Last few homonyms - I will give you about 15 minutes to finish the comprehension check from yesterday.  We'll exchange and read some of our stories and see if we can guess the shoes each person selected.  Discussion about judging and how judgements are working their way within the text so far.  We will finish reading chapter 4.

Homonyms - Finish the writing assignment from yesterday on walking in someone else's shoes.  Discuss ideas about judging someone else based on their outer appearance.  What if your shoes were all anyone knew about you?  Basic comprehension questions for chapters 1-3. (see attached).

New Vocabulary words from Chapter 3...check it out at www.bigiqkids.com.  We are on day four of homonyms.  We will finish chapter 3 today and your first writing assignment of this new unit.  "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."  What does this line from the novel mean? Below is the actual assignment.

Homonyms day 4 and vocabulary work. 20 minutes to finish up contextual research letters. Discussion about what we've learned about the Southern United States during the 1930s.  Read chapter one.  Stereotyping exercise. Read chapter two.  First Journal assignment - write about what does it mean to grow up?  How do you know when you've grown up?  What are some of the challenges to growing up?  If time, we'll start on Chapter 3.

Homonyms continued.  Finish letter writing assignment (contextual research) which is due tomorrow and review information that we learned while doing our research.  Read to the end of the first chapter.  

Day two of grammar Gambit - homonyms.  Exams handed back and reviewed.  Work on our contextual research from yesterday and begin reading chapter one from To Kill A Mockingbird.

ST. Patrick's Day!!  This is our first day of our Homonyms grammar gambit!  And a new round of vocabulary.  We are beginning our To Kill A Mockingbird unit today!  Introductory contextual research and letter writing.

UNIT EXAM!!

Grammar Gambit - homonyms and vocabulary.  Final review for unit final is today.  Each team will play their jeopardy games that they developed yesterday.

Grammar Gambit and vocabulary day 2 - Today we begin preparing for your unit final for short stories.  On your unit final you will have the following:

 - vocabulary questions and sentences: similar to the format of our Gambits
- questions on factual knowledge from the stories (you need to show an understanding of plot, characters, setting etc)
 - questions that show your understanding of the terms we've studied AND how they apply to the stories we've studied.
 - reading comprehension questions on a story you have not read before.
 - terms matching - you will need to be able to match terms with examples and/or definitions of those terms.

You will also need to submit two pieces of writing for final marking.  One must be your personal essay and the other can be any other writing we've done this semester turned into a good copy.

These are your summative assessments for this unit and will determine your mark on your progress report.

Reading comprehension practice - one short story

For the remainder of class each group will prepare a jeopardy game based on a template that I will share.  Categories will include:  Vocabulary, Characters, Terms (point of view, types of conflict etc), Plot, Literary devices (metaphor, simile, personification, imagery)