Greetings!
It's great to be back at CHAT again. Students were lively and alert, and I have good material planned for this semester that I'm excited to teach. We will also have a new student in the class. The more the merrier, I always say!
We began the day, as usual, with a Quick Write. Government and politics seemed to be on the minds of many, so I intentionally chose a different topic. In 1898, the first intercollegiate hockey game was played between Brown and Harvard. In 1905, a new bike race was announced, the Tour de France. And finally, in 1939 Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin set a record of 4.4 seconds for chicken plucking. With these events in mind, I asked the students to write about their favorite athletic (or unusual) competition.
Last semester, I tested the students on our Words of the Day. We won't be having a test for Words of the Day this semester, but we will continue to deliberately work on building our vocabularies. We're starting with Latin roots, and our words this week were:
amo -- fr. Latin, amare; to love -- English derivatives: amicable, amorous, amateur, enamored
aqua -- fr. Latin, aqua, aquae; water -- English derivatives: aquifer, aqueous, aquarium, aquatic, aquamarine
aqua -- fr. Latin, aqua, aquae; water -- English derivatives: aquifer, aqueous, aquarium, aquatic, aquamarine
audi -- fr. Latin audire; to hear -- English derivatives: audio, audiophile, auditory, auditorium, audition
The next item on my agenda for class was "New Stuff." I handed out the Syllabus for the semester and gave a concise overview of our Writing, Grammar, and Literature units. I'm trying something new this semester. We begin the semester reading Sherlock Holmes Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love mysteries, and most students enjoy these reading assignments. We talked about key characteristics of detective literature and some specific detectives that we know. Students were given a handout with background information and also a study guide for the short stories.
The first writing assignment for this term is a bit of a shift from our regular essay writing. One year, some students asked if we could do some creative writing, so, I changed my coursework a bit to include that. Since we're reading about Sherlock Holmes, I've assigned the students to write a Mystery Story. Some students will find this to be great fun, while others may have a harder time. The Pre-Write is due next week. For some inspiration, students can check out the stories on the blog from last year's students. (Check the right hand sidebar for the story pages.)
This semester, we will focus on commas. My hopes are that they will be "Masters of the Comma" by the end of the semester. This week, we went over using commas with compound sentences.
Be on the alert for another email with information about online resources.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read A Scandal in Bohemia and The Red-Headed League
-- Answer 4 Study Guide questions for either or both of the stories
-- Mystery Story Pre-Write
-- 2 Grammar Worksheets
-- FANBOYS Worksheet
-- Compound Sentences worksheet
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment