We've had a great start to our Spring semester. It's always good to see the students again after a long break.
Our agenda for the class will follow pretty much the same pattern that I've used all year. We start with a Quick Write, move on to the Words of the Day, and then into our content areas: writing, literature, and grammar. Some times we take rabbit trails or stay on one topic longer than others, but this is fairly standard for our weekly class time.
This week, our Quick Write prompts were inspired by the birthdays of two notable men. Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, and A.A. Milne was born on January 18, 1882. I asked the students to either write about some invention or community service group that they thought the world needed or to propose another childhood toy/companion similar to Winnie-the-Pooh. We had a couple of cool inventions mentioned and some story ideas.
Our Words of the Day will be coming from my book Foreign Words and Phrases. The plan is to have a different student every week choose words from this book. This week, our words were:
detritus -- Latin, deterere, "to rub away" -- any disintegrated material or debris
Katzenjammer -- German, katzen, "cat" & jammer, "discomfort, wailing" -- an uproar or wailing, akin to cats yowling
pyromaniac -- Greek, pyro, "fire" & mania, "madness" -- someone who compulsively sets things on fire.
The first class of the semester usually entails handing out a lot of papers, which I did. The first was a Class Policies sheet that reviews the information from the fall, but also has two new points of interest. The first new point is connected to homework. In an effort to recognize the realities of life and with concern for the best learning opportunities for the students, I'm revising my "you can hand in any late homework" to one that allows late homework only up until three weeks after the work was assigned. The other new detail concerns absences and tardys. Please read the Class Policies sheet and initial it. Also, please let me know if you are getting the e-mails.
The next handout was the Syllabus for the semester. This has the topics we'll cover and the weekly assignments. This piece of paper should have a prominent place in their folders.
Our first book of this semester is a compilation of short stories about Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Each week, we will read 2 of the 6 short stories. The students were given a handout describing the main elements of a detective story, a page of quotes by Holmes from the stories, and a study guide.
In keeping with our mysteries theme, the first writing assignment for the semester is a mystery story. A few years back, some students lobbied to have me include one creative writing opportunity, and these seemed a good place to fit it in. I must confess, that these have become some of my favorite pieces of student writing. If you are curious about past stories, some of them are on the blog, listed in the far right-hand side of the page. For any student who REALLY doesn't want to try his/her hand at story writing, I've also offered another option: write an essay about something that seems a mystery or explainable.
For our Grammar work this semester, I'm focusing on areas where I see common mistakes in students' writing. Our first topic is parallel structures. We discussed this topic, and students started on their worksheet.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Class Policies signature
-- Read "Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Red-Headed League"
-- Answer 4 questions in any combination from the 2 stories
-- Mystery Pre-Write
-- Grammar Worksheet -- Parallel Structures
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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