Friday, June 12, 2020

‘Tis the

Now that we are in the holiday season and are rapidly approaching the mid-point in our school year, it’s a great time to throw a party—an IEW party, that is! Over in our co-op forums, there has been a lot of sharing of ideas about how to include fun and games in co-op classes. Have fun reading through these suggestions. Who knows? Maybe you will find a game or two that will work well in your home or class!    Members of the forum offered the following suggestions: I have a group activity in my middle school class. Grouping the students into three or four students together, I list nine styles on the board starting with the #4 ing and ending with 3sss. I have students randomly choose from three colored notecards with a character, emotion, and setting on the backside. The challenge is to write a story in nine sentences with each sentence using the styles in order as listed. Moms are the scribes for this, but not with their own child’s group. Thus, the moms can experience other kids’ creativity. This year we had a llama who was irritated in a mall, a vet who was astonished in the ocean, etc.   I’ve done more than nine styles but found that in eighty minutes some groups couldn’t finish in time. Some sentences call for two styles, like the quality adjective and strong verb.    Here is another clever idea that really gets your students utilizing their vocabulary and sentence openers! Another activity we do this time of year is to write an ABC paper after all opener styles are learned and they have done three narrative story sequence assignments. They must write a story in twenty-six sentences, and each sentence must begin with the next letter of the alphabet. I start by letting them read such a story and telling them the writing is extraordinary and to read it and raise their hand to whisper to me what is extraordinary about it when they discover it. After a while I give a clue that there are twenty-six sentences in the story. A second clue is to read the first word of the first sentence and first word of the last sentence. As more and more kids discover the story’s secret, I start hearing, â€Å"How did she do that!?†   They never think they can write one.   Analyzing how it was done (with openers), they then take out their notebooks and look at the alphabetized lists and see that they could even use a #2 prepositional opener for the U.   I h ave also copied for their notebooks,   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Banish Boring Words† from Scholastic (with permission for copying for classroom use), so they have lots more alphabetized lists to use. Another perfect resource to use for this game would be IEW’s thematic thesaurus, A Word Write Now. Finding that they are able to use so many openers successfully, they are so happy! This year I’ve told them the ABC story will be a holiday gift for a relative. I’ll correct them with time to return for them to do the â€Å"publisher’s copy† and make cardstock covers.   They are excited to see if Grandma will notice the ABC order of the sentences.    This is a fun idea that involves Unit 3, Retelling Narrative Stories: I typically have a half party/half class on the last class day before the Christmas break. We discuss their journal assignments and Fix It! pages. Everyone brings a snack to share—kept outside the classroom—and we take a break to get the snacks and bring them back to the classroom. Then we do games or retell a story. They especially love the "Are You Contented" game from Bible Heroes. Sometimes I'll play Hangman. Also popular are retellings of fairy tales with a Christmas theme. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "The Three Little Pigs" lend themselves easily to rewrites involving Santa, reindeer, and elves. Star Wars characters and settings are also popular. I let them have free reign of their imaginations in this class project. (I have outlines of the stories pre-printed. They change the characters and setting, but keep the theme.) I save their versions and publish them in my year-end publication.    Larger co-ops may find this idea submitted by a forum member intriguing: In past years when I have had larger classes, I have always held twice-yearly auctions with the children using their tickets earned from writing to purchase items brought in by the parents. This has been a huge hit! We also always have food—pizza or ice cream. This year with a smaller class, I am not doing the tickets or auctions, but we will have pizza along with our lesson, and I hope to play a Jeopardy-style game with the elements of IEW along with their vocab words.    Another idea for an exuberant class is to play Dress-Up Beanbag Toss. You need space in order to play this game, but young students especially enjoy being able to stand and get out some squirmies. For this game, you need a soft beanbag or stuffed sock that has been tied off. Keep it safe! Write a noun on the board so all can see it and announce that you will be adding a quality adjective dress-up. For example, you may put up the word gift. The students then begin to toss the beanbag to each other and as they do, they call out a quality adjective. Tiny! Mysterious! Soft! When that word is exhausted, choose an action word like skiing and repeat the process with -ly words. Swiftly! Clumsily! Tiredly! These are a few ideas to whet your whistle. We would love to have more ideas to share with everyone. Let us know in the comments if you have any other games ideas to share. Let’s make this end of the year a fun one!

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Good Argumentative Essay Topics

Good Argumentative Essay TopicsGood arguments require good essay topics. Essay topics should have interesting and engaging elements to them to be persuasive and to give a good impression of the essay as a well-written work. For many students, an essay can be overwhelming due to the many choices. Fortunately, there are some good essay topics that can make a very impressive and well-written argument.The most important aspect to consider when choosing good argumentative essay topics is how to make the topic exciting. It's easy to become stuck with a topic because it has been done so many times. Or perhaps you just haven't had a lot of time to think of something original. Keep in mind that to be a good topic you should not have to read a lot of material to keep yourself interested. In other words, don't make your topic so well-known that you're bored reading it.Arguments should be designed to appeal to people emotionally, and should be able to tap into the emotions of the reader. This ty pe of appeal can be found in topics that involve subjects like holidays, nature, or hobbies.These types of topics have been used for many years and allow you to explore topics that appeal to the intellect while still drawing in the emotional side of people. For example, by highlighting the beauty of nature you can create a much more appealing argument than a topic that suggests people should become environmentalists for the sake of the environment. When choosing an essay topic that reflects a person's interests, make sure you are using material that you would enjoy.Some good fun topics are recipes, TV shows, and the internet. These topics don't necessarily have to be new, but can have some old information that is new to people. You can use these as a base and add in your own thoughts. They can also appeal to people in the same way that food or other subjects do. Cooking is one of the oldest forms of entertainment and can often be used as a basis for an argument.Use humor in your ess ays if you want to attract readers; this will help build up your person's opinions. For example, have a different perspective on a difficult subject and appeal to people who like to see their opinions challenged. Some good examples of topics that can be used to make an interesting argument are celebrity gossip, favorite TV shows, and bad movies. Other good essay topics include science, politics, history, economics, and anything that touches on emotions.There are many websites that have an extensive list of argumentative essay topics. Try looking for topics that can have a good impact on people. While these may not be the most challenging topics to write about, they do appeal to many people and are enjoyable to read. One word of advice, however, when choosing an essay topic, don't be too specific. Don't choose the entire Bible, if the average reader doesn't know the Old Testament.Good argumentative essay topics should be designed to appeal to everyone who reads it. Make sure you are writing from a place of passion and interest. If you choose a topic that has not been written about before, make sure you add your own thoughts in and present it as an argument for the argument you are trying to make.