Week 17: The Grand Finale - Final Draft Ancient Rome

Hello Essentials families,
Yesterday we took advantage of a "Final Draft" week and introduced some new proofreading/grammar information and some "Advanced Dress-up" techniques.
                       Here is a review of what we covered in class:
1) Grammar Rule 3: Colons can be found in the Grammar Rules Guide p. 63 in the back of your student's binder.

2) What's Wrong?  Grammar Error Exercise - We corrected grammar mistakes frequently found in student writing.  There is an additional copy of these sentences on the back of the "Teaching Writing Structure and Style Weekly Guide".  Use this copy to review the grammar mistakes covered in class yesterday.  Here is the answer key:
        1) No comma is needed with the clausal dress-up
        2)  "which" should be "who" because the patricians were people
        3) Do not say "you." Just say, "Citizens could vote."  "You" and "I" are banned words in a research report/essay.
        4) This is a fragment.  When a sentence begins with one of the www.asia.because words, it must have a complete thought after it.  Insert a comma after the clause.
        5) Use a colon(:), not a semicolon
        6) Never begin a sentence with a numeral.  Numbers listed in the same sentence should be kept in the same form.
        7) Capitalize nationalities and languages
                                                        OPTIONAL ADVANCED DRESS-UPS
3)    Level A and B - Repetition: Dual Dress-ups  This week I have challenged all  of the students  to attempt using a dual dress-up in their Ancient Rome paper.  Refer to the handout included yesterday for examples of how to properly use two strong verbs, two quality adjectives, and two -ly words in the same sentence.  Indicate any duals by writing the word "dual" in the right margin of their paper and underlining the corresponding dress-up.

4)  Level B Challenge - New Sentence Opener Transitions  I encouraged the students to use transitional words and phrases in their final draft.  A complete list is located in your student's binder pages 52 and 53 (gold color).  Indicate any transitional words or phrases with a "T" in the left margin.
****Add TWO BONUS POINTS to the FINAL CHECKLIST for any of these
         "Advanced" Dress-ups.*****

5)  Finally, on the back of the take home packet I included a humorous look at "OVER-DECORATING." I adapted it from an entry I found on the IEW family forum.  This is not intended to discourage using dress-ups and decorations, but to emphasize that this paper is a  FACTUAL RESEARCH REPORT and that the facts need to be presented clearly.
Avoid making the facts difficult to discern due to over-decorated and over-dressed-up details. (Try saying that 5 times fast!:)

NEXT WEEK WE WILL BE HAVING OUR WRITING REWARDS CELEBRATION FROM 2:30-3:00PM WITH COMBINED CLASSES!

We will celebrate with refreshments, a conversation hearts Valentine's Day math activity,  a pinata, glow-in-the-dark fun, and of course, bouncy balls!
Laurie Stegall has graciously volunteered to pick up doughnuts for our main course.  We will also have Caprisuns and something salty to accompany the doughnuts.  We are asking all of the parents to help contribute to the celebration by donating $1.00 per student.  Thank you for helping with the party.  We love the opportunity to celebrate the adundant learning in Essentials!




I hope you have a great week final drafting the "Ancient Rome" report.  Use the FINAL DRAFT CHECKLIST to insure all of the elements are included.
Happy Writing!
Tina
Tina