We had a good class this week. The students continue to work hard on their writing, literature, and grammar topics.
Our Quick Write this week was in recognition of Charles Lindbergh's birthday, whose birthday was February 4, and his solo, trans-Atlantic flight. This flight took 33 1/2 hours. I asked the students to write what and whom they would take with them to survive such a long road trip. They responded with a variety of snack ideas, activities, and companions.
Our Latin Roots for the day:
dicta/dictum -- L. to say; speak -- English derivatives: dictionary, diction, dictator, Dictaphone
dorm/dormio -- L. to sleep -- English derivatives: dorm room, dormitory, dormant, dormancy
duco/duct -- L. to lead -- English derivatives: duct, abduct, conductor, introduce (No, "duck" is not from this root!)
Our first order of business, following our beginning of class activities, was to go over the rough drafts of the Mystery Stories. I have to say that reading/correcting these has been the most enjoyable "homework" that I've ever had. This is an amazing group of writers. Rather than going through a long list of grammar topics related to the rough drafts, I covered grammar topics more related to fiction writing. Punctuation with dialogue, indenting dialogue and paragraphs, and consistent verb tenses in storytelling was discussed.
As we continue learning about Comma Usage, our topic for the day was restrictive (essential) and non-restrictive (non-essential). The biggest guideline to remember:
Restrictive/Essential Clauses -- NO COMMA
Non-restrictive/Non-essential -- USE A COMMA
Since we've finished the Sherlock Holmes book, we're ready to start the next book, Great, Great Short Stories. We will be using this book until we switch to our final poetry book. The first set of stories were written by Russian authors. For some of the stories, I've found online audio versions that might be helpful for the students. If a student wants to use these, I encourage that he/she reads along with the book in hand.
They have a work sheet to go with this first set of stories. They are assigned 3 stories; the worksheet is to go with 2 of the 3 stories.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read the following stories:
The Three Hermits (Tolstoy, p. 169)
A Malefactor (Pushkin, p. 162)
The Coffin-Maker (Chekhov, p. 26)
-- Final Draft of the Narrative Essay
Links for this Week
Class Notes
The Three Hermits (audio)
A Malefactor (audio)
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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