The paw will grant three wishes...

Students were left pondering the themes of fate and free will after reading "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs.  Tomorrow they will examine the way that the author portrays characters through their actions, identify words and phrases that convey mood, and engage in creative writing connected to the story.  As well, they will investigate some of the story's vocabulary through context clues to derive meanings.  I am planning to show a film of the story so that they can make comparisons to the text and consider the filmmaker's choices in their production.

Today students drew vocabulary list #3 words on our "wall of wisdom".  Tomorrow they will pair up with a classmate to create a charade or short skit acting out a word.  There is a quizlet attached below for them to use to practice with the words.  Most likely, there will be a vocab quiz on Friday.

Homework:

Monday:  none unless something is overdue (like Poe essay); study vocab

Tuesday:  finish Monkey Paw activities if needed; use quizlet to study vocab

Wednesday:  write 4 sentences using 4 vocab words; use quizlet to study

Thursday:  vocab quiz tomorrow

Vocab List #3 Quizlet

Building An Essay

Last week, students wrote the body paragraphs for an essay on the ways in which Poe uses setting details and language elements to create the mysterious and suspenseful mood in his writing.  This week, they will tackle the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.  Today we examined a sample introduction and identified the three main parts:  hook, background information, and thesis statement.  Then, students completed an organizer of these parts for their Poe essay, and proceeded to type it up.  Tomorrow, we will follow the same process to examine, brainstorm, and write a conclusion paragraph.  Final steps will be to assemble the paragraphs, edit one last time, and tweak formatting as needed.  Students will submit their final drafts on Google Classroom.

Next up--back to reading!  We'll consider the themes of fate and free will in another story with a twist:  "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs.

Homework:

Tuesday:  finish drafting introduction paragraph; edit with checklist

Wednesday:  finish drafting conclusion paragraph; edit with checklist

Thursday:  finish final editing and formatting; submit to Classroom

Friday:  none! :)

Introduction/Conclusion instructions/organizer

From Reading to Writing

To culminate our work with "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", students will engage in a writing activity about the ways in which Poe creates mood.  They will consider both setting details as well as Poe's language, such as word choices, sentence structure, literary elements, and punctuation.  This will be a scaffolded writing activity in which students will write one paragraph, then add another, then add an introduction and finally a conclusion.  They will move through the process of turning the prompt into a topic sentence, paraphrasing text evidence, and ending with a concluding sentence.  As well, they will engage the writing process of organizing ideas, drafting, editing, and revising.  Hence, in the end, they will produce a four-paragraph essay about the development of mood in two texts.

Homework:

Monday-Tuesday:  finish paragraph organizer-- due Wednesday

Wednesday:  finish drafting and editing paragraph #1

Thursday:  finish organizer paragraph #2

Friday:  finish drafting and editing paragraph #2


Edgar Allan Poe writing activity