Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 6 (February 19)

Greetings

It was a great day at CHAT today.  Students were were attentive and engaged with our discussion.  I'm always impressed with how they can stay focused for the 90 minute classes.

We just celebrated President's Day and February 22 is George Washington's birthday.  According to General Henry Lee, Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."  I used these details for our Quick Write and had the students write to any of our country's past presidents and ask 5 questions. 

I shared with the class about a speaker, Bob Goff, whom I heard share about his children who wrote letters to world leaders.  (You can read a review of this section of his book in this review or see an excerpt on the blog.)  As a follow up assignment, I asked the class to write a letter with three questions to some world or business leader, not a sports or Hollywood personality.

Note:  Please read this review of Bob Goff's book and his letter writing adventure with his children.

Our Latin Roots of the Day:

equi -- L. same, equal -- English derivatives:  equal, equality, equilibrium, equitable, equity

equus -- L.  horse -- English derivatives:  equine, equestrian

ex -- out; out of -- English derivatives:  exit, excavate, exclude, extract

exter/extra -- L. out; outermost -- English derivatives:  extraterrestrial, exterior, extremity, external

I handed back their mystery stories. They wrote such wonderful stories, and I had a great time reading them.  I think it was good to have a change from the regular essays.  I have some on the class website; if a student has not sent  a copy of his/her story to include, there's still time.  My plan is to have the printed copy by Spring Break. 

Our next writing assignment is either a Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essay. We didn't take time to discuss it; the Pre-Writes were to be done today and the Rough Drafts are due at the next class. 

We spent some talking about our Short Story selections.  The Kipling story, "Wee Willie Winkie" was liked by most, while we had mixed responses to the Dickens story, "Nobody's Story."  We discussed what makes up a writer's style:  word choice, mood, dialogue, descriptions, etc.  We all agreed that Munro's story, "The Open Window" was clever and enjoyable.

We covered more comma exercises at the end of the class.  The students have a worksheet that deals with compound sentences, interrupters, and introductory elements.  We did some of the sentences in class.  The rest of the worksheet can be done as homework.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Write a letter to a world leader that includes 3 questions

-- Read the following authors:  Hawthorne (p. 73), Bierce (p. 101), Poe (p. 156)

-- Fill out the Short Story worksheet for one of the stories

-- Finish the Grammar Worksheet (13-4 and 13-5)

-- Rough Draft of the Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essay

This Week's Links

Class Notes

Be Secretly Incredible (about Bob Goff's letter writing adventure)

Literary Love Letters (from last week's Quick Writes)

Dr. Heidigger's Experiment audio version

The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge audio version

The Cask of Amontillado audio version with text

The Cask of Amontillado Librivox version

NOTE:  We do not have class next week on February 26.  We will meet again on March 5.

Have a great two weeks!

Mrs. Prichard