Have a truly relaxing and enjoyable holiday with your families

Question

How did the exercise on the Beatles' songs help you with understanding figuarative language?

How good is your poem? Read it out loud 'slowly' to somebody. If  he/she can guess the topic with no hints...your poem is probably very strong

Poetry - Showing not Telling

You next poem will be a figurative/sensory narrative poem that retells a major world event in 'showing not telling' language. Monday's H/W will be to select that event.

Use your social studies textbook to select a major event of the 19th, 20th or 21st Century.   More adventurous students can choose to select a topic from the links below.
http://www.awesomestories.com/featured-stories
http://history1900s.about.com/od/famouscrimesscandals/u/events.htm

All you need for Tuesday's class is the name of the event and a print out of the text you will use for your poem. see below
e.g.The Titanic Sinks!

The RMS Titanic, also known as the Unsinkable Ship, set sail on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. It was leaving Southampton, England to reach New York. This ship was the biggest ship ever and was created by White Star Lines and was constructed by Harland & Wolff. On April 14 a terrible disaster happened. The Titanic hit an iceburg. It was 11:40pm when she grazed the side of the iceburg. Three hours later it sank. Over 1,500 people died on that fatal night. The captain, Edward J. Smith ignored warnings from other ships about iceburg sightings. They tried to turn the ship so it would not hit the iceburg. They turned but not enough. The ship started to sink at bow, making the passangers move to the stern. She split in two and sank bringing everyone in the water down too. Many froze in the -28 degrees Fahrenheit water. About 706 people survived, living to tell this tragic tale.

Remember
The easiest way to do this is to just select a story from your Social Studies Textbook

Poetry

What did you learn about interpreting poetry today?

Brag Sheet - Sensory Narrative

This piece of writing truly touched me. Can you understand why?

As he held tightly to his mother's hand, tears welted in his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Everybody wore black suits and dresses, but nobody cried as much as he did. Seven year old John knelt by the wooden casket every waking moment of the never ending funeral. His mother lay inside clutching a white beaded rosary. She dressed in a lacy, black dress and black shoes. Everybody did everything they could to cheer John up, but it seemed impossible. How could he ever live on without a mother? Know he would have to be passed back and forth with relatives and foster homes. He would be forced to change schools, and leave his friends behind. There was no way out of this terrible, unfair fairy tale that seemed to end now. There were no good endings, it was the end of the book. He pressed his clammy hand upon the smooth, wooden casket as the priest closed it forever. His mother already had a grave stone placed where the grave was to be, and it was beside his dad's grave. John carefully placed the red roses on the grave, sniffled, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His pale white face stared at the finished wood casket as his aunt generously rubbed his shoulder and whispered kindly in his ear that " Everything is going to be okay." Each and every friend and relative was at his side ready to face the challenges that lay ahead for him. " Maybe change is for the best" thought John as if to convince himself that everything really was going to be okay. "This unfortunate event could have happened to anyone, and out of all people it had to be me?" thought John. The cold stormy sky's rain pored down on John's neatly combed, brown hair. Each time he stepped, mud splashed up from the grass and dirtied John's black fancy pants. John wouldn't have missed this ceremony for his life. It seemed like the end of the road for him, but somehow he knew he would make it through. He knew that this was what his parents would have wanted for him.  by Maddie