Thursday, December 29, 2011

IEW U.S. History - Week Five

During break

Talk to new mom about SRN and substitute source text book.

Write on board:

When John hit a home run, his team was excited.

When John hit a home run, his team bolted out of the dugout, screaming and jumping all over one another.

The jet was hit by a missile. The pilot was afraid.

Banned words

I want you all to write on your board all the banned adjectives and adverbs that you can remember.

Adjectives – good, bad, nice, mean, pretty, ugly, big, a lot, interesting

Verbs – go, went, come, came, say, said, see, saw, look, get, got – and state of being verbs are to be used sparingly

Stories from KWOs

This week you’re going to write a story. But don’t worry; you won’t have to make up the plot. Rather, you’re going to take a very boring story and make it much more interesting to read.

Which do you like better?

(Sentences on the board)

It’s difficult to picture “was excited,” but it’s much easier to picture bolting, screaming and jumping. These verbs show action that you can picture

Practice Exercise

Look at these next sentences.

The jet was hit by a missile. The pilot was afraid.

Are these sentences interesting to read? These sentences describe something that should be easy to portray as exciting. Right? It’s about a plane getting shot down! What if the sentences included action verbs that describe what the pilot experienced and how he showed his fear?

Put on writing caps, and give me your best answers. (Not too much time)

What would he hear? (write on board)

What would he smell?

What would he feel (physically)?

What would he see?

What would he do?

The rewrite may sound like this:

Suddenly, he heard a deafening bang. He smelled smoke, and the jet began to tremble violently. The ground was getting closer and closer. Frantically he pushed, pulled, yanked and tugged every button and switch in sight.

Today

Today, we’re going to take key word notes from a very boring story. For your assignment, you get to rewrite it using strong action verbs. You’ll also be describing scenes in such a way that whoever reads your paper can see, hear, feel, taste or smell what’s going on.

Turn to p. 24 in U.S. History Based Writing Lessons Student book.
This week’s lesson has three paragraphs. Younger students will only be writing one, while older students can write two or three.

Let’s read over the first paragraph together and write a KWO.

Verbs

Did you notice that there aren’t very many exciting action verbs in the original paragraph? It will be your job to add some.

There was a storm –

What action verbs could be used to describe the storm? What did the storm do to the sky, the water, boat, and the Pilgrims? How did the Pilgrims respond?

Students write on p. 25

(Use teacher’s book to help with this.)

Look back at page 24 at the paragraph. At home, you’ll need to come up with strong verbs for the other weak verbs in this paragraph. Underline – wanted to, decided to, went on a boat, was crowded, seawater came in, were wet and cold, were scared.

Adjectives

The best writers also use quality adjectives that describe what the characters see, hear, feel, smell or taste. Let’s fill in the chart with quality adjectives to describe what the Pilgrims experienced during the storm.

Look at p. 36 in your SRN.

What would the Pilgrims see? (write on page 25 in U.S. History Based Writing Lessons Student book)

What would they hear (p. 37)?

What would they feel (p. 39)?

What would they smell or taste (p. 38)?

Feelings

We need to learn how to reveal the feelings of the characters of the story, to show their emotions. The paragraph ends by saying that the Pilgrims were scared. We’re going to describe the scene so that the reader knows they are scared without us actually saying so. What do you think the Pilgrims did that showed they were scared? (Look on p. 40 of SRN)

What did the men do? (Write on p. 25)

What did the women do?

What did the children do?

Assignment

Your assignment is to rewrite your paragraph. Add in strong verbs with –ly words. Add in quality adjectives that show how things look, sound, feel, smell or taste. And add words that show emotion. This will be a rough draft that you turn in next week. The rough draft checklist is on p. 24.

New student:

You will also rewrite the paragraph, but only add in one or two of the elements of style listed in that checklist. (give email address and phone number)

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