More on Forgiveness Essay --
1. Students did a prewriting* activity to prepare for writing the forgiveness essay. In their composition books, they wrote at least three incidents from their own lives that involved forgiveness. They then selected one and answered questions about that incident -- in the composition book. If you were absent, you may write this on a separate sheet of paper, and tape it into your composition book when you return.
*Prewriting includes the thing we do to get ready to write. It can include coming up with ideas, narrowing choices, coming up with details, and more.
In the composition book:
1. List three forgiveness situations you've experienced or observed.
2. Answer these questions about one of the forgiveness situations you've listed. (Try the one you think will make the best essay.)
o Who was being asked to forgive?
o Who was asking to be forgiven?
o Why was forgiveness being asked for?
o What was required of the person forgiving?
o What was required of the person being forgiven?
o What background information might the reader need to know before the essay can be truly understood?
o Were there any conditions put in place by either party before forgiveness was achieved?
o Was forgiveness achieved? Why or why not?
Note: Your essay can be about forgiving someone else, being forgiven, or forgiving yourself.
It can be about you and someone else, you and yourself, or about an incident you observed.
It can be about something someone said or didn't say, did or didn't do, gave or didn't give, took or didn't take, broke or ruined.
2. Students read Chapter 3 and part of Chapter 4 from Words By Heart, with questions to answer.
3. Hotseat Activity: Could you pretend you're a character from Words By Heart and answer questions put that character by your classmates? Pay attention as we read. Students in groups filled out a worksheet about their assigned character. They then selected two students to come to the front (the hotseat) and answer questions as if they were that character -- what he or she would say publicly, and what he or she would be thinking privately.
4. Students also did a brief activity to review sentence composition:
What is the subject of the sentence?
What is the verb?
What is the object?
What tense is the verb?
What part of speech are a, an, and the?
