Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Writing an Orientation

Today we are focused on Writing an Orientation – the orientation is always at the beginning of a narrative and tells us about the setting and characters. An orientation hooks the reader while letting the audience know about setting and main characters. Usually answers who? when? where? eg. Mr Wolf went out hunting in the forest one dark gloomy night.

Success criteria –

- Describe the setting

- Describe the Main Characters

- Similie/metaphor

- Consider First/third person

- use Adjectives to help our description


Annotate our Writing Samples

Today we are going to Annotate the sample using rubrics. Annotate means to find specific features in our text/writing and to highlight it and write out to the side 'what the work shows'.

Today we will be looking for the following:

Rubrics is here

Through annotating our work we can become better writers!!!


Narrative Writing Sample

We have been exploring narratives for the past 5 weeks. Today we have had a quick look at what we have learnt so far. Our Learning Logs or blogs now have these samples:

1. Brainstorm on 'What we have learnt so far about narratives…..'
2. Writing sample which we have annotated.

Writing Sample Scenario
People and things are not always what they seem to be. Sometimes there is a sense of mystery behind people and their lives. Write an imaginative story about a family who are not quite what they seem, and how their secret is discovered. Don't be limited by your own experiences. Write the story so that young people in secondary school will enjoy reading it.

Hints

Plan your story before you write.

Include an interesting title for your story.

Write a beginning which attracts attention and an ending which is satisfying for the reader.

Use an interesting and logical structure in which story elements are introduced and developed.

Use descriptive words and images so the reader can imagine the characters and places in your story.

Make use of the time at the end of the task to edit your writing, paying attention to grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Maths Week Success

Last week we had Maths week and it was really challenging. The whole school ran a competition to see who could get highest points on the Mathsweek website. Room 5 took all the PRIZES!!!!

1st Place - Storm Tupuailei
2nd Place - Pavithra Reddy
3rd Place - Cheyanne Henry

We were so proud of our classes efforts!!! Go Room 5!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Waimaths Success for SAMS

Last night we had a number of students participate in the regional Waimaths competition. Our Year 7 Team came 3rd and we won 1st, 3rd and 4th Place in the poster competitions. Our Year 8 team performed well on the night but did not place.



Year 7 Team
Joyce Guo
Nathan Cleaver
Horim Choi

Year 8 Team
Panpan Seehamart
Abigail Wallace
Dylan Roberts

1st Place for the Waimaths Poster
Horim Choi


3rd Place for the Waimaths Poster
Susan Rangi

4th Place for the Waimaths Poster
Darshni Moodley

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Design Features

We have been looking at design features so that we can make our narratives more interesting to read. We need to consider these when we make our own picture books.








Poetic Devices

We have been looking at poetic devices in class so that we can make our narratives better and more interesting to read.