Blogs for Ms. Dorsey's English Classes

This is my blog for my English Classes.  It is intended for students and parents, but it is also for me, since this is how I keep track of what we're doing.
http://cavemanenglish.blogspot.com/

This is the link to my English Class Wiki.  This is where students can go to print out documents and worksheets they may have missed or lost.
http://cavemanenglish.pbworks.com/

These links lead to wikis where my students can post their work:
http://cavemana4.pbworks.com/ 
To look at their work, go to the navigator box at the right, and click on Student Pages 2009-2010.

On this wiki, I've graded most of the student work.  It also still has student book reviews from last year.
http://caveman-b1.pbworks.com/

Learning Editing -- Using Mentor Texts to Teach Editing

I've stolen a lot from Jeff Anderson, and added a bit of my own.  This wiki page is where I've been preparing my editing lessons -- and more.


http://learningediting.pbworks.com

Recommended Books for Teachers - Titles, Authors

Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson -- Highly recommended.  Anderson provides us with complete series of lessons to cover various aspects of punctuation and grammar.

Image Grammar by Harry R. Noden --

Sentence Composing for Elementary School by Don and Jenny Killgallon (use for middle school)
Sentence Composing for Middle School by Donald Killgallon  (use for high school)
     The Killgallons have collected sentences from published literature to be used for sentence unscrambling, imitating, combining, etc.   Students learn to recognize that sentences are made up of chunks of meaning.  The elementary text teaches students to recognize and use phrases and clauses.  The middle school text deals more with writing complete sentences, a variety of sentences, and expanding sentences, and writing paragraphs.
   


Study Driven by Katie Wood Ray  -- Finding mentor texts and using them in writing workshops.

Also recommended: The 9 Rights of Every Writer: A Guide for Teachers by Vicki Spandel

Recommended Books - Covers

Using Mentor Texts

Student Choice?

Some texts to use as "Mentors" and in Prompts

Character: The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros  -- writing about a character
Courage: Cold prompt --  What is courage? 
Read The Cats of Krasinsky Square  by Karen Hesse.  Revisit writing about courage.

Images: Water Dance by Thomas Locker  -- example of creating images

Parallel structure: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – Martin Luther King, Jr.  – model for parallel structure – See pages 50-51 of Sentence Composing for Middle School by Don Killgallon.
Parallel structure: Night – Elie Wiesel, pg. 32  “Never shall I forget. . .”
Parallel structure: Tears of a Tiger – Sharon M. Draper, pgs. 104-105  “I remember. . .”
Parallel structure:  Rimshots, Charles R. Smith, pg. 5 “I remember. . . “
          These were suggested by Janette Grimshaw, Independence High School


Prompts: The Important Book  Margaret Wise Brown   The important thing about _______ is. . .