Greetings!We began our class with a discussion about the story behind Groundhog Day. According to folklore, if a groundhog sees its shadow (in other words, it's a sunny day), he will be frightened and go back into his hole, and winter will last another 6 weeks. If the day is overcast and the groundhog sees no shadow, we'll have an early spring. Of course, this is all a moot point in Minnesota where winter sometimes lasts until May!
For our Quick Write, I asked the students to choose an animal and create a national holiday that revolves around that animal. We had days dedicated to bears, pandas, hamsters, and monkeys.
Below are our Latin phrases for today. Since we've done a few of these, some words were a bit familiar. They are also getting the hang of recognizing derivatives and cognates of the Latin words. I gave them extra credit if they knew any of the words in the phrases.
acta est fabula -- literally means "the act is the story;" used as a "The End" for open air plays; related to the words fable and fabulous
a Deo et Rege -- from God and King;
Adeste Fideles -- literally "come faithful ones;" the Latin title for "O Come all ye Faithful."
ad gustum -- to (ones) taste; a term used in old cookbooks
I handed back the rough drafts of the Problem/Solution Essays. As a combined Grammar and Writing lesson, we discussed common errors in the papers. We spent quite a bit of time talking about active and passive sentences. Sentences written in passive form usually use more words to say the same thing than one written with an active verb. These sentences are not incorrect, but most young writers have to be careful about bogging down their sentences.
The final drafts of their Problem/Solution Essays are due next week. In addition to including their rough drafts, on a separate page I would like them to write the thesis statement for this essay and the reasons for 5 corrections made from the rough draft. IF they make corrections/improvements that I didn't mark, they should make mention of those and I will give extra credit.
The students had read the final two stories in our Sherlock Holmes book. They've enjoyed the stories and have expanded their clue-finding skills. We only read six stories. If you're interested in more, Dover Publications has a good selection at very reasonable prices. They were alert, involved, and insightful. I'm enjoying their ability to think carefully about literature. We are beginning a new book for next week, Great Short, Short Stories. We're starting with stories by Russian writers. They were given worksheets, and they are to do one worksheet per story. They are to ignore the backside of one of the sheets about characters.
A note on assignments: Sometimes circumstances keep students from handing in assignments in on time. Computer and printer issues are pretty common problems. Busy schedules and illness also play a role. Since we only meet weekly, it's important that students not get behind, especially with assigned essays. If a student cannot hand in a paper at class time, I would like them to e-mail their papers to me as soon as they can. In the case of rough drafts, I can then get them corrected, scanned, and returned. However, if assignments are too late, they will not be counted.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Final Draft of the Problem/Solution Essay
-- Include rough draft, thesis statement, 5 reasons for corrections
-- Read Pushkin (p. 16), Tolstoy (p. 169), Chekhov (p. 26)
-- Fill out one worksheet per story
This week's blogs:
Class Notes
Passive/Active Sentence Resources
Have a great week! Stay warm & make wise choices.
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment