Best Written Book Response: AM Class

During the first grading period students completed story frames for their written book responses. For the second nine weeks I assigned students to write a simple one-page summary of their books. This was a stretch for some students, but of course my job is to nudge them to new levels. We have discussed periodically how good summaries tell the beginning, middle, and end of a story, and they must leave out lots of details. I selected Ian's paper as the best written book response for the AM class because he summarized the story well, and he wrote with complex, complete sentence structure. Over the past few weeks we have focused heavily on sentence structure by analyzing, critiquing, and practicing how to write complete sentences so we will be ready to begin constructing solid paragraphs for expository essays when we return to school in January.

Cirque Du Freak #12:
Sons of Destiny

by Ian

In the beginning of the book Darren, Debbie, and the circus members are standing around Shancus, Evra Van's son who was killed by Steve Leopard, the Vampeneze Lord. So, Darren, Vancha, and the other circus members quiz Darius, Darren's nephew, about what Steve was up to. Later, Darren, Darius, Vancha, and Alice visit Annie, Darren's sister. After they meet with Annie, Darren re-bloods Darius so that Darren's vampire cells and Darius' Vampeneze cells collide, and Darius becomes a vampire. Annie later tells Darren that his friends are being held in the stadium. So Darren and Vancha arrive at the stadium. There they spotted Steve and Gannan Harts speeding for the exit. Then when Darren catches up with Steve, Darren and Steve start fighting to see who becomes the Lord of Shadow. Darren ends up killing Steve, but later he finds out Steve is his brother! Near the end, Darren travels back in time to scare off young Darren Shan away from the Cirque Du Freak, therefore altering the timeline. Afterwards, Darren ends up dying on the roof of the Cirque, finishing off with, "Good-bye world, I'm going . . . I'm going . . . gone."