Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Writing 2 Class Notes -- September 5

Greetings!

We had a good second class.  I'm enjoying getting to know the students.  Our Quick Write was food related.  The students could choose one of two options:  1) Write about your favorite meal; 2) Come up with a recipe for "Elephant Stew."  Usually I have the students write for 5 - 7 minutes.  I also include Vocabulary Builders from time to time.  This week we had the words "masticate" (to grind or crush with teeth for swallowing), "gastronomical" (good eating, culinary culture), and "repast" (a meal).  When I introduce words, I also like to look at the roots of words and other related words.  One of my goals for the class is to expand their vocabulary.

We discussed the rough drafts for the Personal Essays.  We discussed out to narrow a general subject to a more specific topic; we also discussed how a thesis statement is a sentence about your topic in which you take a stand or express an opinion.  The students handed in the rough drafts, and I will go over them and hand them back next week.  I gave them advance notice that they should expect to find lots of red marks and comments.

Today's Grammar discussion centered on the 8 parts of speech:  verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.  Every word in our English language falls into one of these categories.  Some words perform different "jobs" in sentences.

We took a longer portion of the class to discuss our book, My Antonia by Willa Cather.  The students were to read the Introduction and part of Book 1 (up to page 23).  We discussed the challenges of immigrants.  The introduction serves as a "frame," a literary device that sets the stage for the rest of the book.  A couple of students have read ahead and are enjoying the book.  I am looking forward to good, insightful discussions.


Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read pages 24 - 47 of My Antonia
-- Write a paragraph about a childhood memory.
     -- For extra credit, a paragraph about a second memory may be written.
-- Find out where Bohemia and Black Hawk, Nebraska are.

As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Have a great week and enjoy the wonderful fall weather!
Mrs. Prichard

No comments:

Post a Comment