Final Week's work on writing for Term 3

WALT:  write a piece persuasive text.

This week you are going to respond to an article in the media. Before you write your post, you need implement the 3-2-1 Fun reading strategy. Then you need to write a piece which either agrees or disagrees with the article.

Your post needs to have:

Introduction - a hook into your story. Appeal to the audience's emotions or put them in that situation.
3 main points - each point should have a separate paragraph.
Conclusion  - why you think you the way you do and link back to your introduction.

You also need to provide a link to the article that you are responding to in your post somewhere.

Nikki, Helen, Lachlan and Nikita really nailed last week's structure so if you are unsure go and take a look at their work for examples of what you need to be looking for.

Here are some things you might want to write about:

There were a lot articles about education this weekend due to National Standards data being released.

A newspaper article claims that texting and slang are effecting students ability to write.

Titahi Bay Intermediate just down the road from us claims national standards could cause children to give up on school.

Other things you might want to write about.

Should junk mail be banned?
Do you think the All Blacks can continue their winning streak?

Remember you need to base your argument around the idea of sustainability - the ability to keep something going.

Being nice

Why do you think someone organized this? 
What might they have been hoping to achieve?
Do you think they really have to tell people to “say something nice”? Why?
What effect would a strategy like this have at TIS?
How have you been nice to people this week?

Fonterra Science Roadshow

Room 15 joined Pouakai syndicate today for the Fonterra Science Roadshow.  We learned a lot about the difference between physical and chemical changes as well as bases and acids.

Shavee is having a peak in one of the microscopes. I wonder what he can see.

What was your favourite exhibit?

Do you remember what the difference is between a physical and chemical change?

What's in Room 15's lunchboxes?

What's in (or not in) kids' lunchboxes is the cause of a lot of debate in our country at the moment. Some of our reading groups have been looking at how food in schools relates to our topic of sustainability.

One of our reading groups watched a Campbell Live story where a journalist compared lunchboxes at a poor and rich schools. We were shocked to see that so many New Zealand children don't eat lunch. During the reading group, Brad suggested that we do the lunch box experiment in our class.

Just before lunch Room 15 students got out their lunchboxes and put ticks or crosses next to our lunches to show if the students had eaten breakfast.

 

We had a few students away at the music festival so there were only 22 students here today. 

Our survey results

According to Wikipedia our school is a Decile 8 which means our school is located in a relatively wealthy community. However not everyone in our class had eaten breakfast and some students had already eaten all their lunch.

What does school lunch look like for the students in your class?

Work on writing starting 17/09

Hi Room 15

Our WALT for this week's work on writing is persuade others.

Learning how to write persuasively is an important skill and not just for

Introduction - this is the place where you hook people into your argument.

3 main points - Three key arguments as to why you are are right. You should talk about the other side and talk about why they are wrong.

Conclusion - Link back to your introduction.

Brad wrote a fantastic piece on facebook earlier this year which follows this basic template. You can read his post here.

Your post needs to be at least 3 paragraphs and no more than 800 words and is due in by THURSDAY.

Your topic should be related to sustainability and you need to take a stance on an issue.

Stuck for a topic? Here are some ideas:

Food in schools. Last week, food in schools was very topical. Should the government provide money for food in schools? (sustaining our bodies).

Should Te Reo be compulsory for students to learn? (sustaining our culture)

Rubbish - should our school ban wrappers and gladwrap from lunchboxes? (sustaining our environment)

How much rubbish is there @ TIS?

Room 15 began our unit on stats by conducting a statistical investigation into the amount of rubbish in our school.

Introduction

With over 500 students bringing their lunch to school, that's a lot of wrappers, bottles and food waste coming into our school. Most students put their rubbish in the bins but there is still a bit of rubbish around the school. But how much litter is there at TIS? Room 15 set out to find out the location and types of rubbish found. 

Data Collection

From Tuesday to Thursday last week our class measured up 2m squares at seven separate locations around the school. We used squares so that we could compare the amounts of rubbish in different areas in the school. The class then counted the amount of and different types of rubbish in the school twice a day, once before morning tea and then again after morning tea.

Location of Rubbish

According to our results, the quad and the PE shed are areas where there is a lot of litter with the PE shed having an average of 16 pieces of Rubbish in the square and the Quad having 14 pieces of the Rubbish. The PE shed square included a rubbish bin which indicates that students are not putting their rubbish in the bin properly! 

The place with the least amount of Rubbish was out the front of Room 15 with an average of only 3 pieces of rubbish found over the three days. There also wasn't very much rubbish found behind Room 15 which is out of bounds to students at lunch time.

Different Types of Rubbish

Wrappers and gladwrap was the most common types of rubbish found in our survey.  37% of the total amount of rubbish that Room 15 counted was made up of wrappers while gladwrap made up 17%. Foodwaste only made up 10% of the rubbish that we found.

Conclusion

We found a large amount of rubbish in our school with more rubbish found after morning tea than before. The small amount found behind Room 15 shows that most of the rubbish found in our school is from TIS students rather than the wind blowing it down from the College.

The quad and PE shed are areas where more bins could be placed. We also think that TIS students need to make sure that they are putting their rubbish in the bin. A campaign could be used to reduce the amount of wrappers that students bring to school. The school could also investigate the use of a worm form to reduce the amount of food waste.

In conclusion, there are different ways that we can keep our school free from rubbish.

What is success?

What successes have you had this week?

What do you think makes a successful student? How are they successful?

Can you even measure success?

This week's work on writing - Punctuating dialogue

Hi Room 15
This week we are still working on punctuating dialogue. We are going to try another Tail Trail. You need to choose a buddy that you have yet to work with this term to be your tail trail buddy. Please write your names up on the board.

Please remember:
1. "Use speech marks to show your reader where the characters starts and stops talking,"
remarked Stephanie.
2. "Also don't forget to add a comma, question mark, exclaimation mark or full stop before you close the speech!" reminded Stephanie.
3. "Finally don't forget," said the teacher.
"Start each character on a new line! grumbled the students.

Bar Camp

Another fantastic Bar camp from Room 15 last week.

I think you are right, Friday is a better time for bar camp. It's a shame we can't use the courts due to other class's PE sessions.



Here's a planning doc for this week's Bar Camp. I will be in Auckland on Friday so the class needs to be super-organized if you want to make the camp successful.



Someone also needs to take responsibility for being the Bar Camp recorder. Leave a comment below if you think you might a person who can help.

Tenacity - how have you show this quality lately?

A few weeks ago I went with one of my friends to see the movie First Position. I'm not a big fan of ballet but the film was more about the journeys of  half a dozen dancers aged 11-17. The film followed the dancers' preparation for a major competition.

We often think of dancers, especially ballet dancers as being gifted. But is that something you are born with or do you think it is something you work at?

One of the qualities of a great dancer that is mentioned in the film is tenacity, the ability to keep trying even though a task might be difficult.

How have you show tenacity in your learning lately?

This week's work on writing - Punctuating dialogue

Your task for the week is to write a dialogue.

As we discussed in class, you can choose what form your dialogue takes.

You could have people insult each other or perhaps decelerations of love. The important things are that they are fictional (i.e made up characters) and should swear.

I've written an example below the photo.

"Who you calling stripy?" growled Tigger.

"You foul-mouthed miscreant!" snarled Horangi.

"I'll eat you and your mother too," sniggered Tigger, "lets get ready to rumble."

"I pity the fool who tries to take on me," scoffed Horangi, "you're going down."

The speech marks show where a person starts and stops talking. Each new character starts on a new line.