OK, the tag line is a little hokey. For those too young to remember, it is a throw back to the greatest years of the Tonight Show when Ed McMahon would announce the entrance of Johnny Carson. And why am I harking back to the bygone days of really great television? Well…..
Tomorrow (Friday), I will be teaching live on Livestream.com each class period for about 15 minutes. We are trying an experiment that I hope works as well in reality as it has in my head.
One of our teachers has to be gone tomorrow and we are in the middle of crunch time with our 8th graders getting ready for the TCAP Writing Assessment coming up February 2nd. We can’t lose a single day. As a result, while I am teaching my class I will also be teaching her class each period. We will do a 15 minute mini lesson on a writing skill, and then the students will edit their already-written essays using that one skill.
Tomorrow we will discuss the concept of sentence trains. Sentences are like freight trains. They can carry a lot of weight. They can be much longer than a few words and more complex than simple. We will talk about ways to add “freight” to their sentences and then have them go in and edit much of their essay by adding adjectives, adverbs, better verbs, specific nouns, and more.
If you want to join me during the day, you can pick up the broadcast online at this link.
I will be online (approximately) at 9:50, 10:45, 1:05, 2:00, and 2:55 (all times EST). Each lesson will be about 15 minutes, and each time I will be going over the same lesson, so if you drop in, you just have to drop in once.
This is an experiment, and tomorrow I’ll post a little something about how it went. If you join me tomorrow, be sure and check back to this blog to add a comment about what you liked and what you didn’t, what can be improved, and what needs to stay.
Add A Comment