Another good class this week. I handed out some postcards and asked them to pretend they had been on a vacation to the place on the card. For the Quick Write, they were to write a message to someone about their "vacation." Most of the postcards were from our summer trip to the North Shore, so they didn't have any exotic destinations to work with.
Our Latin phrases for this week were:
ad perpetuam rei memoriam -- for the perpetual remembrance of a thing (This was a common introit for papal declarations)
adsum -- I'm here or "Present" (young Roman students responded with this when attendance was taken)
ad verbum -- to the word or verbatim (We discussed the connection of the the Latin word for "word" is verbum and our word "verb" which is the action word of a sentence. Sometimes, the discussion of vocabulary and grammar can become a little philosophical)
advocatus diaboli -- the devil's advocate
Continuing with our study of the comma, we looked at how to use a comma in a series. One wouldn't think that any type of controversy could arise in grammar, but you can find passionate users of the Oxford or serial comma; you will also find those who firmly eschew the final comma before the word "and" in a series. (E.g. "I ate eggs, bacon, toast, and cheese for breakfast." uses the Oxford/serial comma following "toast.") I explained to the class that many purists prefer the serial comma, and therefore I am teaching them to use it. Those who are not strict adherents to its use, choose to use it only to avoid potential confusion, but otherwise feel that it unnecessarily breaks up the flow of a sentence. Who knew that such a small bit of punctuation could be so news-worthy -- see Wikipedia, The Falmouth Institute, or this grammar blog.
We took quite a bit of time looking at our next writing assignment, the Cause/Effect Essay. We did some brainstorming about organization and the structure of this kind of essay using a variety of topics. Rather than use the words "cause" and "effect," we discussed the ideas in terms of "something happened" and "something was the result. As with all of our previous essays, this essay must have a thesis statement. The students are familiar with my equation for a thesis: Topic + Opinion/Stand = Thesis Statement.
Unfortunately, we took longer to discuss our writing this week and did not have time to discuss the stories. With sincere looks of disappointment, they requested that we take extra time next week to discuss our reading selections. I think we can make that work!
We do not have classes at CHAT next week. The next time we have class is on March 6.
Assignments for March 6
-- Read Hawthorne (p. 73); Bierce (p. 10); and Poe (p. 156)
-- Fill out one side of one of the worksheets for each story.
-- Cause/Effect Rough Draft
-- Grammar Worksheet
This week's blog
-- Class Notes
Have a great 2 weeks! Enjoy your break.
Mrs. Prichard
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