My hope is that we'll use the words enough in class that the test itself won't be too strenuous, and we'll continue to use each chapter's words after each test to help get the words into long term memory. Once we have a test under our belts, we can talk about what strategies people use to learn the words, and I'm committed to figuring out a system that works for each student.
We've been discussing what kind of language helps to create the atmosphere in a story and how a plot unfolds. We've been drawing maps of how the action in a story develops. We also spent some time brainstorming common elements that we've seen in fables, myths, and fairytales (magical objects, people locked in towers, things happening in threes, etc.).
Next week, because of the Lake Champlain trip, I will see the 6th graders for only one English class, but we'll start by each reading and analyzing a fairy tale of our choice. This will lead up to writing our own original fairy tale or re-telling of an existing tale to give us a chance to practice using the literary elements from the writer's point of view.
