November, First Half

In Language Arts we have begun Unit 4, Imagination and are working on literary analysis of a dramatic story (play) , "The Phantom Tollbooth."

I.  In reading, students have been annotating the story, following the character development of the protagonist, Milo, and examining the author's device of exaggerated traits in characterization.

The analysis includes looking at the story from different approaches:  Plot, Character Development, Messages/ Author's Purpose, and Author's Devices.

The plot analysis works at multiple layers and students are being introduced to this type of examination and writing summaries of stories with multiple layers of meaning. 

Students are learning terminology related to plays as opposed to poetry and prose. They are also making and writing statements about the story using text evidence.

II. Their vocabulary work for this piece includes the following words:

ignorance, surmise, presume, speculate, misapprehension, consideration, 
suspiciously, obstacle, pessimistic, malicious, insincerity, compromise, and the Latin suffix -ity. 

Students have had multiple practices with these words in class, but should continue to study them at home in preparation for the Vocabulary test on about Wednesday, November 28.  Students will also be tested on the spelling of these words, but understanding their meaning is of chief importance.

III.  In terms of language conventions, students are learning about sentence structures and variety by studying and practicing writing sentences with different types of sentence complexity, including:

Compound and Complex Sentences

As part of this study they are learning about Independent and Dependent clauses, coordinating conjunctions, and complete sentences.

The study of sentences has us reviewing:

Subjects, Predicates, Capitalization, End punctuation, and complete and incomplete ideas. Information on Sentence structure can be found in the student text on p. 343.  

I anticipate that students will face a grammar and conventions test during the week of December 10.