Gramma Sally's Sentence Sweat Shop!

Recently our 8th graders were introduced to “sentence sweat shop” where problematical sentences from the Significant Adult RRDs (revised rough drafts) were ferreted out, analyzed and edited by the class and then by peer editors for both grammatical issues and clarity of thought as well as expression.

Here's the drill:

1. I highlight sentences with issues as I edit the RRDs. Typically, this amounts to 3-10 sentences per student. I use the traffic light approach: A green sentence means: Go girl! (ie it highlights a particularly excellent sentence...these are RARE!) A yellow sentence indicates caution: awkward, inept, confusing. A red (or more truthfully, hot pink) sentence screams: STOP! These are usually fragments or sentences with such extreme issues that they must be reworked in order to proceed.

2. I then turn the yellow sentences into sentence strips which three different peer editors then rewrite/rework. This is where the sweat - both literal and metaphorical - comes in. Students sit at tables with piles of scratch paper and attack these problematical sentences. They attach a given sentence to the top of a page, then try to rewrite it, conferring with the author if necessary. Once a given student has taken a run at the sentence, she passes it to the next student until the problem sentence has been reworked at least three times.

3. The corrected/edited strips are then given back to the author who is free to borrow any part or all of the suggestions her editors have offered. In this way, the author has multiple choices for editorial improvement as she works towards a new and vastly improved Final Draft (FD)

Needless to say, this is a time-consuming, arduous process. But...and...it works! We will be applying this method to our High School Essays which are currently in the peer editor stage. The most amazing thing: many of our girls admit to actually enjoying "sentence sweat shop!" Go figure!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Best wishes to all of you and your families for a safe, restful and delicious holiday.

We're working hard to wrap up the first trimester. Today we had a comparative planetology quiz and the 8th graders are also preparing for the next round of geography quizzes (naming all the countries in both Asia and Africa) next week as well as a pending algebra test in early December.

Thank you for all your support during the start of the school year and most of all, thank you for sharing your daughters with us.

-The 8th Grade Team

GoodReads.com

The 8th graders and I have joined the high tech age when it comes to books and book reviews! We're all part of a private book group entitled "Reading Workshop 2008" which can be found at the "Good Reads" book site (goodreads.com) If you'd like to join us and/or keep up-to-date on current 8th grade reading trends, feel free! Just follow these fairly straight-forward steps:

Go to GoodReads.com and sign up! Use your REAL name (ie Sally, Mary Margaret, Bert...not some sobriquet!) so that I'll know it's you when you do a book review...a current, functioning email address and a password that you won't easily forget.

The next step will take you to a page encouraging you to "see which friends in your address book...blah, blah, blah..." Just scroll to the bottom of that and hit
"skip this step." That should take you to the welcome page.

Go to the tool bar at the top of that welcome page and hit on the "groups" category at the far right. That will take you to a groups page and under "my groups" it should read "none yet."

In a sidebar box called "group topics" click on the line that says "Student Groups" which will take you to a page with the same name. Again, in the sidebar box on that page, hit on the category "Classes and Departments." There you'll see OUR class, entitled "Reading Workshop 2008." Click on it! That takes you to our class book review group page. At the right of this page, you'll see a line that reads "Request to join this group." Click on that and it will send me an email, which will allow me to approve of you for our book review site. This is a private site that cannot be infiltrated by outsiders!! In this case, parents will not be treated as infiltrators! When it comes to book discussions and sharing, the more the merrier!

A blast from our recent past...and a belated public THANK YOU!!

I just ran across this short video I made on our Flight Day and thought I'd publish it. It reminded me how grateful I am to work with so many generous folks at SGS!

People like SGS Board Member and Flight Day Coordinator, Peter Morton...for instance!

Comparative Planetology is out of this world!

We're wrapping up our studies of some basic physics laws governing motion, such as Newton' Laws and Gravity - complete with applied math which allows us to calculate distances, velocities and forces. This means we get to start one of my favorite mini-units: Comparative Planetology. Over the next week or two we'll be getting a baseline of information about the planets in our solar system to better prepare us for our Mission to Mars this March.

Students are collecting and sorting data about each of the 8 major planets (but we don't totally ignore Pluto who got demoted in 2006), and creating a few different artifacts to organize our information. For more details on these, please check my classroom blog!