Topic Sentences
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Tuesday, February 12th , 2013
SPONGE
Remember, you
have homework due
today!
Grammar for
Writing Workbook:
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“Subject-Verb
Agreement” Page
163 Exercise B
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You WILL need your
Source Books today.
EQ: Why is it important to stay on topic?
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Standards:
ELACC8L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of
standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
ELACC8L6: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate
general academic and domain-specific words and phrases;
gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or
phrase important to comprehension or expression.
ELACC8W10: Write routinely over extended time frames (time
for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a
single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific
tasks, purposes, and audiences.
ELACC8RI2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text, including how it
emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide
an objective summary of the text.
Activator
Two pre-selected students will
act out a short skit where one of
the students gets off topic
frequently. When the skit is
over, the whole class will
discuss the skit (or answer
questions about the skit
depending on the needs of the
class period).
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Subject-Verb Agreement
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The students will be provided with examples of a variety of
writings. They will first underline what they think is the
topic sentence.
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The students will then participate in a mini-lesson on topic
sentences and how to identify them.
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The students will then go back to these examples of writing
and highlight the topic sentences (whether they had chosen
correctly or not in the beginning).
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If time allows, the students will then create their own topic
sentences within the context of a BCR on topic sentences.
Topic Sentences
Go to: https://sites.google.com/site/7thela/topicsentences
Creating Topic Sentences: For this section,
read over BOTH of the links below. Write a
3+ sentence summary in your Source Book
explaining how to create a topic sentence.
 http://eslbee.com/topic_sentences.htm
 http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hyperg
rammar/partopic.html
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Topic Sentences
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Topic Sentences Practice: For this sentence, choose any 4
of the exercises below. Write down the title of the page or
exercise and then write a 2 sentence summary of what you
did, learned, and thought.
http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0073533890/student_view0/chapter1/
topic_sentences.html
 http://www.uefap.com/writing/exercise/parag/para
gex3.htm
 http://www.victoria.ac.nz/llc/academicwriting/tsent1.html
 http://esl.fis.edu/learners/read/topic1.htm
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Topic Sentences
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1. Brazil is a great place to spend a year as an exchange student.
2. Spending a year as an exchange student changed my whole
life.
3. Every student should visit another country.
_______________________________________ When I was
seventeen years old, I applied to be an American Field Service
exchange student. I was very proud and excited when I was
chosen, but I never realized how much that year would influence
the rest of my life. From the moment I got off the plane in Rio de
Janeiro, I felt like a new person. At first I was nervous about
speaking Portuguese, but the Brazilians soon helped me to feel at
ease. Before I left my home, I had been shy and quiet. In Brazil I
became much more confident and outgoing. Most importantly, I
had thought I would become an engineer. In Brazil I learned to
love music and realized I wanted to become a professional
musician.
Topic Sentences
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1. Traveling abroad can be very stressful if you aren't used to it.
2. Many people enjoy foreign travel and go away every chance that they
get.
3. Although many people find traveling to foreign countries exciting,
people like me should never leave home.
____________________________ I have traveled to Mexico, England,
Germany, and Japan. I must admit that I am nervous all of the time while I
am away. I cannot relax until the airplane lands in Chicago, where I live. It's
not that I don't like foreigners. I have several friends from other countries.
And it's not that I hate foreign food. My husband and I often eat out at
ethnic restaurants at home. However, I just do not feel comfortable on
foreign soil. I am always afraid of making mistakes and offending people.
Even when I know the language, as I did in England, I still get confused
with the money, the transportation system, and all the different ways of
doing things. My husband is a great traveler. He loves every minute he
spends out of the country, but I'm afraid from now on he'll have to go
alone.
Topic Sentences
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Identify the topic sentences in the following paragraphs.
Paragraph 1
The maintenance of order in prestate societies is rooted in a
commonality of material interests. The greater the amount of common
interests, the less need there is for law-and-order specialists. Among
band-level cultures law and order stem directly from the relations
between people and the natural habitat from which subsistence is
derived. All adults usually have open access to this habitat: the rivers,
lakes, beaches, oceans; all the plants and animals; the soil and the
subsoil. In so far as these are basic to the extraction of life-sustaining
energy and materials they are communal "property." (Marvin Harris,
(1975), Culture, people nature, p. 356)
Topic Sentences
Paragraph 2
 Though the United States has spent billions of dollars on
foreign aid programs, it has captured neither the affection
nor esteem of the rest of the world. In many countries
today Americans are cordially disliked; in others merely
tolerated. The reasons for this sad state of affairs are many
and varied, and some of them are beyond the control of
anything this country might do to try to correct them. But
harsh as it may seem to the ordinary citizen, filled as he is
with good intentions and natural generosity, much of the
foreigners' animosity has been generated by the way
Americans behave. (Edward Hall, (1973), The silent
language, p. xiii)
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Topic Sentences
Paragraph 3
 Anthropology is the study of humankind, especially of
Homo sapiens, the biological species to which we human
beings belong. It is the study of how our species evolved
from more primitive organisms; it is also the study of how
our species developed a mode of communication known as
language and a mode of social life known as culture. It is
the study of how culture evolved and diversified. And
finally, it is the study of how culture, people, and nature
interact wherever human beings are found. (Marvin Harris,
(1975), Culture, People Nature, p. 1)
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http://www.laflemm.com/dynamic/online
_practice.php?practice_id=19
 http://wps.ablongman.com/long_henry_e
r_1/0,7989,1832680-,00.html
 http://www.pearsonhighered.com/showc
ase/inconcert/assets/pdf/McWhorter_032
1850378_C05.pdf
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CLOSING
A reading
from the our
new extended
text
Divergent.
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HOMEWORK