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Writing Assignment Samples |
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| 1. Summer
Vacation Paragraph
Eye Catching Title: Attention grabbing topic sentence: Supporting sentences which explain, illustrate, develop, give examples, add detail, use anecdotes (short illustrative stories) to make a point and prove that the topic theme is true: Concluding sentence that closes the discussion or reflects or responds and refers back to the topic sentence without repeating it word for word. |
I Don't Like Summer Holidays! I don't like Summer Vacations at all, and that's final! During Summer Vacation you get to stay up late, sleep in as long as you want, have long leisurely breakfasts watching TV morning shows, go back for long languid snoozes and then sit around for a few hours trying to figure out what to do on this free day. No guilt trips if you end up just watching television programs all day and chatting on e-mail and web surfing all day or just sitting on a hammock in the backyard sipping lemonade and watching bees go by, because you have an infinity of days left to repeat the process over and over again. Etc. So now I'm sure you can see for yourself why I just detest summer vacation time - all that free time on one's hands is bound to drive a person crazy, but perhaps one should take the risk. |
| 2.
9\11 Poem or Prayer or Reflection
- alliteration,
parallelism and rhyme used:
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We pause and pray this solemn
day
We wonder why, we sob and cry We look to God and plead and pray This will never happen again someday... |
3.
Percussion Poem
- 12 lines using ti-ti ta pattern
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No more sleeping in, that's now
gone
Nose in the books, from dusk to dawn That's all right, that's okay Try to find fun on this day Make a new friend, play a new game Find a wild horse for you to tame It's not hard, to survive Just keep busy and learn to jive Saying, we must, we must, make it through, make it through, To the, to the, end of school, end of school. |
| 4. Playing with poetic
sound devices: anaphora, euphony, cacophony, alliteration,
consonance, parallelism, anaphora, epistrophe, assonance and rhyme:
Create a poetic commercial jingle for a favorite store, business or product. Make it memorable by using the above poetic devices: @Poetry |
Big Mac,
filet-o-fish, quarter pounder, french fries, ice-coke, thick shakes,
sundaes and apple pies, we do it all for you Burger King
We want it, juicy sizzling, frosty, fizzling, crisp and crunchy, hot and munchy, We want it, beefy meat, tasty treaty nibble nunchy, heap and lotsy, foamy, family, so delicious. A and W |
| 5.
Develop the concept of adding detail when you write paragraphs by
focusing on one event that you may have enjoyed this summer or year and
by helping us to relive that event by giving us more visual imagery,
giving us more details [names, numbers, places, events, 5Ws, etc]
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and the wonderful @Broadway Musical based on the same story, watching the hero Jean Valjean fleeing through the sewers of Paris, I've had a morbid fascination with the subject and wanted to experience them first hand. So here I was this summer, walking the streets of Paris and I happen to come upon a sign above a set of concrete steps descending under the street level and a ticket booth conveniently placed nearby. The price was only 5 Euros each [$7.00 Canadian] and so I bought my ticket and headed into the sewers. The stench gave my nostrils a good slap and I should've turned around immediately. A group of 10 summer employed university students (looking a little green around the gills I might add) greeted the crowds and organized them into tour groups. I kept thinking of leaving and getting my money back right away but the "sewer rat" diorama an a guides enlightening and entertaining (but morbid) comments about these creatures drew me to the point of no return on the tour...the stench wasn't going away and I didn't want to be a coward and flee, though I suspected quite of a few of my English tour group members looked wistfully at every exit sign we passed.... |
| 6. Use your skills with poetic devices - repetition, parallelism, alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhyme, and anaphora to create a cheer leading routine or school yard clapping or game chant...like the ones that come spontaneously when you're watching a class sports event. (12 to 16 lines) Using a percussion sequence would be helpful. | We've
got a team, We're gotta yell
You can leave town, We won't tell We're gonna win ev-er-y game Go ahead and try, it's just the same We never quit, We never tire We just keep coming, We're not for hire Winning's our game, Losing's unheard Watch and see, Losing's unheard |
| 7. Write a Show and Tell speech about something special that you will bring to school. You must deliver the 250 word speech to a sequenced musical pattern (4 beat) that we will play for background music. | |
| 8. Add details and clarity to this paragraph: The paragraph was donated by a Grade 5 student. The writer here decided that all the items in the Summer paragraph were too numerous to add details to, so selected something that appealed [ghost stories] and gave a good example of adding the 5Ws and H to bring life and vision to a paragraph. I remember so well one student who, describing a summer vacation trip horseback riding, wrote the following: "My horse was quite stubborn!" without giving us any explanation of how the horse showed or demonstrated that it was actually stubborn. | |
| 9.
Write a Thanksgiving Prayer. Pattern it after the "Lord's
Prayer", i.e. Start with all your thank yous, (Hallowed be Your
Name) then finish with the "gimmes", i.e. - (Give us
this day our daily bread) asking God to give you the help you need to
deal with your problems and to help you be the best person you can
be.
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Dear
God, thank you for your many blessings, for giving us life and breath,
for giving us this wonderful and prosperous country of Canada to live in
and enjoy. Thank you for the many opportunities we have in Canada
to develop and grow and be prosperous. Thank you for the freedoms
we enjoy in this country and thank you for the wonderful potential we
all have for the future that you have described in scriptures. Do now help us to be more thankful, to keep and preserve this Earth you have placed in our care, to work successfully to achieve harmony and peace on this Earth and to make ourselves more pure in your sight that we may inherit eternal life and live as your children forever. |
| 10. A timecapsule diary entry...(not assigned yet) | |
| 11.
My Halloween Costume
What it will be and why I'm qualified to be a host for other classes visiting our Classroom Haunted House.  |
This Halloween I
will be dressed in the most unique costume I've ever worn because this
year I'm truly "Halloween Informed"! My own Internet research
has revealed to me that the festival of Halloween has very ancient roots
and I'm going to dress accordingly.
Every year after the full moon of October we commemorate and ancient New Year Celtic festival which marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. So I plan to dress in a fortune teller's costume and tell fortunes as different visitors come to my desk!" |
| 12. My
best/worst moment...journal entry. The idea
comes from the Billy Crystal movie - City Slickers. Billy and his two friends are chatting casually on horseback about their best/worst moments. The idea makes a great personal journal entry. 
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The best
moment in my life had to be when I fully realized
that the baby girl lying quietly and breathing softly in my daughter's arms was actually my grand daughter...that my life had come full circle and I was to enjoy what I had only dreamed about as a young man. It's all right and kind of expected to expect that you'll be a grand parent some day but when it actually happens and you're immersed in the moment, you're actually quite overwhelmed by it all. Not only did you survive long enough to become a grand parent but you also are blessed that the miracle so many take for granted has indeed granted you a living breathing progeny... |
| 13. Our
ski trip...journal entry. The idea
comes from our December Ski Trip! We took time to talk again about the value of good topic sentences and the need to make the writing more interesting by adding details. We also talked about reiterating the topic sentence in the concluding sentence of the paragraph. 
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A day off to
go skiing - it doesn't get any better! On
a mild December morning 190 St. Richard Elementary School students gleefully and noisily boarded 5 Yellow School buses, all excited to be heading off to Snow Valley Ski Hill for lessons, free ski time, a hot lunch in the new cafeteria and just to have a change in the school routine! With visions of "sugar plum pudding" and Xmas holidays next week we sat and chattered noisily on the bouncing Yellow Buses for the short jaunt to the local hill. Our ski lessons were short and to the point.... MORE MORE MORE - CONCLUDING SENTENCE: As we all arrived safely back at school we all knew deep down that skiing is THE reason to live in Alberta and that life can be good - very good - just count your blessing and wait for the next ski trip! |
