Journal

Good morning, class!

Today's journal prompt: On December 14, 1911, the South Pole was discovered.  If you were able to travel to the South Pole, who would you want to take along with you and why?  You can choose from anyone – someone you know, someone famous, someone alive, someone who is no longer living, anyone.

Take ten minutes to complete this and work on the following as they relate to sentence fluency: 

• Add a short 3, 4 word sentence --break up the longer sentences!
• Add in some nice punctuation --a m dash works well here!
• Work on spelling and capitalization --capitalize your I's!

(notice the use of the dash mark here)

Journal

Journal:

 1. What would happen if you could fly whenever you wanted? When would you use this ability?

• 2 Paragraphs (ten minutes)
• Back up your main idea with details or examples
• Work on adding in a short 3, 4 word sentence

Sentence Variety Worksheet

Class --

Please complete numbers 1-10 of the following worksheet: Sentence Variety.

I would like you to print out the worksheet and turn in a tangable paper copy on Tuesday when I'm back in class.

A side note: I'm not seeing a lot of quality blogs (referring to the first two that you have done) so far. Please take a moment and think about the effort you've put in your blogs. Are you spending a lot of class time on what to write? Are you trying to add the punctuation and short sentences I required from the last blog (I will be looking specifically for these)? If the answer is yes, then your grade will reflect that positively. But if your answer is no, then your grade will reflect that negatively.

Please complete the worksheet with care. And we'll pick back up with blogging on Tuesday.

Have a good class,
Mr. Wolter

Free-Range Friday I

Class--

I've added many of you as a "follower" already. There are still some that I will add as we move on with blogging.

I want to make a brief statement: Like anything else that we've done technology related in the classroom (i.e. dropbox) there are going to be some bumps in the road. However, we can't allow those bumps to alter our perspective and the true benefits that we can all gain from this experience. So I ask that you stay level-headed and be positive. We will get through the initial technology struggles that we are experiencing now.

That said, I've browsed what some of you have wrote about what you want to improve on in your writing with this blog. For some of you, I was very impressed. However, some of you have put little effort (as in just a few sentences) in that particular post. It's an important one. It is the scale that you will use to assess yourself. At the end of the day, this is about what you get out of this. I am simply just making it happen.

Today's lesson objective: to demonstrate sentence fluency in your writing.

The following link is available for you: Punctuation Tips. Please click on it and study two utensils of punctuation in particular: the colon and the dash. If you need more information, the World Wide Web is available to you.

For this blog you are required to demonstrate the use of (1) the colon, (2) the dash, and (3) the short sentence.

When you are done researching, for the rest of the class you will be working on your first Free-Range Friday post. Free-Range Friday allows you to pick a topic of your choice (school appropriate) and blog about that topic, EXTEND that topic, and ENJOY writing about that topic. For example, if you have recently purchased the video game Skyrium, it may be a good choice to blog about your experiences with the game so far.

Make it meaningful (hope you notice the short sentence here ).

Through all of this, remember that you're writing consciously, just as you would for class --and you're actually writing for class anyway. You have a real audience now. I would say to cross your t's and dot your i's, but you're typing. So instead I'll say be conscious of your writing. This is your opportunity to strive to be a better writer. And the more often you do it, the better you will become. 

Enjoy,
Mr. Wolter

Sentence Fluency

As we strive for better sentence fluency, I want you all to keep in mind the ways that it can be easily implemented in your writing.

Punctuation: the use of question marks, exclamation points, commas, periods, colons, semicolons, and dashes.

Sentence Length: small, medium, and large sentences.

Presentation of a sentence: not every sentence starts out the same way and redundant words are avoided.

Sentence fluency is a trait that will come and go. And it all depends on how conscious you are of it as you write. For example, if I know that adding in a short, 3-4 word sentence every now and then helps my writing, I'm going to make a point to add one. It's important!

Most of the time as we write we focus on getting our thoughts and ideas down on paper, and, as a result, the way we have constructed our sentences come across as very choppy. But what if we challenged ourselves to choose a few forms of punctuation (dashes, colons, and question marks) and a few short sentences and made sure we implemented them each time we write --and correctly at that.

At the end of the day, sentence fluency will be what you make it to be. It's a matter of sincerely caring how well you write and using the plethora of punctuation utensils available to you. You never know, you may just end up creating something you never thought you could before.

Use the following link as clarification of the proper use of punctuation marks. Once you have studied the given punctuation marks, construct a blog entry that demonstrates your understanding of them.

Punctuation Tips

An Introduction to Blogging

Class --

As we get into the swing of things and incorporate blogging into our classroom, I would like to do a brief introduction and then send you on your way to constructing your first blog.

I've stated that I see this as a very useful tool that is rich in technology --one that will help you all specifically with becoming more competent writers. I hope you look upon the idea of this with ease of mind. Like I said, I'm meeting you in the middle and bringing technology (something that your lives are enriched with) closer to you, and, in turn, you will use blogging as a learning tool.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of educationally-rich benefits from blogging:

• It's interactive (responding and providing feedback to fellow classmates);
• It allows you to have a voice (or say) on how you feel about classroom related topics;
• It's a tool that is able to be personalized;
• It can be used to help motivate you to strive to become better writers; and
• It gives you an audience of someone other than your teacher, allowing you to become more conscious of your work.

With that said, let's really get off to a good start on your first blog post. I've discussed in length how great of a tool this can be. However, other than the blog survey I gave you all, you haven't really had a lot of time to reflect on the values that you want to get out of this.

For your first blog set some goals for yourself, what you hope to accomplish. The objective here is to get each and every one of you to become a better writer. But ask yourself the question: What specifically do I want to improve on?