Friday, April 12, 2013

Writing 2 Class Notes -- April 10 (Week 11)

Greetings!

We had a good class this week.  The students were payed close attention during the instruction and engaged in discussion about our literature.  The Quick Write prompt had 2 parts:  1) "My favorite number is ______ because ________." and 2) Write a formula for something/anything.  We talked about how formulas are like recipes for numbers.  Again, they were quite creative.  

The Latin phrases for today might be familiar to some parents:  circa (about/ around); cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am.); and compos mentis (of sound/composed mind).  

We're continuing to discuss Punctuation, and I presented to them the uses for the semicolon and the colon.  They were to take notes, which will help them prepare for an end of the semester grammar test.  Already curious about what will be on the test, I assured them that it wouldn't be too hard.  I'll put on the test the punctuation information that we've discussed along with some material from last semester. 
We discussed our Short Stories today.  We talked at length about Nella Larsen's story "Sanctuary."  In this story, an older, black woman hides a man who is in trouble; it turns out that this man's trouble is that he's accidentally killed this woman's son.  The story is written with southern dialect which made it a colorful story. 
Next week we'll go back to Poetry.  Poems don't take as long to read, but take more care and effort to "unpack."  When we discuss these poems, we all need to put our "thinking caps" on.

They handed in their rough drafts for their Evaluation Essays.  These are more complicated essays, and I look forward to reading them.

Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read the poems from the following poets:  
     Anne Bradstreet, Phylis Wheately, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
-- Review notes taken in class about the period, semicolon, and colon.
-- Write one college essay.  Choosing either a Entrance Essay suggestions or ACT/SAT prompts, write for 25 minutes.  If a student is writing essays for a college prep class, he can use if for this class, too.

Last week's blogs:
Class Notes(Week 10)
10 uses of the Period

This week's blogs
Class Notes (Week 11)
4 uses of the semicolon
10 uses of the colon

It appears that winter wants a "do-over."  Stay safe and keep warm!
Mrs. Prichard

No comments:

Post a Comment