Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 5 (Sept. 25)

Greetings!

We had a great class today.  Students were engaged and we covered a lot of material.  

Our Quick Write the morning was in honor of tomorrow's birthday of Johnny Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, who was born in 1744.  The students could either write about their favorite way to eat apples OR they could make up a story about someone's seed-sowing adventure.  Someone wrote about Nan who planted nectarines, another mentioned a money tree, and someone else wrote of Jimmy Crabapple, Johnny's little-known cousin.

Below are the Words of the Day, brought to us by Connor, Jaden, Joe, and Taylor:

Ossifying -- fr. Latin, ossis, bone -- to become rigid or inflexible in habits, opinions, attitudes, etc.

Declivity -- fr. Latin, de + clivitas, down + slope -- a downward slope, as of ground

Dolorous -- fr. Latin, dolor, grief, pain --  feeling or expressing great sorrow, pain or distress

Impious -- fr. Latin impius, without reverence -- not pious or religious, lacking reverence for God.

I handed back a number of papers, including study guide questions, Quick Writes, grammar worksheets, and the Final Drafts of their Personal Essays.  I used a rubric for the essays.  If you look at it (attached to this e-mail) you'll see that the papers were evaluated in four areas (Focus, Content, Organization, and Mechanics) and at four levels (Beginning Developing, Proficient, and Advanced)  Since this was our first paper of the year and almost half of the students are new to my way of grading, I was generous in my scores.  To be honest, scores don't mean a lot when writing because so much of the evaluation is subjective.  What's most important is that students are learning and using skills in order to grow with each writing assignment.

After talking through the rubric, I took time to discuss the Focus section, in particular the thesis, introduction, and conclusion.  We reviewed my equation for the thesis statement and talked about the elements that need to be included in the intros and conclusions.  This is somewhat familiar material for the students, but review never hurts.

I accidentally gave the students the Grammar worksheets that I had set out for Writing 1 rather than the pile for Writing 2.  The mistake wasn't discovered until names had been put on papers, and some had started on the worksheets.  The lesson was on nouns and pronouns.  Since I had planned to cover this material later in the semester, we went ahead and learned about types of nouns and noun/pronoun agreement.  They are to do the worksheet (2-9).

With the remaining time in class, I read aloud the portion of ACY in which Hank "breaks the spell" over the broken well.  Members of the class mentioned that Hank was a bit self-serving and took advantage of others for his gain and reputation.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Ch. 24 - 27 in ACY

-- Write out answers to 4 Study Guide questions and do 8 vocabulary words.

-- Complete the Noun/Pronoun Worksheet

This Week's Blogs:

Class Notes

Nouns & Pronouns and Agreement

Links to Resources for Introductions and Conclusions

Have a great weekend.  The weather is supposed to be wonderful.  Enjoy!

Mrs. Prichard

Links to Introductions/Conclusions Resources

Class,
Below are some helpful links to other resources about the value of introductions and conclusions:

The Writing Center
Writing at U of Toronto
Taft College Online Writing Lab

Nouns & Pronouns and Agreement

NOUNS

A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, idea, or quality.

Categories for nouns:

Common

Proper

Compound

Collective

As adverbs

Concrete

Abstract

Countable

Non-countable

Verbal nouns (gerunds)

Nouns fill the following places in sentences: 

Subject

Direct object

Indirect object

Object of a preposition

Predicate Noun

PRONOUNS

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun.  An antecedent is a word or group of words to which a pronoun refers.  If the antecedent is singular, the pronoun must be singular.  If the antecedent is plural, then the pronoun must be plural.

           

Various types of pronouns

Personal

            Subjective case

            Objective case

            Possessive case

Reflexive or intensive

Demonstrative

Relative

Interrogative

Extended

Indefinite

Agreement:  Pronoun-Antecedent

The rules for agreement are simple, but need emphasizing because breaking them often goes unnoticed.  Simply, every verb must agree with its subject in number (singular or plural); every pronoun must agree with its antecedent in number (singular or plural).

PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT

Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in both number and gender.  Also, pronouns should be placed as closely as possible to the antecedent.

Special Problems of Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

1.  The indefinite pronouns listed under No. 5 (above) need a singular pronoun.

Examples:

Anyone can succeed if she tries.

Everyone brought a gift for his writing teacher.

Someone should admit his unwillingness to excel in grammar.

2.  Plural indefinite pronouns require plural pronouns.

Examples:

Several of the participants quit because they were tired.

A few in the front row had paid significant amounts for their tickets.

I kept my seat on the bus, but others had to change theirs.

3.  Those indefinite pronouns that are either singular or plurl take singular or plural pronouns accordingly.

Examples:

Some of the dog’s leash twisted itself around the clothesline.

None of the students had their pencils with them and were scolded by their teacher.

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 4 (Sept. 18)

Greetings!

We had a full class this week. I'm always amazed at how quickly that hour and a half goes.  Ideally, I try to divide the class into three equal sections:  writing, literature, and grammar.  Some days we concentrate more on one area than the other, and the time is always full and productive.

Because Wednesday was William Carlos Williams' birthday (and I realize that I am one of the few in the world who even noticed/cared), we commemorated the day with a salute to his poem, "The Red Wheel Barrow."  For the Quick Write, I asked the students to think of a common, everyday item and then to write a poem about it.  A couple of students shared their poetry with the class; those who didn't want to recite their poems had the option to have it added to the class blog.  I'll type those in this weekend.

Our Words of the Day were once again from our book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (ACY).  Jesse, David, Nathan, and Caroline volunteered words this week:

Usufruct:  (fr. Latin usus, use, n + fructus, fruit,n) -- the right to enjoy the use of something that belongs to someone elseUndulatory:  (fr. undulatus, wave) -- having the appearance or effect of wavesVesuvius:  the volcano in SW Italy the erupted and destroyed Pompeii

Rapacious:  (fr. Latin rapere, to seize) -- inordinately greedy

The students handed in their final drafts of the Personal Essays.  I will grade these and be ready to hand them back next week.  Some students forgot their rough drafts; if it's possible to scan these and e-mail them to me, that would be great.  If not, that's OK.  I like to have the rough drafts so that I can see what changes were made and how carefully the essay was revised.  For these first essays of the year I do a lot of modelling of how to correct sentences.  As the year progresses, I will mark sentences/phrases as needing correction, and the students will make the revisions.  

The next essay is a Process Essay.  These are to be essays about any kind of process and must include a thesis (topic + opinion).  They can write about common everyday processes or about more complex, abstract topics.  This does not need to be researched, so it should be something about which they have some familiarity.  The rough drafts of this essay are due next week.

We used the study guide questions to lead us in our discussion of ACY.  Our Yankee, Hank, is currently questing with the loquacious Sandy; we discussed the quest, Morgan le Fay, magic, and the propensity of the people of Camelot to lie.  For next week, they should read Chapters 20 - 24, write out answers to 3 study guide questions, and choose 5 vocabulary words.

Last week our Grammar discussions focused on the errors found in the rough drafts.  This week we took time to discuss sentence structures, including the necessary punctuation.  One of the most common mistakes that I correct in my students's writing is the missing comma in a compound sentence. The following examples may look like a secret code to some, but the students will know what it means:

Simple Sentence:  S-V  or  S &S - V  or  S-V & V

Compound sentence:  S-V, fanboys S-V

Complex sentence:  Sub Clause, S-V  of  S-V sub clause

They should complete the packet on Sentence Structures for next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Write the rough draft of the Process Essay

-- Read Chapters 20 - 23 of ACY

-- Answer 3 study guide questions and choose 5 vocabulary words

-- Complete Sentence worksheets.

This week's blogs:

Class Notes

About William Carlos Williams

More about William Carlos Williams

Conjunction Junction video

Compound Sentences and Coordinating Conjunction video

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (Sept. 11)

Greetings!

Today was a good day in class.  Since it is 9/11, I had the students write a short Quick Write titled "Patriot Day."  In 2009, September 11 was named Patriot Day as a means of memorial and as an encouragement to Americans to offer volunteer service to others.  I asked the students to write about some way they give service or would like to give service to others.  I appreciated the comments that they shared.

Our Words of the Day were volunteered up by students from their vocabulary lists from our book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  The words today were:

-- Blatherskite-- (fr. a 1650 Scottish song) a person given talking too much nonsense and empty talk

-- Objurgate -- (fr. L, objugare, to reproach)  to denounce or scold harshly

-- Swag -- (fr. Norwegian , svagga to sway, rock)  a large number, amount, or variety

-- Anecdote -- (fr. Greek, anekdota, to give out, publish)  a short story or account of an event

Remember:  These words from the novel will be part of an end of the semester test.

We took most of the class to discuss their rough drafts.  One of my strategies is to go over these and to discuss the most common errors.  I feel that students can learn more about grammar and writing as they write and make mistakes than they can from worksheets.  We talked about commas, compound sentences, pronoun/noun agreement, formatting, "There is/are" sentence structures, and avoiding the word "things."  For next week, they are to revise/edit/correct their rough drafts and make them final drafts.  I gave them a half-sheet on which they are to list their first 5 errors and then the area that they would like to work on for their next paper.

Although we spent most of the time talking about the rough drafts, we were able to take the last few minutes to talk about A Connecticut Yankee.  The hero, Hank, is on a quest with the most talkative female on the face of the earth.  He scares other knights with pipe smoke coming out his his armor helmet.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Ch. 15 - 19

-- Choose 4 Study Questions & 8 Vocabulary Words

-- Correct and revise rough drafts.

This Week's Blog

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 & Dropbox

Greetings!

I have added all of the e-mails for Writing 2 to the Dropbox account, and you should already have an invitation in your e-mail Inbox that gives you a link to the files.  You can access these files without downloading Dropbox to your computer and without setting up an account.  (I've used Dropbox for cloud storage for quite a  while, and I've been really happy with it.)

When students were missing worksheets or handouts during that first year that I taught at CHAT, they had to wait a week to get new ones, often causing assignments to be 2 weeks late.  While using regular e-mails, Dropbox, and the blog may be more than some families need, it seems that in the course of the year, and handful of students or parents accesses each of these resources on a regular basis.  Feel free to use what works for you and ignore the rest.

I'm busy reading rough drafts of our first essay.  This is a thoughtful bunch of students.

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard 

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (Sept. 4)

Greetings!

(Firstly, my apologies for the lateness of this update.  Our family had neither phone nor internet connections until Sunday afternoon.  We survived quite well without them, but some work items were delayed.) 

We had a good, productive day in class this week.  The prompt for our Quick Write was inspired by the 50^th anniversary of Gilligan’s Island (one of my favorite childhood TV shows.)  The students were to write about being stranded somewhere.  We had some students in some unusual places, including a time machine. 

 Our Words of the Day came from the students.  I had four volunteers contribute words from our literature:

-- Hinder (to pause or interrupt)

-- Timorous  (fearful, timid)

-- Malediction  (a curse, imprecation)

-- Odsbodikins  (a mild oath, exclamation)

Students handed in their Personal Essays.  I will go over these and hand them back next week.  I am fairly thorough with my marks and comments on these rough crafts.  Much of the learning about writing comes as students revise and correct their rough drafts for the final drafts.

We began our discussions about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (ACY).  The students were to read chapters 1 – 6.  We discussed Mark Twain’s situational and verbal humor.  We listed adjectives that we felt described Hank, our Yankee who finds himself in Camelot.  Some students already like the book, but most aren’t sure.

We discussed the Grammar lesson from Week 1:  The Sentence.  I use a basic equation for the formation of a sentence:

     Subject (Noun) + Verb + Complete Thought = A Sentence

We discussed sentence fragments and ways to correct a run-on sentence.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Chapters 7 – 14 of ACY.\

 -- Write out answers to 4 Study Questions and choose 8 vocabulary words

-- 2 Grammar worksheets:  Sentence Fragments

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard