6th Grade Report -- Please Critique

[mdmurray]

Johannes Gutenberg by Mercedes

1.He was born in 1398 in the town of Mainz. He first became interested in book's one winter in the year of 1410-1411 when he was 12 for it was to cold for him to go outside so he read. One day when his father ordered a book he thought there has to be a quicker way to make book's. When he got to be older he worked In the mint even if he did no have to. his family were quite rich. When his father died he got a huge inheritance. Later he was forced to move so he moved to Strasbourg where he got a workshop and started his inventions on the word press. Five years after the move he went back for his mother funeral but he did not stay. So he got another huge inheritance but the town of Mainz would not give it to him unless he moved back. But he would not move back he would have to earn the money for his inventions. Hanns Dunne said that he could work in his goldsmith shop. People heard how good he was at shaping jewels. So rich people brought there jewels. One day Andreas Dritzehen asked Johann to teach him to polish and cut jewels. He agreed he would charge him a fee. So he would have more money for him inventions. In 1434 he learned Nicholas, the Mainz town clerk was visiting Strasbourg still mad about having his inheritance cut off, he had Nicholas arrested. He said that he would stay in jail till Mainz paid the money they owed him. Nicholas accepted and went back to Mainz. But he only got a portion of the money back Mainz said he had to return to get the rest back. But he did not go back for two reasons: he liked his workshop and he had fallen in love with a women. Her name was Enneiln zu der Iserin Thure wich means Anne of the Iron Door. So he asked her to marry him. She accepted. But then he changed his mind and that he did not want to marry after all. She was outraged. 1436 she sued him for breaking his promise to marry her. But he won the suit. But then a shoemaker sued him for so thing he had said about him. The judge ruled in the shoemakers favor and he had to pay fifteen guldens. He was outraged he could have used that money for his experiments. In 1439 a fair was to be held and he was going to make badges to sell. He asked his friend Hans Riffe to be his partner. Riffe would buy the materials and receive one-third of the money they made and Johann would make the badges and collect the rest of the money. But soon Andreas Dritzehen heard he wanted part in it too . And then Andreas Heilmann asked if could join if he paid they agreed. But after they had worked on them a lot they found out that the fair had been postponed for a one year. They were all disappointed. When they looked around his workshop they saw all the tools he used for his experiments. What was he hiding they all wondered so they asked him th teach they what ever he was doing. After a lot of thinking he decided to let them in on it for a lot of money but he was not going to tell them everything. He told Dritzehen and Heilmann about his plans to make the word press .they were both quite eager to lean about the inventions. Dritzehen and Heilmann agreed to pay 250 guldens each he asked they to pay 50 in cash and the rest of it over the next few years. He made them swear not to tell any one. So they started getting to work. They would be using three tool he had perfected over the years: the punch, the matrix and the mold. But soon after tragedy fell in December of 1438 Andrease Dritzehen died. After that Johannes had no money so he decided to go back to Mainz. So he returned to mainz collected his inheritance and set up a printing shop. In 1450 he desided it was time to start printing and he knew just what to print the Bible. But there was just one problem he had no money so he asked Johannes Fust to invest he agreed. He gave 800 guldens. Fust made him sign an agreement that if he did not repay the money back in five years that he got all the tools. He hired an assistant named Peter Schoffer. But soon he was out of money again. Fust offered another 800 guldens but he wanted to become his partner so he agreed there was no other way to get the money. Five years after Fust first gave the loan he sued for the 2,026 guldens he owed him. In 1455 he lost the suit. Since he did not have the money to pay him he had to turn over all his tools and the almost completed Bible's to Fust. So ever body gave credit to Fust for inventing the first printed Bible. But it is now called the Gutenberg 42-line Bible.

The end

[Once]

I am hoping you get feedback that I can mull over as well. I have a sixth grader and I am struggling with whether I expect enough from her. Perhaps I am going to feel fine with things next week but this week has been hard on me. I could try to give you feed back, but I doubt I am a good one for the job.

 

:bigear:

[Jean in Newcastle]

The first thing I would point out to her is that it is very hard to read without indenting and paragraphs.

 

She needs a topic sentence to tell us who she is writing about. Yes, we know that it is Gutenberg from the title, but she needs to mention his name at the start of her report instead of just using "him".

 

I noticed that she uses 's for plurals a lot - it needs to be simply an s.

 

There is more that I could point out, but honestly, I would start with those things first.

[mdmurray]

The 's for plural is something we will address. And, no, she did not use paragraphs...another point to address. She did write it using a different font and larger print (it was 4 pages long when she turned it in to me).

 

I agree that there are some grammatical/structure issues and I think those will work themselves out as we continue through her writing program. We are using Wordsmith Apprentice this year.

 

Thanks for the comment on no topic sentence, I had caught that but forgot to mention it to her.

 

This is basically an assignment that was to read Fine Print and write a report on Gutenberg, minimal direction. I thought it would be a good teaching point to take her from where she is to the next level.

[kamom]

CLE has a great LA Lightunit 507 that guides them through how to make an outline. If she had started with an outline, the subjects would already be broken up into different catagories,thus helping her know how to break it up into paragraphs.

 

It might be overwhelming for her to know how and when to start another paragraph.

 

When mine write a paper that long. I have them do notes, then an outline, then a first draft and the final copy. I help them get the outline right so the first draft isn't so overwhelming to correct.

 

HTH

[sheryl]

I really need to add that length is not all so important in 6th grade. They need to be taught structure and style.....(grammar usage and mechanics).

 

Take only 10 sentences. Assuming your dc knows all the parts of speech fairly well....start "perfecting" the 10 sentence paragraph.

 

Ident

Use adjectives (different kinds)

Use adverbs

Paired adj for opening a sentence

Different "types" and "lengths" of sentences

And, the list goes on

 

The point is to 1)brainstorm topic 2)now brainstorm for ideas on the subject/topic 3)write ideas only 4)write rough draft 5)now work on all the parts of speech and use modifiers (write shop calls them "vivid words"). 6)rework the sentences until it "reads" well and make final copy.

 

We do use WriteShop b/c it was taught in a local academy here. I spoke with the author one time and she stressed quality, not quantity at this age. My dd is also in 6th and has improved using WS program.

[mdmurray]

Thanks for all of the great input. I plan to sit down and go over structure with her. Funny thing about length, I told her 1.5 pages or with the font she was using on the computer 2 pages. This was 4, all on her own accord.

 

We will start with notes, an outline and such next time. This was a science assignment rather than writing assignment but I really need to spend more time on structure. Tells me where to focus on with writing.