Thursday, January 30, 2014

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 30)

Greetings!
It was good to see everyone today after last week's cancelled classes.  With the poor driving weather, I'm also glad to see that we were all safe.  My commute was almost 3 hours, so the class had to start on their Quick Writes on their own.

Our Quick Write for today centered on Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) whose birthday was today in 1882.  He was an avid stamp collector (a philatelist), and I had the students write about a collection they had or one that they knew of. 
Next on the agenda was a discussion of the Sherlock Holmes stories that we have been reading.  Of the six stories in the book, we've read four of them.  I divided the class into four groups and assigned each group to go through one of the stories and look for specific places in the text that describe Holmes.  As groups, they presented to the rest of the class some good analysis of their story and some great descriptions of Holmes's character, personality, skill, and motivation.
For next week, the students are to write a Take Home Essay Final.  I had forgotten to make copies of the handout that explains the guidelines for this:
What Makes a Hero?

Is Holmes a hero?  What qualities do you admire in heroes?  In at least 3 paragraphs, discuss whether or not Holmes possesses these qualities, using examples from the text.  Specific instances and quotes should support your comments.  You may want to consider whether some of the flaws Watson acknowledges keep Holmes from becoming truly heroic in their eyes.  Feel free to compare Holmes with other literary characters.

Our Grammar focuses  for a few weeks are verbal phrases.  the worksheets they were assigned last week had them working with participial phrases, and we discussed gerund phrases today.  These phrases are verbals -- various forms of verbs that are used not as action words but as adjectives (participles) and nouns (gerunds)
The students handed in the rough drafts of their Problem/Solution Essays.  I will hand them back next week.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read the final 2 Sherlock Holmes stories
-- Write an essay to answer the "Hero" question
-- Finish Worksheet 6-5
This week's blogs
Class Notes
Sherlock Holmes Take Home Final

Have a great weekend and stay warm!
Mrs. Prichard

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