Reading Assignment: Read another 50 pages in In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. (My previous e-mail said 100 pages. That was a cough medicine induced error)
Writing Assignment:
Write four sentences using this pattern
Shirley's grandmother is worried because........
and four using this one:
Shirley is happy that....
You don't have to start with a name. That's just my example. You can also do "The bear was angry that...." or "The house was shuttered (closed up) because..." You also don't have to relate the sentences to the story unless you want to. The key thing is to use the pattern correctly.
The pattern we are using works like this: Noun (linking verb to be) plus adjective and conjunction. Conjunctions are words that make connections. They help the writer add on to a base sentence. The two conjunctions shown here because and that indicate the writer will explain why something happened (because) or what has happened. (that).