Bobby revised his rough draft on the theme of divided loyalties in friendship as illustrated in the short story,"After Twenty Years". We worked extensively on word choice to transform informal language into formal English. Where Bobby encountered difficulty ,I reformulated the sentences with blank spaces on our shared screen and had Bobby complete the sentence by inserting active verbs or more precise diction. This exercise greatly assisted Bobby in completing his essay. Last, we addressed grammar issues such as missing commas. Bobby did very well with inserting proper punctuation .At the conclusion of the session, I had Bobby read the revised essay aloud so that he could hear the impact of improved diction and syntax.

After reviewing the plot and theme of O'Henry's "After Twenty Years", Bobby completed a rough draft of a literary essay discussing the theme of divided loyalties in a friendship. I guided Bobby through the middle paragraphs of the essay that explained the two main characters' past friendship and therefore why the choice Jimmy Wells made to have his friend arrested was difficult but defined him. We then began revising the essay to transform the language into more formal English and to address grammatical issues. We will continue revising the essay tomorrow.

Bobby is drafting a literary essay on O'Henry's short story "After Twenty Years". We first discussed the theme of divided loyalties within a friendship and how choices people make define their moral character . We then reviewed the outline we started last week, and I provided instruction on how to compose an introductory paragraph to a literary essay. Bobby then drafted a three sentence introduction and went on to complete his essay outline . We looked over the outline and began a rough draft of the second paragraph which explains the circumstances that lead the main character ,Jimmy Wells, to choose between his obligation as a policeman and his loyalty to his childhood best friend . We will continue drafting the essay on Wednesday .

After reviewing the plot and theme of O'Henry's short -story, "After Twenty Years" , we discussed the theme of divided loyalties that can arise in a friendship . Bobby then participated in class discussion describing how the main character in the story manages to both maintain his integrity while in some way protecting a friendship. Bobby then took a short reading comprehension quiz on the story and achieved a perfect score. Accordingly, I then placed on the screen an essay prompt that will serve as the basis for our next writing exercise. We formed a topic sentence and began an outline focusing on the specific plot details, and the moral choice presented to the main character. We will complete the outline on Monday and begin a rough draft of the essay.

Bobby completed revising his "how to" essay on the process for cleaning a fish. We worked on eliminating unnecessary words such as "you" and replacing this syntax with the simple command form of the verb . We further restructured the word order within a few sentences . This exercise helped Bobby develop word choice, clarity, and organizational skills. Next, we began reading the short story "After Twenty Years" by O'Henry. I first introduced some vocabulary words and discussed the realist genre. I further advised Bobby to be alert for O'Henry's signature surprise endings. For homework, I assigned reading the final page in the story . We will write a literary essay on divided loyalties within friendship after discussing the story.

We initially revised Bobby's outline on how to clean a fish. This exercise requires a significant amount of organizational skill as well as the ability to use precise language in order to formulate clear directions. I pointed out areas and directions in the outline that were unclear. Thereafter, Bobby did a very good job sharpening the language in the outline . He then proceeded to complete the outline using the precise diction and directional language this exercise required. I further placed on the screen the numerous transition words that could be used to transform this recipe type outline into a full sentences ,and we proceeded to compose the composition. As we worked through the outline , Bobby's work significantly improved, and by the end of the session, we came close to completing a clear and organized "how to" composition . We will complete this exercise tomorrow.

After Bobby completed the final revisions of his letter to the fictional character ,Laurie, from last week's reading, we discussed the function of a "how to" essay which requires strong organization, and the use of time or order related transition words such as "then, later, next, when, and finally". As Bobby has mentioned that he enjoys fishing, we decided Bobby would write a "how to" composition on how to clean a fish in order to prepare it for cooking. We first discussed ways to capture the reader's attention and interest in the subject followed by our composing an introductory sentence or two. We then began to form a list of the necessary steps in the process which we will later transform into sentences using the order related transition words. Bobby began thinking through the steps recognizing the challenges this type of writing can present in the absence of a "YouTube" video. For homework due Wednesday, I assigned completing a few phrases that graphically describe the fish cleaning process.

Having read the short story , "Charles" about a fictional mischievous kindergarten student,Laurie, today , as a creative writing exercise, Bobby composed a letter to the grown up Laurie about Bobby's reaction to the story and to Laurie's behavior. We discussed what Bobby might want to ask the adult ,Laurie, and how Bobby felt about Laurie's bad behavior followed by Bobby's writing a draft posing some good questions the story doesn't answer such as: Was Laurie punished by his parents? the school? Is Laurie as oblivious a parent as Laurie's parents were? After completing the draft ,we addressed revisions to clarify vague pronouns, to remove superfluous words, and to substitute specific descriptive words for vague broad adjectives. Bobby's revisions were very productive. He ,for example, substituted the clause," were you punished?" for "did something bad happen to you?"Likewise, he substituted the word " shenanigans " for vague pronouns such as "it" . We further completed a vocabulary exercise based on words used in the story.

Bobby completed a challenging reading comprehension exercise based on his reading of the short story,"Charles". This exercise required identifying character and theme and then selecting quotes from the multiple choice options supporting the prior answers on theme and character. He did very well with the exercise. We then reviewed why the non-responsive answers did not provide the "best" textual support for the question by focusing on the speaker of the quote as well as on the exact proposition the quote needed to support. We then worked on using formal English and proper sentence structure to answer short answer questions on the story .

We read the short story"Charles" with a few questions toward identifying theme and character traits which will serve as a basis for our next written assignments. Bobby exhibited good insight into the plot and the characters by correctly guessing the surprise plot twist/ending half way through the story. As Bobby will be completing a short reading comprehension exercise on this story tomorrow, we then discussed the definition of "theme" as well as the theme of the story. Bobby offered insights into the motivation of the main character, a kindergarten boy, who acts out in school but projects the bad behavior onto a non-existent student in order to gauge his parents reaction to his bad behavior . We further addressed vocabulary words from the story such as "renounce ,insolent, wary, and incredulous ."