Week 1-- Day 2

I hope all of you are enjoying this gorgeous weather we are having! I just got back to my office after running a couple of errands.

To recap today's class...

Today's grammar lesson was a little longer than it usually is. I felt it was a good lesson-- lots of thoughtful questions. It seemed to me that you are understanding the basic rules-- "Noun clauses act like nouns (subjects or objects) in a sentence. They always need a subject + verb (in this order). " We will continue to work on noun clauses with question words tomorrow morning. I hope you find it to be a review for you as we talk about the rules once again.

I introduced Conversation Journals quickly this morning. (We will do an entry later this week.) We did the 4-minute quick write in order to 1) find out what interests you about the environment and environmental issues 2) give you an opportunity to write (with time pressure). I noticed that the groups were engaged and brought up a lot of good points. The main issues we came up with are: pollution , save energy, chemicals in food, garbage/recycling, not wasting resources, how to protect the environment, wind/water/solar power (clean energy), water (save, pollution, drinking water quality,waste water), effects of global warming, climate change, keeping green, keeping our forests rich.

To further introduce the topic of the environment, I used the "U.S. Global Warming Emissions" pie chart. To help you think about the topic more, I had you guess where the categories belong. To have you analyze the amounts, I asked you to guess the percentages for each (instead of giving you the answers first.) Tomorrow, I will dictate questions (on the pie chart) for you to write. After correcting the spelling, we will answer the questions to check your understanding of the chart.

I look forward to tomorrow's class! Have a good night!