Chris finished his PowerPoint presentation on author Jason Reynolds today. Then he presented his findings in class. We discussed this author's contributions to African American literature.

We started a new unit today. We began by discussing credibility with sources. We read several articles and watched a few videos and then assessed their credibility. I then gave PJ a checklist to go through when trying to determine whether or not a source is credible.

We read about the history of Black History Month. We also read and analyzed a speech by Sojourner Truth as well as Frederick Douglas's letter to Harriet Tubman.

testing

Dialogue - Today, David worked on improving the dialogue in his story by adding tags and descriptions. We read some examples of effective dialogue as a model text.

We discussed how to create tension in a story. We read several model texts together. Then, David revised part of his story, adding dramatic tension.

language testing

testing - language

Today we focused on setting/description. I modeled how to show the setting in David's story vs. just telling. He then used this technique in his own story to continue to develop the plot.

testing - reading