JK Rowling Quote Reflection

You recently reflected on the following quote from JK Rowling's 2008 Harvard commencement address.


"Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default."

1. What I'd like you to do right now is go back to that reflection and re-read it.
2. Look for a sentence or phrase that contains the heartbeat, the pulse of what you wanted to say. This is your wish for the piece, what you wish it was most about.*
3. Using the comments feature in Google Drive, highlight that sentence and comment (by right clicking) and pointing out that "This is the heartbeat of my piece."
4. Share your document with a classmate. Have them read your paragraph. If they agree with your "heartbeat" then have them reply to the comment. If they think the heartbeat is somewhere else in the piece, have them highlight that sentence and comment by saying, "I actually think this is the heartbeat of the piece."

* This wording is taken directly from the book Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft by Donald H. Graves and Penny Kittle. 

Vocabulary Notes

Here's a link to the Google Slides file with the notes for how to complete your weekly vocabulary:

Vocabulary notes

In your writer's notebook...

• Write the date at the top of each entry 
• You do not need to know what you’re going to write about before you start writing - WRITING IS THINKING! 
• Write for the entire time - even if that means changing the topic
• The goal is to write about the topic, but if your mind wanders to something else, that’s OK
• Try to use the whole paper - if you can fit another entry the next day on the same page, do so 
• Silence that inner critic that tells you “This is not good” and JUST KEEP WRITING!
• Make sure to write the date for any days you are absent so you don't lose credit for that day.
  

Welcome Back!

Hello 8th graders!

Welcome back to school and welcome to my classroom blog. This will be a place where I will pose questions, post assignments, and share some of the awesome things we'll be doing in our classroom.

I'm looking forward to a great school year! 

List of mentor texts we've shared as a class

Part of your final essay for this class is to discuss the mentor texts that have helped you as a writer. Remember: mentor texts do not necessarily have to be ones we read together as a class. The only criteria I'm looking for a mentor text is a piece of writing that inspired you in your own writing.

Here are the texts we've shared as a class this year:

• The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman
• A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd
• "Brave" by Sara Bareilles
• "Everything Exists in the Word" by Pablo Neruda 
• "What I Believe" from Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan 
• El Deafo by Cece Bell 
• Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Tony Ross
• "We Wear the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
• "Try" by Colbie Caillat 
• Battle Bunny by Mac Barnett and Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Matthew Myers
• Rex Wrecks It by Ben Clanton 
• Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales
• The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
• X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shibazz and Kekla Magoon
• What Do You Do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamada, illustrated by Mae Besom
• The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires
• Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
• I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
• This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
• "Hands" by Sarah Kay
• "Brother" by Sarah Kay
• "Like, You Know" by Taylor Mali
• "Knock, Knock" by Daniel Beaty
• "Josh Bell" from The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
• "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams and I'm Sorry, I Meant to Do It: False Apology Poems by Gail Carson Levine  

Speaking of Natalie Lloyd, today she revealed the cover of her new book coming out in March 2016, The Key to Extraordinary.

Do you want to win some books?

Would you like to win copies of the books talked about in class today? Put your name under the books you would like to win and then click submit.

Pre-Performance Poetry Reflection

Before you perform your poem, I want you to write about it. Each part of the assignment is worth 10 points and is to be completed in Google Classroom:

1. Type your poem out - be sure to write the title and author.
2. In a paragraph, explain what you think this poem means. Why do you think the author wrote it? What sort of mood or feeling does it give?
3. In another paragraph, explain why you chose this poem. What is it about the poem that speaks to you? (And just so you know, “It was the shortest poem I could find” is not an acceptable response!)


Here is an example from a previous performance I did a few years ago:

Fish Story

by Richard Amour

Count this among my heartfelt wishes:

To hear a fish tale told by fishes

And stand among the fish who doubt

The honor of a fellow trout,

And watch the bulging of their eyes

To hear of imitation flies

And worms with rather droopy looks

Stuck through with hateful, horrid hooks,

And fishermen they fled all day from

(As big as this) and got away from.

This is a poem about a fish story, but from the fish’s point-of-view instead of the human.  Everyone seems to have a fisherman in their family who has a tale to tell of “the one that got away.”  The family members all ooh and aah when said fisherman talks about how, “I once caught a fish this big,” and in a flourish, shows with exaggerated enthusiasm, the size of the fish that he caught, though conveniently no one has seen.  Richard Armour takes that fish story cliché and turns it on its heels by giving it a different perspective – from that of the fish.  Of course, the fish doesn’t tell of the size of the human they caught, but instead the size of the one they got away from (rather than the one that got away).  So of course, the mood of this poem is very lighthearted and humorous, which is always what fish stories are, whether told by human or fish!

What speaks to me about this poem is that I have many men in my family who are fishermen (though not very good ones!) so it’s always funny to hear them talk about fishing and their good-natured ribbing of each other’s lack of talent when it comes to catching anything of substance.  My dad, grandpa (who is now passed), uncle, and brother all love to fish so fish stories abound in my family!  When all of them get together and talk about fishing, everyone always has to laugh at the bantering back and forth between them.  When the men talk about fishing, you can always guarantee that laughter will soon accompany the conversation.  So when I read this poem, I always think of the men of my family and smile because I imagine the fish who is telling this story is the one that got away from either my dad, grandpa, uncle, or brother.