Tag Archives: blog of death

4/5/2016

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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.

Mentor Sentences

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.

10/26/2015

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We started today talking about Death and the Devil Surprising Two Maidens. If you weren’t here today, there is a drop box assignment for this in the Carpe Diem folder in Obituary.

Death and the Devil Surprising Two Women

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.

Mentor Sentences

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. :)

9/3/15 – B

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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.

Mentor Sentences

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. :)

1/27/2015 – B

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We started out today with the most appropriate picture: Death and the Devil Surprising Two Maidens.

Death and the Devil Surprising Two Women

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.

Mentor Sentences

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. 🙂

11/4/2014

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If you are registered voter, make sure you get out and vote!

Today, we just worked on our Obituary in class. It was pretty much a shut up and work day.

It will be due tomorrow, but we won’t have any time to work on it in class tomorrow, since we’ll be doing the collage during class.

Remember – if you get stuck, use the examples in the Blog of Death and the student examples in BB. You don’t have to live a crazy life in order to carpe diem – just think about the legacy that you want to leave.

11/1/2013

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It’s the first Friday of the 2nd 9 weeks! Hooray!

Today, we started out by talking about obituaries in general. They are the written notices of death that usually include a brief biography of the person. We are going to write our OWN obituary in class. You need to focus on CARPE DIEM – how did you make your life extraordinary? You will need to be at least 75 years old (or older) – it’s hard to carpe diem a life when it’s short. Think about the Bucket List pre-writing and the Bucket List that we did this week – use those to find your focus. Is it family? Is it being successful? Is it helping other people? Use that focus to help you figure out details and events to your life.

Under Carpe Diem: Obituary, you can find instructions and examples, one of which being my own. Yes, I do every assignment that I ask you to do. The reason that I do this is so that I can share things that helped me when I did the assignment. The thing that helped ME the most when I wrote my obit was the Blog of Death. Seriously. I used it not for ideas, but for sentence structures and 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 the human condition____________, 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.

If you look in BB, you can see the rubric that will be used to grade the obituary. You need to have a minimum of 500 words.

Have a great week!

4/5/2013

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Today, we approach the first major grade of English IVB: The Obituary.

There are instructions in LMS, but I want to stress a few things – this is NOT about how you die, this is about how you LIVED your life. I’m going to look and see if your obituary exemplifies the concept of carpe diem. So don’t just focus on what you did in your life in high school – you haven’t been able to live your life to the fullest yet.

Also, I am requiring that you be old – at least 80. I don’t want to get the heebie jeebies this.

I have written my own, and it is up in LMS as an example for you to use as a model, but I’m going to be honest – the MOST helpful item that I used when writing my own obit was the Blog of Death. There are really fascinating obits in there that you can use as good models. Remember, modeling is where you use the sentence structure, not the ideas.

We will have a little time in class on Monday to finish this and it will be due on Tuesday, April 9th.

Also, most of your grades have been updated in Gradespeed. Keep up the great work!

IV – 11/1/2012

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Riley started out by giving us time to finish the Blog of Death. Go to the Blog of Death and find the obituary of one person who is a great example of Carpe Diem. Copy the obit, and paste it in the discussion board (in the Obituary folder) entitled “Who Seized the Day?”. Make sure you write at least one sentence explaining why that person was a good example of carpe diem.

We then read The Dash and Riley explained that this is the point of writing our own obituary – don’t focus on the dates, focus on the dash!

You should be able to see the rubric in LMS if you click on the Drop Box.

After your obit is written, copy/paste it in either Wordle or Tagexdo to create an awesome word cloud.

This was the only day that we will work on this class – if you did not get this done today (or weren’t here), you will have to work on this on your own time.

IV – 10/31/2012

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Well, it looks like we won’t be able to use the webpage that we started yesterday – we are going to use www.bucketlist.net. Create an account, but you don’t need an e-mail address to use this one.

We also finished the BucketList pre-writing from yesterday. The questions aren’t long, but they do make you think. Be prepared.

Make sure that once you create your account, find and join the tribe “Vistas” so that I can give you credit for your list. Make sure that your Bucketlist has at least ten meaningful items on it – these are BIG things to accomplish – not a to-do list for the week. This will be due on Friday.

After this, Riley had us listen to BOC’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” We discussed it and answered three simple questions in the discussion board.

Riley then gaves us the intructions for the Obituary, which is our first major grade. Instructions are in LMS – but make sure that you choose an OLD age – nothing young. That’s creepy. Also, don’t focus on your death or how you’ll die – that’s not the point of the activity. The point of the activity is to prove how you “care diem’ed” your life.

Riley’s sample obit is up there for you to read. For examples, check out the Blog of Death and examples from former students.

Tomorrow, we will read “The Dash”, look at the Blog of Death, write our obituaries, and create a word cloud of our lives to print in color.