WRITING

WRITING



http://littlebirdtales.com/home/default/

Reread your narrative. Which parts need improvement? Use this rubric to help you decide. Check the sentences that describe your personal narrative.

Rings the Bell!

 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The story starts with a surprising statement, a question, or a description.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]I used dialogue and other details that highlight the five senses.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]Every event is important to the story and is told in order.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]I can hear my voice. My writing sounds like me.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The ending ties my story ideas together in a satisfying way.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]There are very few mistakes.

Getting Stronger

 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The beginning needs more spark.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]More details are needed to make this experience come alive.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]Some sentences aren't important. More time clues are needed.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]My voice could be stronger. It doesn't always sound like me.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The ending doesn't tie things together.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]Mistakes make my story hard to follow in some places.

Try Harder

 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The beginning is dull.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]Where are the details? It's hard to picture what happened.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]Some events are unimportant or are told out of order.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]I can't hear my voice at all.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]The story just stops. There is no ending.
 * [[image:http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/graphics/checkbox.gif width="16" height="13" caption="check box"]]There are a lot of mistakes.

= Websites for Nursery Rhymes = = [] = = [] =

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and __ all the king's men __ Couldn't put Humpty together again! Humpty Dumpty was a powerful cannon during the English __ Civil War __ (1642-49). It was mounted on top of the St. Mary's at the Wall Church in Colchester defending the city against siege in the summer of 1648. (Although Colchester was a Parliamentarian stronghold, it was captured by the Royalists who held it for 11 weeks.) The church tower was hit by the enemy and the top of the tower was blown off, sending "Humpty" tumbling to the ground. Naturally the King's men* tried to mend him but in vain.
 * Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

- From the East Anglia Tourist Board in England || Jack, be nimble, Jack, be quick. Jack, jump over The candlestick. The lace makers of Wendover in Buckinghamshire were a lively bunch. Every year on November 25th, they celebrated the feast of St. Catherine, their patron saint. Costumed as men, singing special love songs for the occasion, they visited neighbors, who served them wiggs - buns flavored with caraway seeds - and a hot pot - a drink of warm beer thickened with rum and whipped eggs. Afterward, they held a banquet and set off fireworks, especially Catherine Wheels. In conclusion of the evening, they played leap-candle. A candlestick with a lighted candle was set on the floor. A player's jumping over the candle without extinguishing the flame augured good luck for the following year. - The Great American Baby Almanac Rock-a-bye-baby On the treetop When the wind blows, The __ cradle will rock __. When the bough breaks, __ The cradle will fall __ And down will come baby Cradle and all The author of this well-loved lullaby was reportedly a pilgrim who sailed on the Mayflower. The Wampanoag Indians, who befriended the colonists, carried their infants in cradleboards on their backs. In temperate weather, they suspended __ the cradles __ from tree limbs so that passing breezes could rock the babies while their mothers tended the maize and beans. With typical motherly indulgence, the cradles were decorated with shells, beads and porcupine quills. For sober-minded puritans, the sight of a birch tree festooned with such cradles must have been very memorable indeed. - The Great American Baby Almanac
 * The "men" would have been infantry, and "horses" the cavalry troops.

Little Jack Horner Sat in a corner Eating a Christmas Pie He put in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said "Oh, what a good boy am I!" According to legend, Little Jack Horner was actually Thomas Horner, steward to the Abbot of Glastonbury during the reign of King Henry VIII. Rumor had it that the inquisitive king would soon be reaching for some Glastonbury holdings. The nervous Abbot, hoping to appease the royal appetite, sent the king a special gift: a pie containing twelve deeds to manor houses. On his way to London, the not-so-loyal courier Horner stuck his thumb into the pie and extracted the deed for Mells Manor, a plum piece of __ real estate __, where his descendants live to this day. - The Great American Baby Almanac

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes. Before the suffragists came along, women were sometimes compelled to obtain their ends by unusual means. Consider the case of Lady Godiva. Her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, imposed a heavy tax on his subjects. Distressed by their hardship, Godiva pleaded their case. Her husband listened politely for a few days, then with mounting annoyance, and finally offered a dare…."Ride naked through Coventry, and I'll do as you ask." Confident that his wife would never commit such an act, Leofric returned to his ledgers. Undaunted, Godiva galloped through town on a handsome white horse, clad only in her coppery tresses, while all the folk in Coventry stayed indoors with the shutters locked, to spare her blushes. The earl conceded, and lifted __ the tax __. And if she hears music wherever she goes, it's probably the townspeople singing her praises. - The Great American Baby Almanac There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead; And when she was good, She was very, very good But when she was bad she was horrid. This poem is the work of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He composed it one day when his daughter Edith refused to submit her hair to a curling iron. For many years afterward, Longfelllow, the author of such works as Evangeline and "Paul Revere's Ride," denied having written the verse. When pressed by his friends, he owned up, albeit somewhat crossly; "When I recall my juvenile poems and prose sketches, I wish that they were forgotten entirely. They however cling to one's skirt with a terrible grasp." - The Great American Baby Almanac Ring Around the Rosie A pocket full of posies Ashes, ashes, We all fall down. Philip Hiscock, a folklorist at Memorial __ University __ in Newfoundland, states that this rhyme likely originated as a way of skirting Protestant bans on dancing: "Adolescents found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the United States the 'play-party.' Play-parties consisted of ring games, which differed from square dances only in their name and their lack of musical accompaniment. They were hugely popular, and younger __ children __ got into the act, too. Some modern nursery games, particularly those which involve rings of children, derive from these play-party games. 'Little Sally Saucer' (or 'Sally Waters') is one of them, and 'Ring Around the Rosie' seems to be another. The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children." Article by L Batra. Originally titled ‘Hushabye Baby’, this nursery rhyme was said to be the first poem written on American soil. Although there is no evidence as to when the lyrics were written, it may date from the seventeenth century and have been written by an English immigrant who observed the way native-American women rocked their babies in birch-bark cradles, which were suspended from the branches of trees, allowing the wind to rock the baby to sleep.
 * __Rock-a-Bye-Baby__**