How many of you know that today is the 101st birthday of the Oreo cookie? I had no idea that this well-known treat was that old! We started the class with that bit of trivia before doing our Quick Write. For today, I asked the students if they could start or run any business what would it be. I like to encourage students to "dream big" because if often opens their thinking to possibilities and opportunities that the Lord has for them. They shared some great ideas!
Our Latin Phrases for today were:
ars gratia artis -- art for the sake of art (art for art's sake) which is the motto for MGM films
ars longa, vita brevis -- art is long, life is short
ars moriendi -- the art of dying (Romans valued dying a noble death)
artes, scientia, veritas -- art, knowledge, truth (the motto for the University of Michigan)
Having a week off must have confused me more than I had thought it would because I was all set to discuss the wrong set of short stories from our Great Short Short Stories book. The students quickly got me on the right track, and we looked at stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, and Edgar Allen Poe. The book presents the stories in alphabetical order of the authors, but I've grouped them according to similar time periods or geographical locations. Our authors for today were early American writers. Combining our literature discussion with writing instruction, we discussed the importance of choosing the best, most appropriate word. When young writers become aware of the nuances of another writer's diction, they also become more careful about the words they choose in their essays. We did a short exercise in expanding general nouns to more specific phrases.
I gave the students a handout with sample SAT writing prompts on one side and college application essay ideas on the other. For next week, they are to chose something from either side and write for 25 minutes on that topic. This exercise will be helpful in a number of ways -- it will prepare them for college entrance tests; it will help them to "think on their feet" since they won't have any pre-writing; it will help them to focus intently on writing. Compare this to a sprint as opposed to a longer race.
Assignments for next week:
-- Read stories by the following authors: Harte (p. 64); Twain (p. 175); Jewett (p. 87); Gilman (p. 50)
-- Fill out one side of the story charts for each story
-- 25 minutes writing responses to essay prompts.
This week's blogs:
Class Notes
Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard
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