As always, we had a good class this week. We began the class with our Quick Write. Each week it seems that this activity could take more time than I give it. And that's a good thing. One of the best ways to become a good writer is simply to write a lot. This week our Quick Write assignment was to either 1) Write a literary love letter; or 2) Write about your Lenten plans. For the love letter, the students could choose an author, a book, a character, a bit of punctuation, a part of speech, a literary device, etc. We had a heart-felt ode to the semicolon and an affectionate note to "There is." Another student alliteratively expressed appreciation for alliteration. Some of these will be posted on the class blog.
Our Latin Phrases for this week were as follows:
ad hoc -- "for this purpose" refers to a group or activity that is for a specific, limited reason
ad infinitum -- "for infinity; never-ending" refers to something that goes on and on and doesn't seem to end
ad litem -- "for this suit/case" is a legal term that is usually used in regards to a guardian ad litem, which is a person who is assigned to help a minor is a legal situation
ad nauseum -- "to sickness" Like the term ad infinitum, this refers to an activity that continues to the extent that you feel bodily sick. Literally, nauseum means seasickness.
We've started in our new book, Great Short Short Stories, and for this week they read stories from the Russian writers, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, and Leo Tolstoy. We discussed plot, characterization, and themes. For next week we'll read some short stories by the British writers, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and H. H. Munroe. They have charts to fill in for these stories.
Their next essay is a Cause/Effect Essay. We discussed how this is similar to the Problem/Solution essay which they just finished. This is a two-part essay; in this kind of essay, the writer must explain both the result (effect) and what caused it to happen. The Pre-Write is due next week.
We're still working to develop a "Comma Expertise," and they have a worksheet on appositives and parenthetical expressions. Next week, I'm planning on having the students give mini-grammar lessons that I will record as videos. I'd like to put them on our class blog, but I want to make sure that I have permission from parents. Let me know if you DO NOT want any videos of your child posted.
On the class blog, I posted a video of Dr. Ben Carson's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. While this is not specifically writing-related, I was impressed by his forthrightness and integrity and wanted to share it with my students and their families.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read the following stories
Dickens (p. 45); Wilde (p. 189); Kipling (p. 101); Munro (p. 140)
-- Fill out one side of one of the Short Story worksheets per story
-- Pre-Write for the Cause/ Effect Essay
-- Grammar Worksheet on Appositives and Parenthetical Expressions
This week's blogs:
Class Notes
Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment