We had a good class today. Sometimes we have a lot of discussion, and other times the format is more instructional. Today we had a good mix.
Our Quick Write for the day initially stumped the students. First, I gave the birth date of March 26, 2228. I added the clue that the place in which this person will be born is a small town in Iowa. Then, I wrote Gene Roddenberry on the board. Older persons will by now know that I'm referring to Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk. Today, supposedly, is his birthday. I asked the students to write a science fiction-related Quick Write.
Our Latin Roots for the Day:
junct -- L. to join; together -- English derivatives: conjunction, junction, join, joint, conjoined, conjugation
-ject -- L. to throw (from jacere) -- English derivatives: inject, interject, subject, object, reject, project, dejected, adjective; also jet and javelin have the same roots.
Our next writing assignment is am Evaluation Essay. This is the last "from scratch" paper that they will write this year since the final assignment is an essay re-write. We began discussing the importance of establishing criteria for the topic of our essays. Using the example of straw bale gardening, we brainstormed what would make good criteria for an essay. We also discussed the criteria for a good introduction and a good conclusion. An essay can fall or rise on the strength of the introduction and conclusion.
Students were assigned two short stories by European writers, which we briefly discussed. Luigi Pirandello write "With Other Eyes," a story of a young woman, married to an older man, who realizes that her love is not really returned. The second story, "A Piece of String," by Guy de Maupassant deals with themes of reputation and shame. Both of these stories are set in the distant European past when cultural norms and expectations vary greatly from our 21st century lives.
We finished the class with a Grammar worksheet. We've finished with commas and are working with other bits of punctuation. Today's worksheets dealt with italics and punctuating direct quotes. I gave the students 2 worksheets, which we started in class.
Assignments for April 9
-- Write the Rough Draft of the Evaluation Essay
-- Read the following short stories:
Sherwood Anderson's "The Egg" (p.1)
Nella Larsen's "The Sanctuary" (p.110)
Thomas Hardy's "Squire Petrick's Lady" (p.56)
-- Finish The Grammar Worksheets
This Week's Links:
Class Notes
See you all in two weeks!
Have a blessed Easter!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment