What Harm Essay

A Fantastic Commenter

Emma A. comments on blogs almost every night. She has great things to say and she says them well. Her spelling, punctuation and grammar are correct. She takes her time to make others feel great.

That is why she is the first student this year to receive the Reading Workshop Outstanding Commenter Award. I give this award as a way of saying thanks and great job to students that make the extra effort to comment on their peers' blogs.

This star is on the sidebar on Emma's blog, Exciting Tales of Me. Great job to Emma! If you want this badge of excellence on your blog, just take a little time and make some comments.

What Happened in the Book Last Night?

Trait of Your SSR Book

Reading Workshop students, please complete the form below to submit your post on a trait of the SSR book you are reading.

In Conclusion . . .

When writing a closing paragraph, you summarize what you have written about in your essay.  The first step is to think about the main point that you want to get across to your reader. You can use your introduction as a guide saying something similar with different wording.  

You may also want to look at what each paragraph says. Use this information and restate key points from the essay. You can end with a question, thought, quote or opinion that gives your reader something to think about or consider.

Good conclusions usually do one or more of these:

• Restate the thesis or main point
• Offer a suggestion
• Share your opinion
• Make a recomendation
• End with a question

Here is an example from an essay about character in a book.

I would definitely recommend this book to others, because I think a lot of girls could really relate to the main character, especially most of my friends. Also I would still recommend this book to boys, because even though it's a girl's book, it's not about being girly, and all about girls. Some boys may be able to relate to the three boys in the story! The book Spells & Sleeping Bags is one out of my two favorite books. Also, I think the author is very talented with writing her books. She's my absolute favorite author. I think Sara Mlynowski is very talented because I can really get inside the characters mind, and really get into the book as if I were the main character.

Pick an Element of Your SSR Book

The next assignment for Reading Workshop students is to pick one element of the book they are reading and write about its impact on the story. The key to this project is to support ideas and opinions with details from the text. Equally important is the need to stay on topic and DO NOT RETELL THE BOOK!

Students can choose one of the traits listed below or choose another aspect of their book. 

Setting

Character

Problems

Action

Adventure

Conflict

Mystery

Essays should begin with an introduction that gives the title, author, and topic of the writing. Below is an example using The Maze Runner featuring setting.

The book The Maze Runner by James Dashner takes place in an amazing setting.  This group of kids are locked into this mysterious place with no way to escape. Each day they try to run a maze outside their camp to find a way to get out.

New School Year Writing Assignment

Please copy and paste your post, The New School Year from the Question Board or your blog to be graded. As we discussed in class, grades will be based on use of supporting details in your writing, correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

How's the New School Year?

According to Reading Workshop students this year is going well.

Over 80% of the students in an anonymous poll rated this school year as a 9 or 10 on a ten point scale. It's great to know that so many students are engaged and enjoying school.

How would you rate this year so far?

The Best

	10	37 votes (56.06%)
	9	16 votes (24.24%)
	8	2 votes (3.03%)
	7	2 votes (3.03%)
	6	3 votes (4.55%)
	5 OK	4 votes (6.06%)
	4	0 votes (0%)
	3	0 votes (0%)
	2	0 votes (0%)
	1	2 votes (3.03%)

The Worst