Now Open

Article posted October 22, 2008 at 10:36 PM GMT • Reads 291

Today we finally achieved it! Our class list has appeared on screen and the student online names are active. Next we will be setting up the student pages. Many of the students have been looking forward to getting started with their blogs. Now we can begin.

Leading to America

Article posted November 12, 2008 at 08:05 PM GMT • Reads 42

This week we are digging into the question of leads: what does an author do to make a story more exciting, to make the reader want to continue to read?



Our Social Studies unit moves us closer to the founding of the first English settlements in North America. I feature John White's map of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay as our classroom image. White was an artist and a leader of the Roanoke Colony. His drawings and journals provide scholars with first-hand information about what life in Virginia was like in the early seventeenth century.



Students should be sure to read class assignments and keep up with the requirements as listed.

Cozicat's Potato:

Article posted November 19, 2008 at 08:45 PM GMT • Reads 1071

One of my favorite leads is in The Road To Paris By Nikki Grimes, who in the latest TFK wrote Son Of Promise ,Child Of Hope which is about Barack Obama. In the Prologue of this book is:



“Ask Paris if a phone call can be deadly.”



That is kind of like a suspense lead.



The lead in the first chapter is:



“ The trouble with running away is you know what you’re leaving behind, but not what’s waiting up ahead.”



I thought that was a kind of suspense lead, and sort-of a picture lead. Those leads really interested me because I could really tell this book would me good, and not to mention sad. I am excited to read further into the book.



I have not read a book about this author, but the lead told me all about her. She is an awesome author with a whole lot of great ideas. If the author of any book writes a great lead, then the reader will want to read more, and that is what Nikki Grimes does. I hope she writes more books like this, and I hope she makes The Road To Paris a series.