Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 8 (October 17)

Greetings!

We had a good, full class today.  I had a lot of papers to hand back and discuss in addition to discussing our next writing assignment and My Antonia.

I used a game that I had purchased in England for our Quick Write.  The game, Give Me 5, is very similar to Scattegories, but for the Quick Writes the students were to use the categories as topics to include in their writing.  It was interesting to hear how the students connected the odd mix of topics.

Our Words of the Day were:

anathema -- Greek:  a person or thing despised or that which inspires loathing.

habitue -- French:  a frequent or habitual visitor to a place

Following our beginning-of-class activities, we discussed the Grammar Quizzes that were taken during class last week.  The test was part fill in the blank, some sentence corrections, a few prepositional phrases identification, and 7 sentence building activities.  I've found that many students have an instinctive knowledge of grammar usage, but they don't always know the terms.  We'll continue to work on grammar topics throughout the year.  

I handed back their Final Drafts of their Process Essays.  I used the rubric that I had used for the last essay.  Most students are firmly in the "proficient" category and are working towards the "exceptional" kind of essay.  The rubric is to be used not only for evaluation but as a learning tool.

We discussed out next writing assignment.  The students may choose between a Classification Essay or an Extended Definition Essay.  In order to demonstrate how an essay must answer enough questions to make a topic clear, we played a short game of "20 Questions."  Especially as they write the Extended Definition, they will need to be able to explain what the topic is or is not.

We also discussed a handout on Introductions and Conclusions.  For this next essay, I'd like them to pay special attention as they write the introductions and conclusions.  

Next week we will finish our book, My Antonia.  The following week we'll have presentations by the students.  They are preparing to discuss some aspect of the setting, a character, a theme, or the structure of the novel.  For next week, we'll read the last section of the book, but no discussion questions are assigned.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Write the Rough Draft of the Classification or Extended Definition essays

     -- Pay special attention to the writing of your introduction or conclusion

-- Read p. 154 - 175 of My Antonia  (NO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!)

-- Prepare for the presentations for My Antonia 

This week's blog posts:

Class Notes

Introductions and Conclusions