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Month: April 2020

Writing Prompts: Week FOUR!

Writing Prompts: Week FOUR!

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Are you ready for WEEK FOUR?  I am!  I’m excited to read more of your amazing writing, Grades 7 and 8!  You have shown great creativity in your blogging in the past few weeks.

I would like you to remember that writing is both an art and a skill.  As artists, you are free to create, use your own voice, develop your own style, and show readers your unique thoughts and ways of expressing!  As a skill, you need to remember to follow the rules of writing:

  • use correct spelling
  • use punctuation correctly
  • use left alignment and paragraphs correctly (Grade 8 is expected to use paragraphing correctly with dialogue as well)
  • reread your writing to check for clarity and for errors
  • make corrections using what you know about sentence structures, spelling, punctuation

FOR GRADE 8 Students:

I am so excited about this week’s prompts because in addition to the four prompts I’m providing below, I’m going to give you a link to over 1000  Writing prompts that may inspire you to write an ESSAY!

Some students have asked for ESSAY PROMPTS!  Well, here they are:

NY Times Learning Network Writing Prompts

Remember that an essay has a ‘thesis statement’ or a statement in which you clearly state your opinion OR the main focus of the essay.

Remember that an essay has a:

  • introduction (thesis is usually in the introduction)
  •  body paragraphs to support your thesis: each paragraph is on a separate topic of support
  • concluding paragraph (includes a restatement of your thesis in different words AND a call to action)

Grade 7 students are welcome to write an opinion piece in response to the above prompts, however they are not expected to use the formal opinion piece structure.

For all students!

Writing Prompt #1

 

Writing Prompt #2

 

Writing Prompt #3

 

Writing Prompt #4

Happy WRITING!  I can’t wait to read your blogs.

Well Aren’t YOU Punny!

Well Aren’t YOU Punny!

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As promised, I’m creating a blogpost that you can comment on with your FAVOURITE PUNS!

What’s a pun, you ask?  Simple.

Puns are a type of figurative language that are
often, but not always, humorous. A pun uses
words that have two or more meanings in order to
create an alternate interpretation. 

For example:

Right!  So you see what I mean?  Positive has a ‘double meaning’ here.  It relates to the positive charge that a battery has and the positive feeling people get. So, it’s funny, right?  Well, sort of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another example:

What kind of cats like to go bowling?

Alley cats.

 

OK, you didn’t like that one?  How about this one, eh?

If you didn’t get this one, maybe you aren’t aware of the fact that the mushroom is a member of the FUNGUS species.  ‘Fungi’ is the singular form of the word ‘fungus.’  So, the mushroom is actually a fungi.  But he’s also inferring that he’s a FUN GUY!  Right?  Get it, get it, huh?

OK, there’s a reason they say that puns are the lowest form of humour.  They’re DAD humour.  They’re Uncle Fred humour!  Maybe we groan, but really, inside, we’re laughing. (Maybe.)

So, here’s your chance to make us all laugh or groan or both!  Put your favourite pun in the comments or make your own blogpost with your favourite puns!

 

P. S. If your pun is in the form of an image, you’ll have to use your own blogpost to share it as you can’t upload an image into a comment box.

Week Three – Writing Prompts

Week Three – Writing Prompts

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I am LOVING your blogposts, ladies and gentlemen!  You are amazing writers, and I applaud every single one of you who has attempted a blogpost in the past two weeks.

I’m doing my best to give you feedback on your blogs.  If I haven’t responded yet, I promise that I will!

Here are our writing prompts for this week.

Remember:

  • You can write whatever you want!  You don’t have to use the prompt.
  • I’m providing lots of choices so that something might inspire you.  You can choose one prompt, or none, or all of them. 
  • If you don’t want to post on the blog, but you’ve written, please send me your writing in an email.
  • Try to add a comment or two on other people’s blogposts!

 

 

 

Writing Prompt #1: You don’t have to choose the celebrities shown.  Choose your own: Nick Jonas? Kevin Hart? Rhianna? Who would you like to speak at our school?  Don’t forget to explain WHY that celebrity would be an excellent choice.


 

Writing Prompt #2: What fashion should be AGAINST THE LAW?  Don’t forget to TELL US WHY!

 

 

 

Writing Prompt #3: This one explains itself!

 

 

Writing Prompt #4: Tell this story!

 

 

I can’t wait to see what you write!

 

The Reveal: What was the real story?

The Reveal: What was the real story?

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Last week, two of our writing prompts were from the news.  I got them from the NY Times Learning Network.  I thought that this week I’d give you a separate post to reveal the stories behind the images.

 

  1. Last week I posted this image from NY Times Learning Network

    UPDATED: FEB. 27, 2020

    This week’s image comes from the Sept. 21, 2010 “Pictures of the Day: The U.N. and Elsewhere” on The New York Times Lens blog. The original caption reads:

    Bangladeshi commuters walked across a floating boat bridge on the Buriganga River in Dhaka. Water hyacinth hampered the movement of boats on the river, so they were tied together to form a temporary bridge.

    Munir Uz Zaman is the photographer.

     

     

  2. And I posted this picture, which was from the NY Times Learning Network too!
    UPDATED: JAN. 9, 2020

    This week’s image comes from the Dec. 17, 2019 article “There Are No Children Here. Just Lots of Life-Size Dolls.” The original caption reads:

    A tourist making funny faces for a picture with the dolls in the community center.

    The article by Motoko Rich, with photographs by Nadia Shira Cohen, begins:

    The last children were born in the remote mountain village of Nagoro 18 years ago.

    Now, just over two dozen adults live in this outpost straddling a river on the Japanese island of Shikoku. The elementary school closed its doors in 2012, shortly after the last two students completed sixth grade.

    But on a recent bright autumn Sunday, Tsukimi Ayano brought the school back to life.

    It just so happened that she did it with dolls rather than humans.

    Ms. Ayano, 70, had arrayed more than 40 handmade dolls in a lifelike tableau on the grounds of the shuttered school. Recreating a school sports day known as “undokai,” a staple of the Japanese calendar, she had posed child-size dolls in a footrace, perched on a swing set and tossing balls.

    “We never see children here anymore,” said Ms. Ayano, who was born in Nagoro, and has staged an annual doll festival for the last seven years.

    Japan’s population is shrinking and aging, and nowhere is the trend felt more intensively than in its rural regions, where a low birthrate is exacerbated by dwindling employment opportunities and an inconvenient lifestyle.

    “There are no chances for young people here,” said Ms. Ayano, who remembers when the village had a medical clinic, a pachinko gambling parlor and a diner. Now, Nagoro does not have even one shop. “They can’t make a living.”

    Some 350 dolls made by Ms. Ayano and her friends outnumber the human residents by more than 10 to 1. All around Nagoro, she has staged the dolls — made of wood and wire frames, stuffed with newspapers and dressed in old clothes donated from across Japan — in various scenes evoking the real people who once populated the village.

Week Two – Writing Prompts

Week Two – Writing Prompts

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Last week, lots of students in our English classes blogged and commented on each other’s blogs!  Yay!  Your writing was so entertaining and wonderful to read.  Thank you to all who blogged!

Writing is a great way to:

  • be creative
  • express our ideas
  • connect to others

 

This week I’m giving you a couple of EXTRA PROMPTS!  Don’t forget, you can blog about anything!  You don’t have to use any of the prompts, and you could use all of them!  You can write one blogpost or many!

If you chose to respond to Prompt #3 last week, I thought you might like to see the NYTimes article that actually went with this image.  Just click on the link below to see the article and the comments from readers who tried to guess like you did!

Prompt #3 – NYT article reveal!

(After clicking on the above link, you’ll need to scroll down quite a bit to see the reveal.)

 

Our prompts for this week!

Prompt #1: Use this photo to inspire a short story OR tell what you think is actually happening in this photo.

 

 

 

Prompt #2: Why ARE memes so popular?  By the way, if you’d like, you are welcome to create your own meme after you explain.

 

Prompt #3:  Turn this prompt into a story!

 

Writing Prompt #4: Tell the story!

 

Writing Prompt #5 – YOU CHOOSE YOUR MONSTERS!  What would they say to each other? 

 

Are there certain kinds of prompts that inspire you more than others?  Do you like the visual prompts?  Do you want some nonfiction prompts like the one last week on “Mentors?”   Let me know in the comments section of this blogpost!  

 

Week One – Writing Prompts!

Week One – Writing Prompts!

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One of the things that I’d like for us all to do during this online school time is WRITE!

Just like reading, the more you write, the better you get at writing!  So, I’m going to provide you with 3 Writing prompts per week, and I would love it if EVERYONE could try to write at least once every week.  Your writing should be a paragraph or more in length.

If you do not feel inspired by the prompts, you are free to write on a topic of your choice, but try to write a little every week.  Even just a journal entry of what you’re reading or how you’re feeling would be great.  If you don’t want to put your writing on the blog, just write and send it to me via email.  If you can’t share your writing at all, just write for yourself.

If you choose one of these prompts, please put the image into your blogpost first and then write your blogpost.

How to put an image into your post:

  • Right click on the image
  • Select “Save Image As”
  • Save your image with a title you’ll remember
  • In your blog, put your cursor where you want the image
  • Click on the “Add Media” button that appears right under your blog title
  • Click on ‘upload file’ and find your file
  • After your image loads, look at the right hand side bar and scroll down
  • You will see the following:   

In the right hand corner, you can decide where the photo will go (left, center, right), how big the photo will be (thumbnail, medium, full size) and then click “Insert into Post.”

Now that you know how, here are the Prompts!

 

Prompt #1 :Write a short story based on this photograph.

 

Writing Prompt #2 

 

Writing Prompt #3 :  You  can  use  this  one  in   two  ways.  See   below!

  1. This is actually a photo taken from a news article in the New York Times.  Can you explain what you think is happening in this photo?  What’s your best guess?  I will post a link to the actual story next week.
  2. Write a fictional short story based on this photo.

 

Oh, and ONE MORE THING . . . I expect you to comment on each other’s writing.  Find 2 other students in your grade and comment on their blogposts.  Say something specific, like “I like the way you used . . . . ” or “You made me feel . . . . ”

I can’t wait to read your writing!

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