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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Text Structure

H/W - Practice these online exercises before next Thursday/Friday. SUMMATIVE Test on Parts of Speech will be on that day. They will also be practice on NoRedInk for you to do.
Parts of Speech Practice TEST


Lesson Recap: What is text structure?





Enjoy Clyde's excellent piece.  This is what a 4 reads like. What can you learn from this? (paragraphing was lost when I copy/pasted)

Shadows bent on the pointed snouts of the panting huskies, as the slowly fading light of the sky streaked crimson, blended with the colors of a ripe grapefruit. "Come here," came the quiet voice of my father, carried by the draft that breezed upon his face. His foot propped upon the rock, his face half-covered with darkness, he looked beyond the abandoned, worn out lookout tower that loomed over-head. "Coming, dad," I replied, grasped the faded red leash, and lead one of the dogs forward. My brother followed close behind, standing up from his spot on the rock. We trekked the few feet to where my father still stood, face set in a grim countenance. “Look at that. Just look at that,” he remarked. My eyes followed his line of sight, eventually settling on the setting sun, which was sending a rainbow of colors through the sky and onto the hill like a stone falling on ripples. “Yeah dad, it’s great.” I was interrupted by the whiny nudging of the dog below me. As I bent down and crouched to comfort him, suddenly I felt a chill behind me. I slowly turned around and stood back up to see what had happened. Then, I saw it. The warm air of the autumn light was missing. The sunset, the crimson blend of colors that lit up the smile on my father’s face, was gone. Instead, it was replaced by a repulsive splotch of colors; of rotten reds and faded oranges. As I turned back to the dog, I had a revelation, one that I did not know would change my life as I knew it. In the darkness that shaded his face, the darkness born of the dying sunset, I noticed for the first time, that his fur, the same fur that always seemed so perfect, was a bit ruffled at places. A little greying at places. The dog, after all, was not a pure husky. I had always known it, but had never given thought to it. It was a combination of one, and a foreign breed, an unknown breed. It was not perfect, and I found that I could relate to it better, and felt closer to it than ever before, because it was not perfect. I turned back to the sunset, its ugly blend of hues already causing me to cringe my face in instinctive response. However, I felt that I just had to store this memory. To capture this moment, to always remember and ponder upon this moment. “Hey dad, can I borrow your phone?” I could see him slowly drifting back to reality from the abyss of thoughts that the sight had left him in. This was his mother’s hill after all. Where he had been raised, where he had grown. His former home stood just at its base. And he was standing on the top of it all, relishing cherished memories that had been fondly made here. “Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” He stammered, handing me his glistening phone, a circumstantial gift of being a businessman. I clicked on the “Camera” icon. As I held up the phone against the skyline, the focus blurred, the colors swirling and mixing while the camera attempted to pinpoint a spot to focus on. Then, it stopped. And for a second, the picture shifted. It became the perfect sunset again. I blinked, confused, and the sky was back to its ugly, imperfect self. I realized something that day. The sky, the dogs, they all were different from other sunsets and pure bred huskies. Unique. Imperfect. But the sunset was still beautiful. Could still bring my father to silence. Could still be made into a photograph of art. Could still be seen as perfect if one concentrated enough. And the dogs, I still love the dogs. Perfection is unreal, a concept created by society to fool itself into believing that flawlessness is the goal. Imperfection, weaknesses, strengths, the clash of good and evil in us; these are what is true perfection, and is the human soul.

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