Week 10 Recap & Notes

Here's what we covered today in class:

EEL:  We introduced a new part of speech - the adjective!  We've now covered all the parts of speech listed on Chart A!  We did not spend a whole lot of time on adjectives; please have your students work on memorizing Chart L (on the back of your EEL trivium table or in the guide on page 420).  While we didn't go into great detail on the types of adjectives in class, it's important for your student to memorize them because when we move on to Task 6 (the quid et quo) they will need to know the specifics of each adjective.

After studying adjectives, the next logical move was to predicate adjectives.  Have your students keep working on memorizing linking verbs!  As I mentioned before, they will memorize them in the 2nd half of Foundations this year, but it would be to their benefit to begin memorizing the list of linking verbs now.  They can use Chart K (page 418) to help familiarize themselves with the forms of "to be."

Some of the linking verbs can be tricky, because the word can also double as a transitive verb depending on the pattern of the sentence.  Remember our examples today:

The crawfish smell spicy.  (S-Vl-PA)

I smell crawfish.  (S-Vt-DO)

This is why it is so critical for your students to work through the Question/Confirmation on the task sheet.  If they don't know how to do question/confirmation, they will have difficulty parsing & diagramming their sentences.  This is why it is so important for them to know the question/confirmation process!

For additional help with question/confirmation, you can reference the Analyzing the Task Sheet section at the end of week 3 (beginning on page 49).  There are also some helpful tips on the Shurley grammar site.  I linked those sites in the blog post from Week 5: http://essentialsmrsguy.blogspot.com/2012/10/week-5-recap-notes.html

Weekly Lesson: page 164-171
Weekly Sentences:  page 433
Task Sheet:  page 435

For extra help with adjectives, consult these lessons in Our Mother Tongue:
Adjectives:  Lesson 3, page 24
Subject Modified by an Adjective:  Lesson 13, page 62
Subject Modified by a Possessive Noun: Lesson 14, page 65
Subject Modified by Adjective Phrase: Lesson 16, page 68
Subject Modified by Adjective Clause: Lesson 17, page 71
Predicate with Predicate Adjective: Lesson 24, page 91
Adjectives & Adverbs, Comparative & Superlative: Lesson 48, 172

IEW:  We discussed topic & clincher sentences for our papers as a whole today.  This week we are combining the paragraphs we've written the last 2 weeks - the pyramids, the Sphinx, & the mummies - and combining them into one paper about ancient Egypt.  The assignment is Lesson 8; all that is required of you is to combine your three paragraphs into one paper and write a topic sentence & clincher sentence of the paper.  You can see examples of the topic/clincher on page 45 of the Student Book.

We also introduced another dress up: the who/which clause.  We practiced adding who/which clauses to our sentences to make them more interesting.  Add this dress up to your writing toolbox, and begin including it in your writing.  For more help with who/which clauses (also known as adjectival clauses), you can refer to this week's lesson in EEL or to Lesson 17 in Our Mother Tongue.

Can you believe we only have two weeks of class left?  We will meet next week and then have a break for Thanksgiving, then wrap up with Week 12 on November 27.  Hard to believe this year is almost over!  Be looking for an email from me with the tally sheet for the work your student has completed this semester.  When we return from Thanksgiving break, we will have our auction based on what all your students have completed so far!  They have done excellent work and deserve to be rewarded for their hard work!  (Parents, you do, too!)

Please email me with any questions!  I'll see you next Tuesday!