What We Did
The past few classes have involved a lot of catching up.
First, Ms.Lees wrote down all of the people’s names on the board that still had to finish their portfolios. Finishing their portfolios involved:
· Putting all of their required work in the order that was given by Ms.Lees and her checklist.
· Finishing the work that they had not done that needed to be put in the portfolio.
· Stapling each section together
· Go over the whole portfolio until we were completely satisfied with it.
We should ALL be finished our portfolios, and if any of you aren’t, then you need to finish As Soon As Possible. Ms.Lees is not going to give us any more class time to work on our portfolios, so you need to be responsible and go in tomorrow morning. If you can’t make it in the morning, then make sure you email Ms.Lees to let her know, and hopefully she can work out a different time.
While people were finishing their portfolios, Ms.Lees taught us a little about Persuasive Paragraphs. She also quickly went around the homework to make sure we’d completed our homework. We learned that persuasive paragraphs are used to convince someone to think of something the same way as you. For example; you may do a paragraph on why real Christmas trees are better than fake ones. Then you would need to have points to support your side, and you would want them to agree with you, or at least see your side by the end of the paragraph. The booklet said that Persuasive Paragraphs:
-argue a plot
- tries to convince reader to think a certain way
-gives supporting reasons
If you want to test if your persuasive paragraph is well written and convincing, you could ask your friend their opinion on a topic, and then get them to read your paragraph. After they’ve read it, you could ask them if their opinion changed, and if not, then why?
After she was finished our lesson on persuasive paragraphs, we had to start working on our “Paragraph booklet.” We did two exercises. For both exercises we had to choose a topic that had two sides to it. It could either be from the examples in the booklet, or a topic from our heart map. Both of the ones that I chose were from the examples (I know, BORING.) First, we had to do a plot outline for each paragraph. The plot outline had to be brief, but include enough information to guide us in the right direction for writing. Each paragraph was supposed to be approximately 5-9 sentences, going over is okay, but it HAS to be at least five sentences.
Ms.Lees also handed out a new booklet for our Social Studies section (my first socials studies work for grade 8- Yay!) The booklet is/was on note taking, and finding the main ideas when reading something. We did not go over note taking very much, but from the looks of the booklet, there are two different forms of note taking. The mapping method and the outlining method. The outlining method resembles what you would write down in a plot diagram. You basically read over the whole paragraph and then decide on what the main idea is. Under where you’ve written down the main idea, you jot down other important information. For the mapping method, you can create a web or diagram with the main ideas. In the middle of the web, you put the main idea, and you create lines coming out of it with extra important information.
I don’t think that many of the class even got to the booklet today, and most of us weren’t even finished the paragraphs.
While all of this was happening, Ms.Lees had time to take a few of us aside to discuss our portfolios and our individual marks. We had to tell her what we thought we deserved for an overall mark, and what we were struggling in. She only managed to get to a few of us today.
Why We Did It
It was very important for us to finish our portfolios because Ms.Lees NEEDED for them to be complete in order for her to review our mark with us. Conferencing with us is a good idea because if she just handed us each a mark, then we wouldn’t know why we got it and we wouldn’t be able to discuss our mark with her. We also wouldn’t be able to improve as much because we wouldn’t know which areas we were/are struggling in. Everyone in the class would be extremely confused, and we all need a chance to explain what mark we think we deserve.
Ms.Lees went over our persuasive paragraphs with us to make sure we completely understood what persuasive paragraphs are, and so that we didn’t get them confused with the other types of paragraphs. By knowing the criteria for persuasive paragraphs, we could improve our paragraphs because we understood how to achieve the best mark possible for our paragraphs. This also helped us with our Paragraph Outlines because we learned how to choose the Topic Sentence, Main Ideas and Concluding Sentence for this certain type of paragraph.
Learning how to take exceptional notes is a very important skill for high school and University/College. We are learning about note taking so that we will easily be able to jot down simple but important notes in our classes. Notes can take a while to do, but the booklet teaches us how to take notes fast so that we get all of the information we need down. Sometimes when I take notes, I am so concentrated on writing that I don’t hear everything the teacher says. And then I get confused.
My Reflections/Connections
I had my portfolio review today with Ms.Lees, and I found she really cleared up some of the stuff I was confused about for me. These portfolios are very serious things in Humanities, and throughout Elementary school, I never really did any portfolios. So this is definitely new for me. I have to say that I did like how in grade 7, my teacher would give me my mark back for whatever homework I did within the same week I handed it in. That way I knew how I was doing throughout the year, and I knew my EXACT mark. This year, Ms.Lees marks are work using a different method. I have really had to adjust this year to the Ms.Lees way of marking. It is quite a challenge, but challenges are good sometimes in life.
Being able to write an excellent persuasive paragraph is a handy skill to have. It will help you with speeches in life, and is great if you want to join the debate club. It also helps you with your writing skills, because persuasion is a complicated thing, and it is even harder to do in writing. I am really glad that we learned about this type of paragraph because I learned about the other three types of paragraphs last year, but I’ve never done much on persuasive paragraphs. Lawyers and Police Officers need to be good at persuasion. The whole point of being a lawyer is to persuade the judge to see your side and to get them to agree with you.
I absolutely LOVE writing, so I think understood the point of persuasive paragraphs. I was able to complete both exercise one and two with no trouble, and I think I found some pretty good points for my side. I’m not sure if it was enough to make someone change their mind, but I managed to find some pretty interesting and convincing facts.
In high school and University/College you take a lot of notes for pretty much everything. Math, Humanities, Cooking, Sewing, Science, French, etc. Anyone can take notes, but not everyone can take GOOD notes. Notes help you study for tests. Instead of frantically going through your binder or text book, you can just read over your notes and try to memorize them. By going over the two different types of notes, you can decide which one best suites your writing or studying style, and which one you are most efficient at. Being able to find the main idea of a paragraph and extending on the main idea to important points also helps us if we want to be a reporter or journalist because we can write articles from the notes.
I plan on taking notes to study for my upcoming geography and math tests that I have this week. I think that the booklet will really help me improve my notes, which will hopefully help me improve my grades.
Homework
- Finish both exercises 1 and 2 in the Persuasive Paragraph section of your booklet. (Don’t forget to do a paragraph outline FIRST)
- Practice for Canspell
- Note taking booklet, exercise 1 and 2 (read over the pages too)
- Study for Geography test on Friday
Tips:
-If you are not finished your portfolio, make sure to go to Mr.Pocock’s room tomorrow morning to finish it, or contact Ms.Lees.
-Get your friends or family members to quiz you each day for the spelling bee. I printed out an extra copy of the words and hung it on my wall
-Put your note taking skills to good use and study for the Geography test on Friday
-Check out Ms.Lees blog for information on the Science Test
-Contact your study buddy if you have a question about homework
-If you really enjoy doing persuasive paragraphs, you should try going to a debate club meeting
-If you’ve already had your portfolio meeting with Ms.Lees, make sure to discuss how you’re doing with your parents
The past few classes have involved a lot of catching up.
First, Ms.Lees wrote down all of the people’s names on the board that still had to finish their portfolios. Finishing their portfolios involved:
· Putting all of their required work in the order that was given by Ms.Lees and her checklist.
· Finishing the work that they had not done that needed to be put in the portfolio.
· Stapling each section together
· Go over the whole portfolio until we were completely satisfied with it.
We should ALL be finished our portfolios, and if any of you aren’t, then you need to finish As Soon As Possible. Ms.Lees is not going to give us any more class time to work on our portfolios, so you need to be responsible and go in tomorrow morning. If you can’t make it in the morning, then make sure you email Ms.Lees to let her know, and hopefully she can work out a different time.
While people were finishing their portfolios, Ms.Lees taught us a little about Persuasive Paragraphs. She also quickly went around the homework to make sure we’d completed our homework. We learned that persuasive paragraphs are used to convince someone to think of something the same way as you. For example; you may do a paragraph on why real Christmas trees are better than fake ones. Then you would need to have points to support your side, and you would want them to agree with you, or at least see your side by the end of the paragraph. The booklet said that Persuasive Paragraphs:
-argue a plot
- tries to convince reader to think a certain way
-gives supporting reasons
If you want to test if your persuasive paragraph is well written and convincing, you could ask your friend their opinion on a topic, and then get them to read your paragraph. After they’ve read it, you could ask them if their opinion changed, and if not, then why?
After she was finished our lesson on persuasive paragraphs, we had to start working on our “Paragraph booklet.” We did two exercises. For both exercises we had to choose a topic that had two sides to it. It could either be from the examples in the booklet, or a topic from our heart map. Both of the ones that I chose were from the examples (I know, BORING.) First, we had to do a plot outline for each paragraph. The plot outline had to be brief, but include enough information to guide us in the right direction for writing. Each paragraph was supposed to be approximately 5-9 sentences, going over is okay, but it HAS to be at least five sentences.
Ms.Lees also handed out a new booklet for our Social Studies section (my first socials studies work for grade 8- Yay!) The booklet is/was on note taking, and finding the main ideas when reading something. We did not go over note taking very much, but from the looks of the booklet, there are two different forms of note taking. The mapping method and the outlining method. The outlining method resembles what you would write down in a plot diagram. You basically read over the whole paragraph and then decide on what the main idea is. Under where you’ve written down the main idea, you jot down other important information. For the mapping method, you can create a web or diagram with the main ideas. In the middle of the web, you put the main idea, and you create lines coming out of it with extra important information.
I don’t think that many of the class even got to the booklet today, and most of us weren’t even finished the paragraphs.
While all of this was happening, Ms.Lees had time to take a few of us aside to discuss our portfolios and our individual marks. We had to tell her what we thought we deserved for an overall mark, and what we were struggling in. She only managed to get to a few of us today.
Why We Did It
It was very important for us to finish our portfolios because Ms.Lees NEEDED for them to be complete in order for her to review our mark with us. Conferencing with us is a good idea because if she just handed us each a mark, then we wouldn’t know why we got it and we wouldn’t be able to discuss our mark with her. We also wouldn’t be able to improve as much because we wouldn’t know which areas we were/are struggling in. Everyone in the class would be extremely confused, and we all need a chance to explain what mark we think we deserve.
Ms.Lees went over our persuasive paragraphs with us to make sure we completely understood what persuasive paragraphs are, and so that we didn’t get them confused with the other types of paragraphs. By knowing the criteria for persuasive paragraphs, we could improve our paragraphs because we understood how to achieve the best mark possible for our paragraphs. This also helped us with our Paragraph Outlines because we learned how to choose the Topic Sentence, Main Ideas and Concluding Sentence for this certain type of paragraph.
Learning how to take exceptional notes is a very important skill for high school and University/College. We are learning about note taking so that we will easily be able to jot down simple but important notes in our classes. Notes can take a while to do, but the booklet teaches us how to take notes fast so that we get all of the information we need down. Sometimes when I take notes, I am so concentrated on writing that I don’t hear everything the teacher says. And then I get confused.
My Reflections/Connections
I had my portfolio review today with Ms.Lees, and I found she really cleared up some of the stuff I was confused about for me. These portfolios are very serious things in Humanities, and throughout Elementary school, I never really did any portfolios. So this is definitely new for me. I have to say that I did like how in grade 7, my teacher would give me my mark back for whatever homework I did within the same week I handed it in. That way I knew how I was doing throughout the year, and I knew my EXACT mark. This year, Ms.Lees marks are work using a different method. I have really had to adjust this year to the Ms.Lees way of marking. It is quite a challenge, but challenges are good sometimes in life.
Being able to write an excellent persuasive paragraph is a handy skill to have. It will help you with speeches in life, and is great if you want to join the debate club. It also helps you with your writing skills, because persuasion is a complicated thing, and it is even harder to do in writing. I am really glad that we learned about this type of paragraph because I learned about the other three types of paragraphs last year, but I’ve never done much on persuasive paragraphs. Lawyers and Police Officers need to be good at persuasion. The whole point of being a lawyer is to persuade the judge to see your side and to get them to agree with you.
I absolutely LOVE writing, so I think understood the point of persuasive paragraphs. I was able to complete both exercise one and two with no trouble, and I think I found some pretty good points for my side. I’m not sure if it was enough to make someone change their mind, but I managed to find some pretty interesting and convincing facts.
In high school and University/College you take a lot of notes for pretty much everything. Math, Humanities, Cooking, Sewing, Science, French, etc. Anyone can take notes, but not everyone can take GOOD notes. Notes help you study for tests. Instead of frantically going through your binder or text book, you can just read over your notes and try to memorize them. By going over the two different types of notes, you can decide which one best suites your writing or studying style, and which one you are most efficient at. Being able to find the main idea of a paragraph and extending on the main idea to important points also helps us if we want to be a reporter or journalist because we can write articles from the notes.
I plan on taking notes to study for my upcoming geography and math tests that I have this week. I think that the booklet will really help me improve my notes, which will hopefully help me improve my grades.
Homework
- Finish both exercises 1 and 2 in the Persuasive Paragraph section of your booklet. (Don’t forget to do a paragraph outline FIRST)
- Practice for Canspell
- Note taking booklet, exercise 1 and 2 (read over the pages too)
- Study for Geography test on Friday
Tips:
-If you are not finished your portfolio, make sure to go to Mr.Pocock’s room tomorrow morning to finish it, or contact Ms.Lees.
-Get your friends or family members to quiz you each day for the spelling bee. I printed out an extra copy of the words and hung it on my wall
-Put your note taking skills to good use and study for the Geography test on Friday
-Check out Ms.Lees blog for information on the Science Test
-Contact your study buddy if you have a question about homework
-If you really enjoy doing persuasive paragraphs, you should try going to a debate club meeting
-If you’ve already had your portfolio meeting with Ms.Lees, make sure to discuss how you’re doing with your parents
Schedule for this week:
Monday- Olivia
Tuesday- Alice
Wendesday- Luke (Daniel did his last week)
Friday-Luke
ALICE IS TOMORROW!!
Good job! I think it is very clear and it has very good connections that I would've never thought of! I do agree taking notes is a very important skill for University especially. I heard that they have symbols and such for taking notes!
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