Writing 2 Class Notes -- May 8 (Week 15 -- Final Class)

Greetings!

Well, we're done with another wonderful year of writing.  I've had a great 2 semesters teaching these hardworking students.  For our last class together, we had a little more fun than work.

For our Quick Write, the students were told to write a "There is" sentence.  All year we've discussed how sentences using this kind of construction are weak and wordy.  "Lame," as a student from another class called them.  Once they had a sentence written, they handed their papers to the person on the right who would write another "there is" sentence to continue the story.  We did this 4 times.  My favorite set of sentences was:

1. There is anger in Mrs. Prichard because I just use the phrase "there is."
2. There is anger in Mrs. Prichard because I just used the phrase "there is" because I could.
3. There will be fire in Mrs. Prichard's eyes because we have all used the phrase "there is" multiple times.
4. There might be a clown, Mrs. Prichard's dad, in the class today.

Our next activity for the day was a "Rhyme Off."  Like a spelling bee, we went around the class coming up with sentences that rhymed with a given word.  If they couldn't think of any or repeated a word, they had to sit down.  Due to the clues and extra time given, it really wasn't very competitive.

Our last activity of the day was our Final Exam, which looked an awful lot like a Bingo Game.  The students brought prizes to add to the ones that I had.  (Our town has a HUGE booksale in April, and on the last day, you can get a bag of books for $5.  All of my prizes came from that sale.)  They each had 2 cards with titles, authors, grammatical and writing terms, and punctuation marks.  I would give clues, and as a class they would give the answer.  Since I limited the prizes to 3 a piece, they could trade/steal prizes from classmates.  As always, some items were more sought after and others were quickly abandoned.

As I've said, I've had a great time teaching this class.  I will have grades out within the next few days.  I'd like to direct you to a blog post that I wrote after the first semester.  This gives my thoughts on grading.  

Next year I will again be teaching Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3 -- Research and Writing (fall semester), British Literature (spring semester) and a new class, Latin I.  You can find descriptions and schedule on the CHAT website.  I hope to see many of you again!

This week's blog

Have a great summer!

Mrs. Prichard