Do You Have Drive?

More Connections

We have been talking about Connections as Readers. Here are some more examples from Reading Workshop students.

Calla
Today in the book Rules by Cynthia Lord, Catherine went to Jason's birthday party where she didn't know anyone there. The only person that she knew was Jason. The way that I can relate to that part in the book is because one time I went to a party and the only person that I knew was the person hosting the party. It was pretty awkward only knowing that one person.

Rachel
The book I am reading is called Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen. The connection I made today in my book is when Holly wants a dog. She goes to the pound to find her a dog but the pound won't let a kid have a dog unless a parent signs for it. After she left she though to herself "The pound is like a death row for dogs, only the dogs haven't done anything wrong!" That is kind of the same thing I thought when my mom, sister and I went to the pound to find a dog. The dogs look so sad when you go into a pound, I just wanted to take all of the dogs home.

Luke

I had a really serious connection with my book The Living. In The Living Shy's grandma died of a a thing called Romeros Disease. After that his cousin Miguel also got the sickness. When I was about seven or six my grandpa died of a heart attack. I was devastated just like Shy. Only a few weeks back my grandma had some of the symptoms of a heart attack and I really just panicked. But I know of all the pain Shy is having because having a dearth or near death experience hurts your heart.  

Sydney Today when I was reading 'Warriors Forest Of Secrets', I read that when the war ended all of the cats were worn out and beat up. They all had to see the medicine cats to treat their wounds. They all had not to bad scars on them, but the battle hurt them. The cat that alarmed the clan was a cat called Brackenpaw, he was on a hunting mission with Fireheart (The main character) when Brackenpaw smelled the other clans! He went to tell Fireheart, and he was just in time too. He went to tell his clan that they were coming, they won the battle! Brackenpaw was named a warrior after his act of bravery... This is a connection to me because one time in the summer we were playing capture the flag! The war between the two teams were finally over. My team had won and everyone was tired and exhausted. Someone on the other team had got scratched on the elbow, so they had to get a bandaid. At the end, the person that got the flag was officially the 'king' of capture the flag.

Hailey

I am reading "The Honest Truth" by Dan Gemeinhart. While I was reading I made a connection. In this book the main character, Mark, is climbing a mountain, Mount Rainer, the tallest mountain in North America. While he is climbing the mountain his dog, Beau warns him about a crevasse. A crevasse is a really deep crack that can sometimes be on mountains, and Mount Rainer was full of them. This is a connection for me because I was walking in a field with my dog and there was a really deep hole in the ground that I didn't know about And he barked and he saved me. 

JosieThe book that I am reading is Seekers Forest Of Wolves. The connection that I had with the book was a place. In the book it said that Lusa and Toklo were standing on top of the valley and they could see a path that went by a tree that had its roots sticking out of the ground that went right into the creek. I had a connection with this because at my aunt's house she has a path through the woods that leads to a tree like the one in my book. That is one of the many connections i have with my book.  

A Different World

Living in a rural area in Southeast Ohio, this video from Verizon advertising a GalaxyS7 shows a much different world than where we live. Can you imagine yourself there?

See NYC like never before. 100,000+ photos in 1 day, captured on the #GalaxyS7 edge & shared on the better network.https://t.co/nYKeU4qeYe

— Verizon (@verizon) March 11, 2016

Students Are Connected

Here are some examples of connections students had as they were reading:

Hallie 

A connection I had today was from the book "The Dog Who Danced" by Susan Wilson. The connection I got from reading this book was that it reminded me of another book I have read in the past. The other book is called "Umbrella Summer". The reason "The Dog Who Danced" reminds me of "Umbrella Summer" is because Ed and Alice's (The Dog Who Danced) daughter died and in "Umbrella Summer" the main characters brother died. The reason that made me think of this was that the characters in "The Dog Who Danced" and "Umbrella Summer" are both sad from the recent death of family members.  

Brooke 

In my book All Fall Down by Ally Carter it is about this girl named Grace. Everybody thinks Grace is going crazy ever since her mom died three years ago. People think this because Grace watched her mom die so she is the only one who knows what really happened. Nobody believes her though. I can make a connection with this because on Thursday night's I help out with some little girls in dance class. There is one little girl named Adele, she is three and her mom died last year. Ever since then in class she'll get mad and go crazy over small things. That might be normal for most three year olds, but that is not the way Adele used to act.

Kailey

I just started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley have a baby named Dudley. One gray Tuesday Dudley's mom had to wrestle little screaming Dudley in to his high chair. My connection was when my little sister Delaney was a baby she would always scream and cry when I tried to put her in her high chair. Her screaming would always drive me crazy.

Erin
A connection I made while reading City of Bones is that the main character, Clary Fray is mad at her mom because her mom told Clary that they were going on vacation for the rest of the summer, and that meant that Clary to put an end to her summer actives. Clary left the house and her mom kept on calling her . Clary felt guilty because she kept ignoring her moms calls. I can connect with this because I remember a time when I was about four or five and I was mad at my mom because she was making me clean my room up and I wasn't allowed to go out until it was clean. I jumped out of the bedroom window and claimed that I was running away, but my mom caught me and made me go back inside. 

Ella

The connection that I had made to the book "You Have Seven Messages," is that the main character Luna, loves to take photos. Luna likes to take photos like of her family and friends, just like I enjoy taking. She also likes to take photos of strange things in nature, which I love to take pictures of really unique and different flowers. So in the book, "You Have Seven Messages" by Stewart Lewis, I have only made one connection, but I am sure that I will find many more!

 

Olivia 

Today as I read the book "The Body in the Woods" by April Henry- I felt a real connection with one of the main characters. There are three main characters in this book, and they all have different personality's. The main character I am most like is Alexis. I think I have a real connection with her because she is scared and paranoid of the scary things in life. In this book Alexis is the one who found the body in the woods. When she found this body she froze and stared at this dead girl. She tried to bring herself to go toured the body but it was to hard. She started walking slowly, but so slowly it was like she was walking in place. She got close enough to the body she decided to blow her whistle as loud as she could to get her friends to where she was at. She wasn't fearless. She was just so scared she almost couldn't blow her whistle. When her friends came back she just stood there staring at the dead girl's half open eyes. Even after the cops came, she wanted to believe it wasn't real, that it was just a bad dream. She honestly didn't know how to react, and I don't blame her. 

Alexis is just like me because I am sacred, I am paranoid, and I can't handle situations like that. If I was her I would do almost the exact same thing. I wouldn't know how to react so I would just panic and freak out. I would freeze like Alexis did, I wouldn't be able to talk, and I definitely wouldn't be able to breath. I would pretty much have an anxiety attack. Unlike her though I would scream, as loud as I could. Then I would blow my whistle. I might act fearless (which I am), but when it comes to spiders and situations like this... I honestly don't know how to react. The only thing I'm good at is scream. Which only makes the situation scarier.

Kylie

I had a lot of connections while reading the book I Am Number Four, but the biggest connection was when the main character (Johnny) was going to a Halloween Festival with his dog dressed as a superhero and his Dad. They bought raffle tickets and Johnny went to a Haunted hayride with his friends. I connected to this scene because I remember on halloween we took our dog and dressed her as a superhero too. Also because right after halloween I went to this haunted house with most of my friends. I have so many connections in this book and that's just some of them.  

Garret

I am reading Code Of Honor. Kamran Smith's brother is accused of being a terrorist. Kamran just got captured and is being held prisoner of the United States Government. Kamran is being held in a cell for weeks and has talking to people about his brother, Darius. Though one night he decided to escape. He had hit a guy with a lunch tray to get out. Kamran had to run hide and sneak around until he was almost outside. Then he had to shoot a fire extinguisher to cover him while he ran past some guards. Kamran kept running and ran into the guy he hit earlier. It ended up him and someone else were coming to get him out anyway. He did all that for nothing. 

Right when I read that I could relate to it. One night I was staying up pretty late on a school night to get finished with my homework. I was rushing through everything and finally got finished with all of it. It ended up we had a snow-day the next day and I kind of did all of it for nothing, just like what Kamran did. I felt good when I got finished, but when I found out I could have done it the next day I was a little mad. I bet Kamran was too.

Annie

My connection I had today was from the book Starters by Lissa Price. There was a part in this book were Callie went to Prime, a hospital and she saw Michael and he had a different face because he looked bad before, at least that is my inference. But in my old book Wonder the main character was Aggie. He had 27 surgeries since he was born and he looked bad. 

Annabelle

My book is the last book of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson and it is called Never More. I made a connection in a part in the middle of a book and it was when the main character Max got mad and kicked over a candle. When she did that it set the whole tree house on fire so she had to get out and fly away. She continued to say sorry to Dylan (the guy that made the tree house) and he continued to say it was okay. I related to that because one time I broke something glass of my grandma's and felt really bad. She said it was fine and it wasn't my fault. I still felt really bad and kept blaming my self.  

 

Wyatt

I am reading a book called Zane And The Hurricane and I am on page 15 . When I was reading page 14 they were talking about that a storm was not going to keep going. They thought it was going to stop but it did not stop all. That was like when hurricane Sandy hit Greater Antilles, Eastern United States, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Eastern Canada. They thought it was going to stop and it did not stop. It was a storm that died down two days after.

Avree

My book is Belly Up and one connection I had with it was when Teddy ran into the prehistoric period exhibit with all of the animatronic dinosaurs. They were scaring him when he walked by. This reminded me of the time I went to Universal Studios in Florida to ride a ride called Jurassic Park: The Ride. We got in this boat thing and at first it was slow but then the story plot changed. One of the dinosaurs escaped! Then the boat was flying, it was so fast and when we rode by, the dinosaurs jumped and scared everyone. And then we finally reached the dinosaur that escaped, we just kept on going, right between his legs and then slid down a waterslide! That was one connection that I had with my book.

 

Connections

Today's topic is Reading Connections. Effective readers constantly connect to the text as they read.  Their inner voice  relates the text to their life, other books they have read, and prior knowledge.  Readers with higher levels of comprehension consistently and constantly make connections between the meaning of the words, and background knowledge.

For information you can see Reading Workshop Connections and More on Connections.

Do Something

Time Online Response

You can read the article used for this assignment at How Much Time Do You Spend Online?

Wisdom From the Dr.

Your assignment today, Reading Workshop students is to pick one life lesson from Dr. Seuss and write a blog post about it. Share your thoughts, ideas, and/or opinions. How does this life lesson apply to you? You might even be courageous and write in the style of Dr. Seuss.

As Dr. Seuss would say:

Whatever you write, whatever you do, let everyone know, the who is you.

Image from facebook.com/AFeelGoodWorld

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Could This Describe How You Operate?

Are You Reading Something Good?

Happy Monday

Power of Dreams

Making Mistakes

Do you have courage enough to make mistakes?

Be Successful

Kid President's Thought for Today

The Roots Video

You can see a list of stems from weekly vocabulary lessons Stems #1-8.

You can see a complete list of Stems Here.
You can also use an online Etymology Dictionary.

Student Choice Project

Reading Workshop students, you have your choice of genre for the next project. Please fill out the form below and submit. Once this form has been turned in, I will meet with you individually or in small groups to discuss your project.

Grammar from The Insanity Zone

Baby, Fix Your Sentences

Take Control of the Rest of the Year

Grammar Police

Want to Understand Your Teacher?

The Grammar Song

Fragments From the Doctor

Fused/Run-on Sentences

Here are a few tips from the doctor.

Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed?

Paulsen on Books

Know Your Homophones

Homophones--Words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings.

Not Homophones—where/were
Homophones—where/wear

A

ant, aunt

H

here/hear

P

peer, pier

T

there, they're, their

threw, through

to, two, too

W

where,wear

The rules for today's Reading Workshop Homophone Telephone:

1. You can only whisper to the person beside you

2. You can only use www.dictionary.com as a resource

3. You can share with the person on each side

4. If you hear (here) words from anyone other than the person beside you, you (ewe) cannot use those words

5. If homophones start with different letters, you can list them under whichever word you list first.
6. You can't (cant) use proper nouns.

A Poster Child for Success

Her first month of school was tough. She was in trouble for not doing her school work. She spent every recess in study table. Her grades were not good. She got a lecture, or had to listen to teachers talk about not getting her work done daily. I had several conversations with her myself, and none seemed to help.

Fast forward to December and she is a success. She is getting every assignment complete and never has to go to study table. She is working hard to do her best. Her teachers are proud of her.

Annie's story started with the decision that she didn't want study table any more. She was tired of the pressure to do her work. She made the decision to start doing her work. Then she talked to all of her teachers about her missing assignments and how to get caught up on her work. She spent a few days working real hard to get everything done. Then she made sure she did all of her homework every night.

So what's the message here? Success is possible. It can and did happen. It seems simple when you read about it. Annie made it look easy. And when it happened it was amazing. Everyone felt good. The teachers were so proud of her. All it took was a little hard work and a lot of determination. Great job Annie!

KP Says, "Be Thankful!"

I am so thankful for this year's sixth grade class. It is a smiley class with a ton of students with great attitudes. As we take a break for Thanksgiving, thanks to all the students in the hallway at Salt Creek that are making this a great year!

Be Who You Are

In Conclusion

Here is an example of a great conclusion from a recent writing assignment, As a Writer . . . Luke's conclusion wraps up his essay and leaves the reader understanding him as a writer.

My goal as a writer is to wow the reader. I’m trying very hard every time I write to do my best and get the best response from the reader. I don’t just write for a grade. I write because it is what I like to do.  I love that feeling of someone telling me that the writing I do is great and and creative, and just fun to read. I know I have a few mistakes, but either way I’m going to be the best writer I can.

Here is another example from Kaleigh. Although it is shorter, it sums up her essay in a great way.

In eleven weeks of school, I have learned so much about writing. I understand what I am doing well and what I need to work on. If I keep practicing I hope my spelling problems and lack of ideas will be improved!

Here is another example of a good conclusion written by Ella.

Over the past nine weeks I have continued to improve as a writer.  I also need to work on different things that will help me get a better grade on my essays.  However, there are also things I have succeeded in writing as well.  In conclusion, I will continue to improve when I write in Language Arts class!

Ellie wraps up her essay well by restating her main point.
 
I am going to get better at writing this year because I am going to try my best. I have been making mistakes but that’s fine to me because it is teaching me that I need to do better. I’m ready to start getting better at writing and keeping up the work I already do well.

Kid President and I Agree

Make Success Happen

The Setting

The setting is where a story takes place, when it takes place, and the duration. The setting can include specific information about time and place or can simply be descriptive. A novel has an overall setting but scenes usually occur in several different settings.

The time in setting doesn't usually mean what time it is on the clock. The time of the setting is broader, like a period of years or in time.

Duration means the time period from the beginning to the end of the story. For some stories this is just a few hours or days; other stories span decades or centuries.

The example used in class is from the book 3:15, Things That Go Bump in the Night by Patrick Carman.  The audio password is cody. The video password is hook.

Reading Workshop students, for this project, the goal is to define setting, analyze the impact the setting has on the book you are reading, and then share it in a piece of writing using details from the book to support your points. This should be at least a five paragraph essay beginning with an introduction, a body that includes specific scenes/events from the book and ending in a conclusion that wraps up the topic.

Things to Do Today

Are you busy? Could you spare a minute?

Are You Ready?

Sometime life comes at you from all directions. Are you ready when it does?

Have a Great Friday!

It's Friday!

Image from @weareteachers.

Be Great!

Just A Little Punny

Tell Me About the Main Character

Start with the name and go from there. Tell about the main character in the book you are reading. Describe him/her. What makes him like he is? How does he act? Think? Respond? Feel?

Please use details to support your writing. For example, if you state that he is brave, you should have a detailed scene from the book that proves your claim.

Whatever you do, DO NOT RETELL THE STORY! This assignment is to tell about the main character. If you summarize or retell the book, you are not following the directions!

Make your writing interesting. Think about the character. The best essays will be written by a writer than gets inside the book and the character.

Image from www.bluestemprairie.com

Think Before You Post

If you are posting at school, you might also add:

T - is it on task?

H - is it helping you be successful?

I - is your post informative?

N - is it needed?

K - is it sharing knowledge?

Heroes

A lot of the time we talk about what makes a hero. Yesterday I saw some students make a choice that showed me that they are real life heroes. They made a tough but good decision to stand for something. They worked hard in class when others chose not to work. They stood strong, ignored those not working, and gave their all to success.

Great job to Alexis, Alex, Erin, Logan, Luke, Mason, Garret S., Katie, and Rachel. Yesterday you earned my respect and my admiration.

I also found it interesting that the entire 602 class did exactly what they were assigned. Great job guys! I appreciate your hard work and dedication to success!

Be Somebody!

Science in Language Arts

Students are writing a blog post for an interdisciplinary project in language arts and science. They recently found the volume of an irregular shaped pond in the science classroom. The pond had two levels so each had to be measured separately and then added together. Units were also converted from standard to metric.

The assignment for Reading Workshop students is to write an overview/essay detailing this process. This post should include an introduction, detailed steps, and conclusion. As always, PUGS count!

This project will count as a grade for both classes. The science grade will be based primarily on content. The language arts grade will be based on content, organization, and PUGS.


Image From: www.wikihow.com