Sunday, September 6, 2009

Bubble Map Paragraph

After completing your bubble map, draft one paragraph that details one of your adjectives. Remember to concentrate on one adjective to give focus to the paragraph.

The typed paragraph is due on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 along with your completed bubble map. Your bubble map should include at least six adjectives that describe you, and each adjective needs one or two specific details that support them in the frame of reference. The paragraph should be typed, 12-point font, double spaced and be at least six sentences long. Also, please consider including a recent photo of yourself on your bubble map or your paragraph so that I can begin to learn your name.

If you would like to create your bubble map electronically, Thinking Maps software is available free of charge to all EHS students. Simply go to Edline and find the Thinking Maps software file folder on your main page. You can easily download the software from there to your home computer. If you have trouble downloading the software, simply create a bubble map on paper.

Here is the paragraph inspired by the green adjective on my bubble map.

Roehl Seeing Green

Having grown up on a farm in Medina, I have an affinity for rich, black soil laced with a little cow manure. Such a garden that yields the juiciest tomato or the tenderest ear of corn is a thing of beauty. In my small yard in St. Louis Park I have a fairly large vegetable and fruit garden to keep my farming ancestry alive and showcase my green philosophy. I also belong to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. My CSA farmer Richard delivers one box of fresh, organic vegetables each week for my family to enjoy. I make an awesome chocolate zucchini cake and a beans and greens dish sure to please the most sophisticated Italian palette. Richard also provides my family with organic fruit that he gets from his farming friends on the West Coast and in Mexico. For nine months out of the year my produce needs are met by this buying-locally, earth-friendly CSA method which allows my family to know we are being as green as possible where groceries are concerned. I have taken this green philosophy to other areas of my life. Two years ago I began mowing my lawn with a reel mower; that's the type of push mower that's powered only by humans. Although the reel mower might not leave the most manicured lawn, I enjoy the quiet, peaceful mowing experience that saves gas and carbon emissions. Speaking of emissions, I have also reduced my clothes dryer emissions by hanging most of my family's laundry on the line. While my family was in Spain for three weeks in 2007, I noticed that most, if not all, Spanish families hang their clothes on the line from their apartment windows. I figured that if they can do it without a backyard, then I was being wasteful of the planet's resources my using a machine to dry my clothes. Although being green takes a lot of work, I am glad that I have taken a few simple steps to reduce my carbon footprint.


My backyard vegetable garden supplies my family with lots of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, etc.

This is one of my favorite family farm photos. It features my father and his sister, Sr. Aelred, in the 1950's working in our family garden.

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