Valerie Agramonte's Education Weblog

Georgia Standards

What is a standard anyway? For students, a standard is what they should know and should be able to do. The CRCT is written based on the standards, so to ensure solid test scores, we must base our instruction on the Georgia Performance Standards. Below is a PDF file of the 8th grade English Language Arts Standards.

Download grade_8_ela_standards.pdf

Journal Entry #2

Please respond to the following journal prompt:
What is one of your favorite songs, and why?
As a minimum, your response must be one paragraph with seven sentences. Please copy and paste the prompt into a word document. The text must be double-spaced, font Times New Roman 12 point.

Upcoming Events

6th period will be going to the Media Center tomorrow. Thursday, we will have our first DOL quiz. Be sure to take your notes home to study! Friday, we will go to the computer lab to begin typing our final drafts.

Keep on writing!

Pre-writing

While beginning our narrative writing today, I noticed that some students were still struggling a bit with the writing process. For a quick review, please see the August 14th post. 

Beginning with this post, I will go into more detail with each step of the process.

                      What is Pre-writing?

During the pre-writing stage, writers generate ideas, clarify thoughts, and organize information. This stage of the writing process can be divided into two parts. The first part is developing, the second is organizing. At the very beginning of your writing assignment, you may or may not know what you're going to write about. When "you just don't know what to write about," you will create, or develop your ideas. This is best done by making a list, freewriting, or brainstorming.  Once you have zeroed in on your topic, then you need to organize your information. This is best done by creating an outline or a graphic organizer (such as a web.)

First Narrative Piece

We are now working on our first piece of narrative writing. Using the excerpt from the Kite Runner as inspiration, students will write about an event from their childhood involving a close friend. The tone of the writing can be happy, sad, funny--whatever the story calls for. Remember, narrative is story telling, so write your stories as only you can!

In Brief

We have had a fantastic two weeks so far! I am so lucky to have such wonderful, hardworking and goal-oriented students. It is truly a pleasure to come to work each day. This week, we will write our first narrative, concentrating on using lively language to engage our readers. Wednesday, sixth period will go to the Media Center for orientation. Friday, both periods will go to the the computer lab to keep technology skills sharp.

Elements of Good Narrative Writing

Today we continued our discussion of narrative writing. Bringing characters to life and engaging the reader were two important points that we addressed. Below are some basic characteristics of narrative writing:

1.  depicting characters and setting vividly

bring the story to life by using your senses to depict the events of the story: how does it look, sound, feel, smell? Include the important events that make up the story in enough detail for your readers to understand what happened while avoiding any details that do not relate to the main point

2.  showing, not telling

use precise and vivid verbs when describing your events

3. presenting events in a clear, chronological order

use a logical progression with good transitions when moving from point-to-point

 

Open House

Dear Parents,

Thanks so much for coming this evening! I'm looking forward to a fantastic 8th grade year!

 

The Narrative

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Today in class, we discussed what a standard is, began DOL (Daily Oral Language), and introduced narrative writing. This type of writing will be our focus for the next three weeks. To become familiar with narrative, we read an excerpt from The Kite Runner. It will hopefully inspire use of vivid verbs and descriptive details in our own narrative!

Grammar Review

Today we began reviewing parts of speech. We started with nouns. Students took a noun/pronoun pre-test, and then had a worksheet to take home for practice.

We will finish our baseline writing assignment tomorrow, and begin discussing narrative writing next week.