Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (August 29)

Greetings!

We had a great first day in class.  I'm glad to be back in class at CHAT and working with some hard-working homeschool students.  Though the set-up at Grace is different, it seems to me that students are doing well with the change.  I anticipate a great year!

My focus for the first week is to get to know the students and to introduce the materials.  I start all of my classes with a Quick Write, and today's was "I am _________ summer is over because ______ ..."  The aim of the Quick Write is to get the students thinking in a "writing sort of way."  The writing prompts for these are either light-hearted or seasonal or related to a current event.  I collect and read them, but don't correct or grade them.  

Another activity that I include at the beginning of class is a Word of the Day.  Since writing is made of words, I like to explore various types of words in order to expand our vocabulary.  Using a book of foreign words and phrases, I had the students select words that began with a letter on the "letter dice" that they rolled.  This week we had "hula" ( Hawaiian native dance with intricate arm movements that tell a story in pantomime, usually danced to rhythmic drumming and accompanied by chanting.) and "apfelstudel"  (a traditional Viennese strudel, a popular pastry in Austria with an apple filling).

I handed out the following papers to the class:

Classroom Policies

Writing 2 Fall Syllabus

Essay Rubric for Writing 2 Essays

Week 1 Grammar Handout

Introduction to My Antonia

My Antonia Study Guide

Personal Commentary Essay

We discussed the Classroom Policies handout, and part of their homework assignment is to have parents read and initial it. On it I mention 2 additional online resources that I use for the class:  a blog (http://chatwriting2.blogspot.com) and Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)  On the blog I will post the content of the Class Notes e-mails, copies of any handouts, video lessons, and posts with any interesting information or links related to our studies. Dropbox is an online document storage site, and I will have all of the handouts available there.  I will also send as attachments any papers handed out in class.  This may seem like a bit of overkill (having information in 3 places), but since I've been doing this I haven't had any instances of missing worksheets, etc.  You will be getting an invitation to join the Dropbox folder for Writing 2.  

During this fall semester, the class will write 4 essays.  The rough draft for our first one, a Personal Commentary Essay, is due next week.  The first two essays will be done in 2 steps:  rough draft and final draft.  As the essays become more complex, we'll write them in 3 steps:  pre-writing, rough draft, and final draft.  

The book we're reading for the first part of the semester is My Antonia (Willa Cather).  This is a wonderful piece of prairie literature.  It's written as an episodic narrative of the memories of a young man in Nebraska.  I'm looking forward to discussing the book with them.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Have a parent read through the Classroom Policies handout and initial it.

-- Read the handout "Introduction to My Antonia."

-- Read the first week information from the Study Guide

-- Write the rough draft of the Personal Commentary Essay

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard