Elegy The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to the death of a person or group. Though similar in function, the elegy is distinct from the epitaph, ode, and eulogy: the epitaph is very brief; the ode solely exalts; and the eulogy is most often written in formal prose. The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration of the idealized dead, and finally consolation and solace. These three stages can be seen in W. H. nancie atwell « The Reading Zone I have had a lot of questions over the last few days asking about how I run my reading workshop. For some reason, there aren’t a lot of resources out there about using reading workshop in grades 6-8. However, I have read a lot of professional resources, observed in various workshop classrooms, and modified a lot of activities originally for the primary grades. Over the next few weeks I will make it a point to post about different aspects of my reading workshop as I get ready for the new year and plan out my units of study. Today, I will take some time to recommend the professional resources that I have found to be the most important for my knowledge and planning.
Anchor Standards » College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing The K-12 standards on the following pages define what students should understand and be able to do by the end of each grade. They correspond to the College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards below by number. The CCR and grade-specific standards are necessary complements—the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity—that together define the skills and understandings that all students must demonstrate. Standards in this strand: Text Types and Purposes1: 13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using SOURCE: Because sometimes periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won’t do. 1. Interrobang You probably already know the interrobang, thanks to its excellent moniker and increasing popularity. Though the combination exclamation point and question mark can be replaced by using one of each (You did what!?
Daily Writing Prompts As always, The Teacher's Corner is looking for ways to make your life easier. We hope that our newest addition, “Daily Writing Prompts,” does just that. On as many days as possible, we have selected an event from our monthly event calendars to be the focus of the writing prompt. 8 Great Sites for Reluctant Writers 8 Great Sites for Reluctant Writers 1. Storyjumper Storyjumper allows you to create online books using a plethora of characters, scenes, and props. 2¢ Worth Listen A few weeks ago I worked and attended North Carolina's ISTE affiliate conference. I opened the NCTIES conference with a breakfast keynote address and Marc Prensky closed it with a luncheon keynote the next day. Sadly, I missed the second day of the conference. I would first offer some constructive criticism to NCTIES , and to all such ed-tech conferences across the nation and around the world. You do a fabulous job of offering dynamic learning experiences for teachers who are new to teaching or new to utilizing contemporary information and communication technologies in their classrooms.
The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students. These teachers see the internet and digital technologies such as social networking sites, cell phones and texting, generally facilitating teens’ personal expression and creativity, broadening the audience for their written material, and encouraging teens to write more often in more formats than may have been the case in prior generations. At the same time, they describe the unique challenges of teaching writing in the digital age, including the “creep” of informal style into formal writing assignments and the need to better educate students about issues such as plagiarism and fair use. The AP and NWP teachers surveyed see today’s digital tools having tangible, beneficial impacts on student writing
14 More Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent Earlier this year, Bill DeMain introduced us to 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent . Now that you've integrated those into your vocabulary, here are 14 more. 1. Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing by the Writing Study Group of the NCTE Executive Committee, November 2004 Just as the nature of and expectation for literacy have changed in the past century and a half, so has the nature of writing. Much of that change has been due to technological developments, from pen and paper, to typewriter, to word processor, to networked computer, to design software capable of composing words, images, and sounds. These developments not only expanded the types of texts that writers produce, they also expanded immediate access to a wider variety of readers. With full recognition that writing is an increasingly multifaceted activity, we offer several principles that should guide effective teaching practice.
15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent The Global Language Monitor estimates that there are currently 1,009,753 words in the English language. Despite this large lexicon, many nuances of human experience still leave us tongue-tied. And that’s why sometimes it’s necessary to turn to other languages to find le mot juste . Here are fifteen foreign words with no direct English equivalent. 1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian) The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage. I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why. - Kyle Wiens by Kyle Wiens | 8:02 AM July 20, 2012 If you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me. If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building.
Questioningly Winner: Meet the Bwam Mark On Friday we asked for new punctuation marks. The old ones, like that comma right there or the period that ended the last sentence, suddenly seemed insufficient. We wanted more … but we didn’t want to lift a finger to get them—and that’s why we enlisted our readers.