A Christmas Carol

We will begin reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on Friday.  You're probably already familiar with the premise, but you will find that Dicken's prose style can be intimidating and difficult to read at times.  For this reason, a majority of the text will be read together in class so we can address any unfamiliar vocabulary and historical terms.  I attached a link that provides a dramatic reading of the text, as an accompaniment to our reading.  I also included the trailer to the most recent film interpretation of the novel.

http://www.wiredforbooks.org/carol/content.htm

Free Write!

We will start doing more of these in class very soon.....

Listen to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changin"  and answer one or both of these prompts:

1.How is your generation's identity different from that our your parents'/teachers'?

2. Is our nation/world changing in good ways or bad, and what is your individual role in that change?

Grammar

We've started our grammar unit, and I know many of you are having trouble remembering certain parts of speech.  Here are some quick tips to help you when analyzing sentences.

                      nouns
                       /    \
           common    proper
                  /            \
         general          specific
             /                       \
       state                    Florida        

Direct Objects:  what the verb, or action, of the sentence is doing     Mike eats apples
Indirect Object:  who or what the the direct object is being done for      He gave the boy a candle.
(always comes before the direct object).  

Predicate Nouns and Predicate Adjectives: rename the subject, and are often preceded by the verb to be.       I am funny.  P.A.                                               They are preachers.  P.N.

Prepositions: these are always tricky, and require a bit of memorization, but remember that they often show a physical or abstract relation between two objects or people.
He was on the car.   I ran to the store.  They are full of witty jokes.  The house sits upon the hill.  

Also, the object of the preposition is the noun that follows the preposition.    
         

Writing Your Short Story

Now that most of your have completed your life road maps, and have been considering the important moments in your lives, you will now choose one of the stops on your road map and write a one page short story about it.  It is important that your remember to include a clear rising action, climax, and falling action in your story, perhaps devoting a paragraph to each.  Also, just as with the personal narratives, using sensory details in your descriptions will improve the clarity of your story and give the reader a better understanding of what you're trying to convey. 

In a few weeks, we will be reading a story by Kurt Vonnegut, so I've included a video (above) containing this author's instructions for writing a short story.

7th grade short story unit

We are a few days into the short story unit and we've already read and discussed "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry.  The story raised questions about frienship and loyalty, and resulted in a small debate about whether the characters' acted justly.  Indivudally, you wrote about your personal stance on the characters' actions.  Starting Monday, I'll be introducing a new story called "Lose Now, Pay Later."  Similar to the previous story, the characters in this one encounter moral dilemmas and are stuck between right and wrong.  As a class, we will discuss our own interpretations of the story and make predictions.