Merriman's Memo
A Glimpse into Merriman's Menagerie
Can I State My Opinion?
From here, we tackled the research portion of the prompt by reading both texts. We worked on our annotation skills (aka highlighting). We discussed the difference between highlighting text for a certain purpose and highlighting the text because we like to highlight stuff. We worked on highlighting only specific information and even created a key for our task. We highlighted anything that was information about guinea pigs being good apartment pets and put a smiley face by that, and then we highlighted anything where it showed guinea pigs being not good for apartment living and put a sad face by that. The goal of this was to teach them to read text carefully and to pull out information relevant to the purpose of their writing NOT to highlight the entire text. This was a neat exercise in our critical thinking and reading skills.
After this, we completed a graphic organizer that is going to organize our draft. We used the OREO organizer (O-pinion, R-eason, E-vidence, O-pinion restated). We completed this along with including evidence from both texts. Next week we will work on creating a class example of a final paragraph. Students then will begin to work on this process on their own. They will compare their original prompt to the one we as a class worked on and do a reflection of this process.
WRITING VOCABULARY:
topic sentence (our opinion)
closing sentence (with transition like 'clearly,' 'in conclusion,' or 'thus.'
opinion
text evidence (with lead in like 'the text states/says,' 'according to the text,' or specific title used OR specific paragraph [i.e. 'in paragraph 4, it states...']
details
prompt
pulling apart the prompt (DO/WHAT) chart
transition words (like next, also, along with that, etc.)
First Week with Reading Folders
Those who read for at least 60 minutes this week added to their class chain
My other hour readers...way to go!!!!!
ELA continued
Centers
We also worked on subject-verb agreement. We discussed how we talk WAY more than we read or write, so we are often able to hear agreement issues before we spot them in writing. Therefore a helpful strategy in finding agreement issues is to read the question out loud to oneself.
Mrs. Kara Merriman
Sorry for the later newsletter!!! With the Fall Festival, I wasn't able to sit down and write it during my daughters' gymnastics times. As a rule, I will try to get my newsletter will out Friday evenings.
Email: Merrimank@rcschools.net
Location: Christiana Elementary School, Shelbyville Highway, Christiana, TN, United States
Social Studies
Book Fair!
Pointer Practice
Pointer Practice with Technology
Word Work this Week...'ow' says long o
flow
elbow
below
throw
grow
know
yellow
showing
glow
rainbow
Important Dates
Sept 23-Oct 1 BOOK FAIR!!!
Sept 29- Book Fair Family Night from 4-7
Oct 2 -End of 1st 9 Weeks/ Geography Test
Oct. 5-9 Fall Break
Oct 15-Report cards/Skate night
Oct 16- ROAR party