We started today with a healthy dose of SSR. Lots of you are starting to near the end of your first selections, and some of you have ventured on to other titles. One female student came in this morning with an uncorrected proof that she picked up at our local bookstore, Devaney Doak and Garrett. She grabbed about eight titles there and is going to give feedback about these books so that the owner will know which titles are likely to be flying off the shelves. You are all eligible for this offer; just go in and ask to see the uncorrected proofs and let them know that you're from my English class. What fun!
After SSR, we moved on to reading from Speak and ended at page twenty two. We're seeing more and more that Melinda, our main character, is isolated and alone at home and during the school day. We see that her parents are totally uninvolved in her life and that she truly has no one to turn to.
Though some of you were upset to stop at page twenty two, we needed to cover some vocabulary before we get too far into the book. All of your vocabulary words this year will be from whatever book or poem we're reading. All words will be in context of what we're learning. There will be no random collection of words. I promise. Plus, all of our vocabulary words will have either a root word or a prefix. Our first list is a collection of words with various prefixes.
Your job as far as these words are concerned is to learn the meaning of the prefixes that're attached to them. You do not necessarily need to memorize the meaning of the words you have because we'll come to our own definitions through in-class activities. We did one such activity today where you created a Words Rock! rock with your assigned word on it. After this, you all wrote your word on an index card and then wrote an example of how your word relates to what's happening in Speak. We were in the midst of sharing our words and examples as a group when the bell rang.
No matter. We'll pick up where we left off next class!
