Traditions assignment is due tomorrow. It needs to include a 3 paragraph paper (intro, main body, conclusion...see yesterday's assignment). Then, they must create drawing that depicts the tradition. Students were given 30 minutes in class today to work on it.

Today in most homerooms, students had about 1 hour to work on this assignment. Then, in writing, they had another 20-30 minutes. This is what was assigned:

Start your multi paragraph paper with the 1st paragraph about generally how your family views traditions…do you have many, few, big part of your family, etc.

In your 2nd paragraph discuss, in detail, one of your traditions you picked. Make sure to define what it is and how your family celebrates the tradition. Show the reader an experience you had with this tradition that would help us to understand it…show us the tradition, don’t tell us about it. Also in the 2nd paragraph, make sure to tell the reader what this means to you and if you plan to continue it and why.

Conclude the paper with a 3rd paragraph about how you think you will view family traditions in the future. Gives us examples why you feel the way you do.

The assignment today was to choose a few of their traditions and answer the following questions about them. Students will work on the writing portion of this assignment for over an hour tomorrow. Today they had about 15 minutes in class to get started.

1. When did it originate?

2. Why do you have the tradition/what’s the significance?

3. What it means to you?

4. Will it be a tradition of yours?

Traditions. Today we talked about something that we all have in common, yet often do differently. Students needed to generate 5 different traditions that their family has and briefly state why they have it, when it started, and the significance.

Conclusions were collected and edited today. For the next 2 days, (Thurs. and Fri.) we will be spending at least 30 minutes each day working on our final drafts of our persuasive essays..finally. They will be due, without exception, on Monday, Dec 12th.

For those students that are choosing type their paper (thank you), here are the requirements as discussed in class:

Use standard margins (.75-1 inch). Your word program should already default to these.

Use a normal font such as Times, Geneva, Helvetica, Arial, Century, etc. Basically, ones that you see on a consistent basis in books.

Use a size from 12-18.

Print in black

Only use one side of the paper

Do not use ALL CAPS or bold.

If you want to adjust your spacing, 1.5 is nice.

Conclusion paragraphs are due tomorrow (Wednesday).

They must use one of the following techniques, as discussed in class:

Call to Action: the writer implores the audience to change.

Offer a Solution: the writer suggests some possibilities to resolve the problem posed.

Make a Prediction: similar to a startling statement, this can be a warning or an encouragement.

We will be starting conclusions tomorrow for our 5 paragraph paper. Today we looked at some examples and I shared a funny "Top 5 Best Toys Of All" that can be found here. Enjoy it.