Fall Farm Weeks

English Work for Farm Weeks—Fall 2010

During the fifth floor farm weeks, you will work on several long-term English assignments. This work includes homework for the next few weeks as well as class work both for school and farm. While the amount of work is certainly manageable, it is important that you spread this work out over the two weeks! Please email me if you have any questions at tgrattan@manhattancountryschool.org.

Triplets

• Read the following stories from your Stories of Modern-Day Immigration Packet: “Caroline’s Wedding,” “Epilogue: Women Like Us” & “First Crossing” – Due Monday, 10/4
• Answer blog posts for both “Caroline’s Wedding” and “Epilogue: Women Like Us” – Due Monday, 10/4
• Write a piece, no shorter than a page in length, focusing on the connections between two of the stories we’ve read.
• Choose two of the stories— “Double Face,” “Caroline’s Wedding,” “Women Like Us” or “First Crossing”—that in your opinion have a significant similarity or connection. The similarity can be in tone, theme, symbol or experience. Find examples from each story to support your thinking. Use at least two direct quotes. Your piece should include an introduction that highlights the similarity you’ve chosen to focus on, two body paragraphs providing evidence of the similarity and a brief conclusion. While I am asking you to provide an intro and a conclusion, the heart of this assignment is to show your thinking about how two of the stories connect as well as how you provide evidence to support your thinking. For tips on how to incorporate quotes in MLA format, please go to the following link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/

7^th Grade Writing

Writing

Your writing work needs to take place at the farm, so be sure to bring your three-subject notebook to the farm with you!

q Take two walks at the farm with your notebook and something to write with. It would be great for you to take these walks at different times of day. It’s amazing how much the farm changes from first thing in the morning to twilight. Find a place at the farm that interests you, a place full of details that stand out.

q During each walk, write a 1-2 page freewrite in your notebook. This is not something that needs to be polished. Focus on finding as many details as you can. Write about the larger, immediate details you observe, but focus on the smaller ones too. The more details you can cull the better. Be sure to move beyond the visual. What sounds and smells make this place unique? What does it feel like to sit where you are sitting?

q After you’ve completed both of the freewrites, look back at what you’ve written. What images seem the strongest? What details from the natural world might serve as a symbol for something else?

q Next, write the first drafts a two poems inspired by the poetry of Robert Frost. The first will be an homage to his poem “October.” Since you will be at the farm primarily in September, however, it should be about September. What are the main symbols in the “October” poem? What does October represent? How can you write your own poem using September to symbolize an idea or emotion?

q The second poem should also incorporate symbolism from the natural world, yet it also needs to follow the same rhyme scheme and meter as Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” The actual rhymes don’t need to be the same, but the structure should be. Remember that the rhyme scheme of that poem was AABBCCDD and that each line except for the eighth and last had the same number of syllables. So for this poem, the subject, tone and theme are up to you, but you’re following Frost’s structure.

q Bring both poems to class on Wednesday, 10/6.

Vocabulary

• Complete the Wordly Wise Lesson 2 exercises, Due Monday, 10/4

8^th Grade Writing

Writing

• While you are at the farm, complete a two-page brainstorm in the writing section of your notebook. Your brainstorm should focus on a certain activity at the farm that has special meaning to you, something you’ve done several times and have a lot of memories about. Think about the Julia Alvarez poem “Ironing Their Clothes” that we read last year. Ironing was more than ironing to the narrator, just as the activity you will write about (milking a cow, baking bread, hiking up Thyme Hill, etc) should hold a special significance to you. The first page of your brainstorm should focus on a description of the activity in as much sensory detail as possible. This is a brainstorm, so the more details you can squeeze out, the better. The second half of your brainstorm should focus more on why this activity is significant to you. What lessons have you learned from that activity? What part of your personality does it bring out in you? What memories stay with you related to it? How might your experiences as a NYC resident who has spent several weeks a year at a farm influence who you’ll be in the future? How has it changed you already?
• Revise your “This I Believe” Essay

Vocabulary

• Complete the Greek and Latin Roots Sheets by Wednesday, 10/6. There will be a quiz on Greek and Latin Roots on Wednesday, 10/13
• Wordly Wise Lesson 2 exercises, Due Monday, 10/4