Monday/Tuesday

Tomorrow's the big day--L.A. ISTEP time. The students will be doing a 55 minute ISTEP prompt. Thursday will be their constructed response/extended response day. Despite a whole lot of students failing my class right now, I have to say that I'm 100% confident that every student I have can do well on this thing. We've worked hard on this on-demand writing stuff, and I know they can impress.

We spent some time with our novels the last couple days. We also did some last-minute ISTEP prep stuff. I gave back some older on-demand writings for them to get some feedback on. Yesterday, the students read about Howard Hughes and did some constructed response work (Block Three read about an entomologist instead.), and we'll go over those answers tomorrow.

Vocabulary--they do have an assignment for this week. They're making a vocabulary chain, trying to find things the word parts have in common to link them all together. If they can make a 250 word part vocabulary chain, they will have the new world record. Here's an example:

sacro links to sanct because they both mean "holy"
sanct links to biblio because they can both make places that are quiet (sanctuary/bibliotheca)
biblio links to leg because "books" are "read"
leg links to ocul because you use your "eyes" to "read"
ocul links to spec because you also use your "eyes" to "look"
spec and scope link because they both mean the same thing
scope links to tele because it makes the word telescope
tele also links pathy because it makes the word telepathy
pathy links to son because one is "feeling" and one is "sound," two of the five senses
son links to phone because they both mean "sound"
phone links to caco because it makes the word cacophony, bad or harsh sounds
caco links to eu because they're opposites--"bad" and "good"
eu and bene link because they both mean "good"
bene links to mal as opposites since mal is "bad"
mal links to cide because "killing" is "bad"
cide links to mort because "killing" makes things "dead"
mort links to cad because cad makes cadaver, somebody who is dead
cad links to rupt because when something "falls" it might "break"
rupt links to fract because they both mean "break"
fract links to osteo because a "bone" is something you could break
osteo links to man because you have "bones" in your "hands"
man links to ped because "feet" are like "hands" for the legs
ped links to ambul because you use your "feet" to "walk"

Honestly, I don't know how they'll do with this. It forced me to use my mind to make connections, and I know that making connections is good for learning. If they have trouble making one giant chain, they are allowed to break their chain up and do 10 25-link chains or something like that. They should be asking me, asking each other, or looking the word parts up on the Internet if they don't know or have forgotten some.