Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 15 (December 12)

Greetings!

Well, we've had a great first semester.  The students have done some good reading and writing for the class, and I believe we've all learned a bit along the way.

This week, our last class of the term before a nice long Christmas break, was half work and half play.  We began the class, as always, with a Quick Write.  Driving up from Northfield that morning, I heard the radio announcers tell that it was National Ding-a-ling day. (Upon further research, no one really knows the origin or the meaning of said day.) I gave the students an option,  They could use that little bit of trivia as a writing prompt or my singing elf hat.  If they wanted, they could combine them.  

We finished the class with a test on the Words of the Day that we've accumulated over the semester.  It wasn't a very hard test; the questions were either matching, multiple choice, true/false, or fill in the blank questions.  My goal was for them to have another opportunity to engage in these less-than-common words and phrases.  My ultimate goal is to make them into lovers of words!

They handed in their Comparison/Contrast Essays; I will correct them over break and get them back the first week of the next term.  If any students are not planning on taking the Spring semester of Writing 2, let me know, and I will mail these to you.  

For the last bit of the class, students shared their Christmas poetry and readings before we played a great word game, Funglish.  Our family has had a lot of playing this game in which you try to get people to guess a word using only little cards with adjectives on them. The only problem with this game is that it can get a bit loud as you are trying to out-guess your neighbor with the limited clues.  I think everyone enjoyed it.

I will be grading papers next week and will have suggested grades out after the first of the year. I'll be sharing some more thoughts about grades later. Like all of you, this is a busy time of year.  At our house, we're not only getting ready for Christmas, but we're getting my 19 year old son  ready to go to Thailand for a YWAM DTS. When my son't original plans fell through, this class prayed for our situation.  Many thanks! 

May the Lord bless you during this busy time. May you enjoy your families and the great gift of Jesus.  I just read in 2 Corinthians 5: 21 this morning:  "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  What an amazing gift!

Until next year,

Mrs. Prichard 

Writing 1 Class Notes -- December 2 (Week 14)

Greetings!

We are just one week from the end of a great semester.  Unfortunately, this last week was 1/2 an hour shorter than usual because I was late for class due to traffic on the roads the day after the snow storm.

When I got to the class, I found not only the Quick Write that Mrs. Nelson wrote for me, but a list that the class put together regarding who was in charge.  On most days, whenever I leave the room, I usually put someone in charge of the classroom, another in charge of the first person in charge, and a third person to evaluate how it all went. Since I had not yet gotten to school, they put their own order into place.  What a great group of kids!

For the Quick Write, I asked the students to write about their Thanksgiving Days using 10 different adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs.  From their writings, we chose some of their favorite word choices to use for our Words of the Day.  Here's the list of the words:  copious, mangled, frozen, thankful, contemplation, grateful, tart, Winkelman, quirky.    We had a discussion about these words and how they could be changed into other parts of speech.

Following this discussion, we went into the paragraphs they had written from paragraphs of John Steinbeck's from the Grapes of Wrath.  They all got a chance to read their paragraphs, and it was fascinating to hear how they rewrote these passages. Some were more descriptive and others were less. We even had a couple of Shakespearean-styled passages.  We had a great discussion about words and how they affect the mood and meaning.  

I handed back to the students their rough drafts of their Comparison/Contrast Essays.  We discussed briefly some of the common errors.  In the early days of the class, I did a lot of editing of their essays.  As we progress through the various essays, they will do more of that editing themselves.

Next week is our last week for the semester.  The class will be 1/2 final exam and 1/2 party.  For the exam part,the students should review the Words of the Day for the past 14 weeks.  They can find those on the blog and on past e-mails.  For the party part, they are to bring some Christmas poetry or reading.  These do not need to be original works.  We will use them to entertain one another.  The may also bring treats if they like.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Copy of Comparison/Contrast Essay
-- Review Words of the Day

-- Bring a Christmas poem of short reading to share with the class.

-- Bring treats, opt.

If you haven't signed up for next semester, and are planning to, contact CHAT.  I will be ordering books for next semester soon.

This week's blog

Class Notes

Have a great weekend.  See you on Thursday!

Mrs. Prichard