Wednesday and Thursday (Two Entries in One!)

If there's going to be a day of the week that I don't write anything here, it'll more than likely be Wednesday. For whatever reason, this blog slips my mind on those days. I'm sorry.

Yesterday and today, we spent a big chunk of time looking at the ISTEP writing rubric. We looked at six actual student ISTEP prompt writings (narrative) and graded them with grade sheets. Then, we talked about what grades we'd give them, and I told them how the ISTEP people scored them and read their thoughts. Most of the students seemed to be harsher than the ISTEP people actually.

I gave them back their "Favorite season" personal narratives and had them grade their own. Then, they compared their grades to the grades that I gave them. We'll practice some ISTEP writing again soon.

Yesterday, we had a grammar quiz (a real one this time) over our sentence combining. As we were reviewing the grammar stuff right before the quiz, I caught a lot of students not paying any attention. That probably won't be good for their quiz scores.

Word parts--hold on tight because here's a bunch of them from the last two days:

sci means "know" like science, conscience, and omniscient narrators
graph means "write" like biography, autograph, polygraph tests, and bibliography
lat means "side" like bilateral agreements and lateral fins on fish
lith means "rock" like paleolithic, neolithic, and megalith
tract means "pull" like a tractor (I had to explain to these city kids what a tractor was), contraction, and attract
in means "in" or "not" like include (close in) and inscribe or insane and insomnia
co means "together) like cooperate, coordinating conjunctions (our FANBOYS), and coauthor
phile means "love" like a philosopher (a lover of wisdom), a bibliophile, and philanthropy
hexa means "6" like a hexahedron (a dice is a hexahedron), a hexagram, and a hexapod
fract means "break" like fracture and infraction. And fractions if you like math.
And theo means "god" like atheism, monotheism, and theomania, a psychological disorder where one believe he is a god

Some students have not turned in their work for the school uniform writings. I will grade those over the weekend, so they need to be turned in by tomorrow.