Colon rules

The colon is, as one of my graduate school professors once said, a "classy piece of punctuation." When you use a colon correctly, you show you have some writing style. Here's a link to Grammar Girl's advice about using colons. Please read it and be ready for a quick quiz. Also make colon corrections to your Significant Event papers before finishing your document design.

Significant Event Paper Document Design

Thanks to Mrs. Robertson, we are lucky at PGHS to have access to a desktop publishing site called "Heritage Makers." On Heritage Makers, you can use type, titles, headings, captions, color, graphics, images, photos, space, layout, and text to create a "book" about your Significant Event. The Significant Event Paper Grading Rubric has the criteria I'll use to grade this assignment. Here's the schedule for this assignment.

11 Dec--Writing Lab
14 Dec--Writing Lab
16 Dec--Writing Lab
18 Dec--Present "book" to class on my laptop and projector (Tiffany, Melissa, Kathie, Becca, and Trevor).
22 Dec--Present "book" to class on my laptop and projector (Brittany, James, Nate, Katie, and Kyleigh).

During your presentation, rather than retell your story you should explain to the class what document design features (from the list above and the rubric) you used to enhance your story and why you made the choices you did.

Since this will be a celebration of your story and "book," and since these presentations precede the holiday, feel free to bring treats on the 18th and 22nd!

Jeannette Wall's new book

Here's Jeannette Wall's new book based on the story of her grandmother--her mother's mother. If you'd like to read a review, here's a link to the New York Times.

Class Dec 3 & 4

BELLWORK: We each chose a quote from the back bulletin board and commented on it.

PEER REVIEWS: We peer reviewed James' and Nate's papers.

SIGNIFICANT EVENT PAPERS: Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful compliments and suggestions during peer reviews. It's not easy to have everyone read your writing; it's embarrassing at first, but each of you helped the writers see their strengths and made constructive suggestive for revision. These papers are due Dec. 8. Please turn in your revised copy on top of all the peer reviews you received so I can review them.