I love how the students come in after lunch ready for class. They are a bright and attentive group!
Students were given two options for the Quick Write. Thursday was the 50th anniversary of the pilot episode of Star Trek, and they could write something about the show or about "space" shows. Alternately, they could continue the food theme from previous weeks and write about their favorite or least favorite foods. As I expected, a number of students hated foods that others loved. Isn't this diverse world amazing!
Our Words of the Day came from individual students, who had selected them from our literature, A Connecticut Yankee.
picturesque -- visually charming or quaint, as if resembling or suitable for a painting
anomalous -- deviating from or inconsitent with the common order, form, or rule; irregular; abnormal
impregnable -- strong enough to resist or withstand attack; not to be taken by force, unconquerable
Our next item on the agenda for the day was to discuss the Rough Drafts. My practice is to go over the most common grammatical or mechanical errors when I hand back these papers. In fact, I feel this is a far more effective way to teach grammar because it is in the context of a student's actual use of the knowledge. Since this is the first essay of the year, I also walked students through the symbols that I use. For these papers, some of the most common errors were:
-- Compound sentences & commas (to discuss this, we usually need to spend a lot of time on basic sentence construction)
-- Contractions
-- Paragraph construction
-- Numbers
I believe there is some confusion about the Homework related to these essays. Students write their rough drafts and hand them in on the due dates. Then, I take them home and go over them, marking errors and making comments. I bring them in the following week, and the students are to take the essays and make corrections. The result, the Final Draft, is then brought to class, and that version of the essay is the one that I evaluate for a score that reflects their work.
Our literature discussion this week focused on the characters whom we had meet so far in the book. Some times a book is all about the plot, and sometimes it's about the characters. A key for understanding this book at a deeper level is to know how the characters.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapter 15 - 19
-- 4 Study Questions
-- 8 Vocabulary Words
-- Final Draft of Personal Commentary Essay
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Enjoy the weather!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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