English 8

In the final minutes of class, we spoke briefly about the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which is in modern day Italy.  Your task is to write a page or two about the life of the dog whose effigy we viewed.  Do not do any research about this dog.  We're going to read a story about it next week.  This assignment is for you to use your creativity and imagine what kind of life this dog had.

Do make sure that your story is written in clear, grammatically correct English.  I will mark you on the Using Language and Producing Text rubrics.  The Producing Text rubric will assess your engagement with this exercise.  If you would like more information on this, refer to the salmon coloured sheets that I distributed on Thursday.  If you do not have these sheets and would like to see them, please email me for the PDFs.

Here is an image of the dog:

Your next ten vocabulary words are as follows:

1. Dwelling (n): a place where someone lives; a home
2. Stodgy (adj): dull, uninspired; (when talking about food) heavy and starchy
3. Villa (n): a large luxurious country house (associated with Roman times, but $people still have villas today)
4. Agonize (v): undergo great mental strain through worrying about something.
5. Dislodge (v): to knock or force out of place or position
6. Cameo (n): a piece of jewellry (often an oval pendant) with a person’s silhouette
7. Ponder (v): to think carefully and deeply about a subject before taking action or reaching a conclusion
8. Vapors (n):  a substance diffused or suspended in the air, esp. one that is usually liquid or solid (smoke/steam/toxic fumes)
9. Sham (adj): false; bogus (n): a thing that is not what it is presented to be
10. Trappings (n): the outward signs, features, or objects associated with a particular situation, role, or thing.