Then, we read Grandma Betty’s Obituary from the Blog of Death. What an amazing woman! Seriously, this is the legacy that I’d like to leave when I die! I love Grandma Betty!

Then, we looked at the Blog of Death in a little more detail. I skimmed through and showed you a few people that were of interest to me, and I showed you how to use the categories, even though I wish there was a place to actually see all of the categories!

The point of that was that we are searching for really good sentences that we can use as models or mentors when we start writing our major grade next week.

You have to find FIVE great opening lines. That is the opening line(s) of an obituary, not the paragraph. You have to find five great endings for an obit, and you’ll need to find five good general lines from anywhere in an obituary.

DO NOT JUST CHOOSE THE FIRST FIVE OBITS THAT YOU FIND AND CHOOSE THREE LINES FROM EACH. That is not the point of this, and it won’t help you write your paper next week. Seriously. This is NOT busy work, so if you get done in five minutes, that’s a sign to me that you just chose random sentences without thought.

If you want extra credit, if you find a really interesting Obit, put the person’s name in the last column so I can share it with other students.

I also have a list of the people that I find fascinating if you are getting stuck stuck looking people. As of right now, it’s not in Blackboard, so let me know if you need it.

The reason we are doing this is for sentence modeling.

For example, here is the first sentence of Demetius Newton’s obituary:

Rep. Demetrius C. Newton dedicated his life to improving the human condition, first as a civil rights attorney and later as a politician and public servant.

It’s a great sentence, but obviously, I’m not a civil rights attorney, politician, or a public servant. But it’s a great sentence.

So what I would do is this: I’d take out the specific information and leave blanks.

_____ dedicated her life to improving ____________, first as a ________ and later as a __________.

Now that it’s not specific, I can add in my own information.

Vanessa Riley dedicated her life to educating other, first as a teacher and later as the director of the at-risk high school that she founded.