Wednesday, 17 November

In class students conferenced with Mr. Zartler and one another to improve and perfect their Catcher essays. Mr. Zartler reviewed the following editing checklist and students who had good drafts used this to guide their editing.

Papers are due on Friday. The finished papers will be the basis for an activity in class. Then on Friday, the class will have an assignment to begin the new unit.

Rough Draft CHECKLIST for

Catcher in the Rye

____ Introduction has a clear thesis statement

____ Introduction mentions the title of the novel

____ Introduction gives and thesis relate to a “big question”

____ Each paragraph begins with a topic sentence

Topic sentences explain what the whole paragraph is about

Topic sentences relate to thesis statement

____ Each paragraph basically makes sense read on it’s own

____ there are at least two (2) quotes from the book

____ each quote is introduced (who is speaking, about when in the book)

____ what each quote is explained thoroughly

____ each quote has a parenthetical citation in correct format (see blog for examples)

____ all longer quotes are block indented, single spaced, no quotation marks

____ shorter quotes are inside quotation marks, parenthetical followed by end mark

____ Spelling is generally correct Use the following tips:

•Use spell check.

•Circle words that might be wrong and look them up.

____ All sentences begin with a capital letter?

____ Each sentence ends with the correct punctuation mark. ( . ! ? ; )

____ Titles of novel is italicized or underlined. Nouns and verbs and first word capitalized.

____ Comma usage is correct:

•Commas separate items in a series.

•Commas precede coordinating conjunctions (and, but, so, for or, nor, yet) in compound sentences.

•Commas DO NOT separate two complete sentences. (This is called a comma splice).

____ Apostrophes are used to show possession or to mark contractions or to show missing numbers (as in ‘99)?

____ All proper names of people, places and things are capitalized.

____ Check subjects and verbs to see that they agree in tense and in number.

•I/am or We are and He/she is and They are

____ There is an appropriate title that reflects the main topic of the essay.

____ Actions in the book are presented in “Eternal Present Tense,” e.g. Holden watches a football game in Chapter 1. Then he goes to visit his teacher.”