We had a good and productive class this week. My hope is that our Fall Break refreshed everyone.
I shared with the class my personal dislike for Halloween. Even as a little kid I didn't like the masks, trick or treating, etc. that are associated with this day. I also don't give much attention to the present cultural fascination for zombies, vampires, or werewolves. (I've got better things to set my mind upon.)
That said, I took my Quick Write idea from the list of suggestions from the class: What has been your scariest moment? Their responses included carnival rides, fears of certain rooms when they were little, and situations outside in the dark.
Our Words of the Day:
impasto -- fr. Italian, impastare, a paste, -- laying paint thickly or using pigmented plaster to create a raised effect
impresario -- fr. Italian, imprendere, to undertake -- a person who organizes and produces a theatrical performance
in absentia -- fr. Latin, in absentia, in [his] absence -- in the absence of a person indicated
incognito -- fr. Latin, incognitus, unknown -- having one's identity concealed, as under an assumed name
The class has settled into a good routine; while we may not spend the same amount of time on each area from week to week, we almost always have the same agenda. Following our beginning of class activities, we go through any of the homework that I passed back while they were busily writing their Quick Writes. If necessary, we go over any homework, especially grammar, that might have cause any problems.
Students handed in the rough drafts of their Extended Definition or Classification Essays. They also handed in with these their Pre-Writes. These were harder essays to write than the narratives or process essays. Many times a student will have a topic in mind, but making that topic fit the essay model is challenging. If for any reason a student can't hand these in at class, he/she can e-mail it to me. I will hand them back next week and the Final Drafts are due November 10.
The focus for most of our Grammar discussions this semester are related to common errors that I find in essays written by high school students. This week we did some work with sentence fragments. We had a handout the explained the most common mistakes students make that lead to writing incomplete sentences. Of course, in order to understand this topic, students also are learning about compound sentences, subordinate/dependent clauses, and participial phrases. We took about 15 minutes for the students to work in groups on two worksheets focusing on revising sentences.
This next week the students are to finish reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. This has been a long book for some of the students, mostly due to Twain's challenging writing style. They have done a great job answering the study guide questions with thoughtful insights.
One of Hank's contributions to Camelot was the game of baseball. The chapter where the knights are trying to play this national past-time in their armor is pretty humorous. (Imagine the Cubs trying to win the World Series dressed in tin cans and not breathable and movable cotton and spandex.) As part of the "Final" for the class, we will play a baseball game, but instead of balls being thrown, students will be "pitching" questions to their classmates. In two weeks, they are to bring questions for me to use in putting together these "pitches." They are to vary in difficulty: singles (very easy), double (somewhat easy), triples (hard), home runs (very hard).
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read ACY: Chapter 42 - Final PS
-- Answer 4 Study Guide Questions
-- Define 8 Vocabulary Words
-- Baseball Questions (Due November 10)
-- 2 Sentence Fragment Worksheets (if not finished in class)
Links for this Week
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment