Whole Text Structure

H/W - By the end of Tuesday's session, you should have two anecdotes drafts completed

Recap of today's session

No tears in the writer - no tears in the reader...How important are your anecdotes going to be?

Author's Craft - Summative - This is what a model answer might look like. Remember - this summative is THURSDAY (practice with Lost Floppy Roses - Tuesday)

SideNote - Remember to keep up with your parts of speech practice

Next week

Come to class Monday ready to start writing your final Memoir.  Your structure plan must be finished.

Next Week there are a few  summative assessments

Parts of Speech has been pushed to FRIDAY (C/D and E/F class)

Writing claims and writing about author's craft  - SUMMATIVE will happen on THURSDAY. ALL CLASSES. We will practice this one more time with this story, Everything Will Be OK on Monday. (Feel free to read it in advance if you would like to do so. Also - MAKE SURE you are familiar with some of the characteristics of author's craft seen here.

Use of dialogue

FINAL Memoir  DUE DATE: Wednesday 4th October. This is the SUMMATIVE. If  you score lower on this piece than you hope a resubmission (before the end of October) will consist of writing a second memoir from your other list of micro-moments. Get it right the first time. Our goal is to 'teach the writer' not simply 'correct' writing.

TIP: Talk about your outline with a family member. A STRONG OUTLINE LEADS TO A SUCCESSFUL PIECE. WILL YOUR OUTLINE BE READY?  If you discover something 'completely' new about yourself/how the world works - then you are ready

Student mentor

H/W You need to have at least one outline for your memoir ready for Monday's class so we can begin to start writing. (many of you finished this in class). 

Make sure you are keeping up to date with your Parts of Speech practice in NoRedInk - Test next Wed.

You NEED to read this piece!!!

This is a PERFECT example of 'inside and outside' writing. - Well done Sola!!!

Title: I Can See Everything

The sun is hitting the back of my neck, but I make sure to cover it with my hair. Then my hair gets hot, but I just let it be. If it’s a hot day, then so be it. I am walking to the MRT after swimming, and the straps of the bag I am holding are digging into my shoulders. 
“Unh” I grunt as I start walking up the stairs of the bridge over the road. Out of habit, I looked down at my feet. I never know why I do it, or even how it looks from the outside. I just always watch my feet when I walk. 

It makes me think of a time when I was about eight, and I was walking in an underground train station in Japan with my mom. I would keep looking at my feet, noticing the way my feet moved, the way one foot went in front of the other, then the next, and then the next. 
“Look up, so you know where you’re going, and so you don’t bump into anything,” my mom said. 
“Okay fine…” I mumbled in reply. I didn’t understand. If you looked up, then you would see only what was in front of you, and you might trip on something below you. But if you looked down, then you could see if anything was in front of you, because if there was, let’s say, a person in front of you, you would see the feet and legs of that person, so you’d know they were there. Unless… there was something floating in the air that you might bang your head into. I thought about as I walked, the announcer’s voice mixed in with the song of a train leaving, mixed in with the sound of a train in the background. 
I just didn’t get it. I looked up quickly to make sure nothing was floating in the air for me to bump my head in, and took some time to glance at some other people. Most of them were looking up as they walked, and I just saw that as normal. There was this one person, though, who walked with his head down, and I thought to myself: he looks like such a sad person, and it looks so weird, why doesn’t he just look up and enjoy the view of the world?
And then I went back to watching my feet as I walked.

I am thinking about that time, seeing everyone as one species, and myself as another. I think about how if others look down as they walk, it was weird, but if I do, then its normal. Wait… I look down when I walk? Of course I do… but why didn’t I know that before? I realize, at that moment, that the way I see everything is different. Other people look down and make themselves look weird and sad and lonely. But I don’t look down, I watch my feet. All the time before that they were two completely different things. I never noticed. 
And all at once, on that bridge over the road on the way to the MRT, I understand. People see me the way I saw the man at the underground train station. People see me as weird, sad, lonely. People see me as an introvert who doesn’t like to look up. True, I hate looking at people in the eyes, but that doesn’t make me sad and lonely. That just makes me a girl who watches her feet as she walks. 
But I’m not the girl who watches her feet as she walks. I’m the girl who looks down as I walk. And I never knew they were really just the same thing. I thought, well actually, I never thought. I never really thought anything about my “looking down at shoes as I walk” thing. I never did. It was just normal. It was life. 
With the new knowledge about my life, I decide to look up.
I can see everything. I can see the people’s faces walking around me, I can see the trees surrounding me, I can see the sun shining down on the world. I get a little dizzy and unstable, because I can’t see my feet, can’t see where I am stepping. But I can see where I am going. I can see the end of the bridge, the stairs down, the shop below it. I can see the rails of the bridge, the train station above, the roof of it too. I can see the beauty of the world. I can see everything.


Think about it. There are so many things in the world that we are doing and don't even know — some good, some bad. And sometimes we judge others for doing things that we do without knowing. We as humans and as people are just all one big mystery, like a pearl at the bottom of the ocean, safe and sound and far enough away that nobody can truly get to it. Of course, we find fake pearls all over, pretending they are ours, pretending that we found it, but our real pearl is too far. Nobody will ever reach their pearl, but every realization, every observation, and everything we learn ourselves will get us closer to the bottom of the ocean, closer to our pearl, and that is what we really need. As long as we are closer to the pearl, we have more understanding of what we are and more importantly, who we are.

Video Mentor - Watch this for inside and outside writing. What symbols are also reinforcing meaning?

A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skillful Sailor

Secret Word - GRIT

H/W - Ideas that Matter - ALL CLASSES

The learning in this activity is your STRUGGLE. You have to be willing to really work hard at something that is difficult. This is what true SUCCESS really looks like! At the beginning of the year, we spoke about 'growth mindset' - now is the time to show it!

You must have a collection of at least 3 - 'ideas that matter' - and 3 small moments that capture that idea. These brainstorms will form the CORE of your final memoir. The hardest part is getting at your best idea. Spend QUALITY time thinking about this so you can come to school on Thur with some well thought out plans for your final memoir. Due Thur (C/D and E/F) Fri (G/H)

Your Generation

This video will teach you more about your life and your future then anything else you will watch this  year. I STRONGLY invite you to watch this when you have 15mins. over the next few days.

Comments Appreciated

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

Begin: http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/grammar/parts_of_speech/quiz395.html

Making progress: https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/parts-of-speech_quiz.htm

Easy  http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/215.html

Harder   http://www.quia.com/cb/188350.html     
Hardest http://www.quia.com/rr/143009.html

http://quizlet.com/4907039/8-parts-of-speech-definitions-flash-cards/

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.