Mid Year Reflection

As I have been reading through your blog posts, there are a few trends I'm noticing:

Trends I LOVE:
1.  When students really use their blog as a means to explore their reading and the world in front of them.
2. When students have added their own creative writing element into their writing/blog life.
3. When students have pushed themselves beyond the "three paragraphs/meets standards" blog posts.
4. When students grow as writers because they are actively reading other people's posts.  There is an amazing commenting community happening in 804 and it is impacting their writing in an incredible way.

Trends I DON'T LOVE:
1. When students hang out perpetually in the "three paragraphs/meets standards" land.  If you push yourself as a writer and a thinker, your writing about reading will become a place to explore new ideas as you are growing as a person.  If you don't push yourself, you do not grow.
2. When students forget that, though informal, this is academic writing.  You must use grammar conventions, especially CAPITALIZATION.
3. When students retell too much of their book. Come on, guys. We've discussed this.

Next Steps:

We are taking this week off as WRITERS of blogs to spend some serious time READING blogs.  Your job is to find 3 mentor posts.  You can use any M.S. 51 ELA blog...so look at my classes on the sidebar or visit Ms. Rear and Ms. Galang's classes as well.  All of us have posted "All Star Mentors" or "Noteworthy Blogs" if you need a starting point.  Also, leave a comment for the writer that you are using his/her post as a mentor.  The posts you choose should:

a. inspire you to think more, write more or read more.
b. demonstrate more than the "three paragraphs/meets standards."
c. 2 of the 3 must be about reading.  1 can be about creative writing, if you find one you love.

Please post a link to each mentor and write a paragraph per post about why it deserves to be an all star mentor.

We will be using these posts to study from as we choose a first semester post to revise and publish.  Then, the standards will be raised for the second half of the year.  Let's get excited to grow as writers, ya'll:)