www2.pylusd.k12.ca.us/glk/jlaurich/StepUpToWriting.htm

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October Assignment for Reading Road Trip

Genre of the Month: Horror, Science Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, or Horror Short Stories
The Reading Road Trip assignment for October might be too scary –just remember, it’s only a book!

Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Choose a novel that fits one of the month’s genres–sometimes genres mix, meaning you can have a science fiction horror, or a mystery horror, etc. If you choose a book that has short stories of horror and mystery, you must read at least three (3) of the stories.

2. The book must be at your independent reading level. I will give you that information soon.

3. The novel must be between 150-300 pages long. That means, if you read one that’s 300 pages, divided by 20 days, you read 15 pages per day. Piece of cake, my friends.

4. You must do a book project. Choose from ONE of the following projects:

  • Read aloud a passage to your classmates. Write a paragraph on why you chose this passage to turn in.
  • Write a simulated letter from one character to another. Look up the correct “letter” format.
  • Write about the book from a journalist’s perspective: Pretend it really happened, and write a newspaper article reporting the book. Write as long of an article to get all of the main events and details of the book in your article.
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Writing Summaries

Putting It All Together…

Last week, we worked on writing summaries. Remember, summaries have some key elements:

  1. They are not copied word-for-word. You must re-state in your own words. You may use some key words from the text, but always put in your own words.
  2. Summaries have a TAG: Title, Author, and Genre. (The T.A.G. doesn’t have to be in that order).
  3. A summary is not your opinion — just the facts, M’am. However, you might use a summary to start a persuasive piece of writing.
  4. A summary includes the important details, main message or theme of the piece.

For more information, there are many websites that can help:

http://wwwfac.worcester.edu/owl/teacher/writing_summaries.htm

http://www.esc.edu/htmlpages/writerold/menusp.htm

“Chicken Little” artwork from http://disney-clipart.com/Chicken-Little/Chicken-Little-Clipart.php

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The Road Ahead

The first big assignment of the year is part of our “Reading Road Trip” journey,and September’s focus is realistic fiction and non-fiction reading. The students were assigned finding a newspaper article that interested them, and then writing a summary. The second part of the assignment was to read a realistic fiction book (no page number minimum was required). The “one-pager” assignment is due on or before September 28. The “one-pager” includes a drawing, a paragraph summary, and one quote from the book that the student thinks demonstrates the meaning of the theme of the book.

Remember –everyone must turn this in to earn points towards the class’ “Freaky Fridays.”