We are off to a good start here in Writing 1. One aspect I noticed last week is that it is hard to enter into class discussions when you don't know your classmates very well, so we did the Quick Write this week in a collaborative manner. After putting the students into small groups, I asked them to make lists about their favorite parts of the State Fair or about their favorite "fair food." They were then to share their lists with one another; when we came together as a whole class, they were to share what someone in their group had said. They did really well with this activity.
Our Words of the Day:
candid -- (fr. Latin, candidus, white); frank, outspoken, open and sincere
blether -- (fr. Old Norse, blathr, nonsense); foolish talk
magnanimity -- (fr. Latin, magnus, great, large); a high-minded, noble act
Following our beginning activities, we discussed the Essay assignment. I handed out the rubric that I use to evaluate their final drafts. Rough drafts can be really polished or really rough, and all students get the same score for their assignments. The final drafts are the papers that I evaluate for quality. I asked the students to look over the rubric and to think about where they currently see themselves as writers and which area they would like to improve the most.
Students handed in the rough drafts of their Personal Commentary Essays, which I will correct and hand back next week. We discussed ways that homework can be handed in: 1) put in the homework bin during class time when it's due; 2) emailed as an attachment; 3) shared as a Google doc; 4) brought to class the week after it's due.
Students were also given handouts about Drafting the Essay and PreWriting Strategies.
During the Grammar section of class this week, we reviewed the 8 parts of speech: interjections, verbs, adjectives, nouns, conjunctions, adverbs, pronouns, and prepositions. Last year in Writing 1, the students worked in groups to learn these parts of speech. For students who were not in this class, I'm attaching a couple review sheets that cover this information. A lot of the grammar we will be doing this year will be in the context of their own essays.
We discussed our new book, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Although this book is a typical high school text, many students find the book challenging to read because of the unusual vocabulary and more complicated sentence structures. We discussed how writing styles of American literature have changed over the years. One way for students to make their ways through this book is by using audio versions. A favorite place to find free versions of many books is Librivox, and many times those recordings are also on Youtube. (I'll provide links below.)
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 7 - 14
-- Answer 4 Study Guide questions
-- Find and define 8 Vocabulary Words
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Enjoy this beautiful weekend!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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