Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 9 (October 23)

Greetings!

My apologies for the lateness of the week's e-mail; it's been a busy week at the Prichard home.  You never know when it's going to be this nice again for yard work.

This past week's class was a beautiful day and a wonderful class.  We began our class with the Quick Write taken from the list of college application prompts:  "What's wrong with the word."  I must say that this sparked a wonderful conversation and a little sermonette from Luke 10 about blessing others and meeting their needs as a means for evangelism.

Our Words of the Day from A Connecticut Yankee were:

Sepulchral -- fr. Latin sepilire, to bury -- N.  a tomb; Adj. gloomy, dismal

Gossamer -- fr. ME gosesomer, referring to late autumn   -- a fine, filmy cobweb; a thin airy fabric

Folderol -- late 17th century nonsense refrain in a song -- mere nonsense, foolish talk; gimcrack, gew-gaw

Clandestine -- fr. Latin, clandestinus, secretly -- characterized by secrecy and concealment 

The students had finished their mid-book quizzes, and we talked about the answers.  An intriguing result of the quiz is that students had varying opinions about whether the story was "romantic" and about the character of King Arthur. We had a long discussion about our book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and discovered that in part, both sides are right.  The students have done a wonderful job reading and interpreting the book.  We are nearing the end.

As a part of our Final for this book, each student is to bring four questions to use as part of a "Baseball Game."  (Hank brought the game of baseball to the knights in Camelot.)  They should have a Single, Double, Triple and Home Run.  In other words, the questions, and answers, range from simple to difficult.

The students have handed in the rough drafts of either the Classification or Extended Definition Essays along with the Pre-Writes.  I will hand these back to them next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Ch. 42 - Final PS.

-- 8 Vocabulary Words

-- 4 Baseball Questions

-- No grammar

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard