Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 22)

Greetings!

We had a full class and great discussions yesterday.  They've worked hard this semester, and their spring break is well-deserved!

For our Quick Write today, they could choose from three options:

1.  The first day of spring was this week and next week is Spring Break.  Any plans?

2.  Yesterday was National Common Courtesy Day.  What can they do to increase the levels of politeness and respect in the world around them.

3.  Yesterday was National French Bread Day.  What would they do with a good loaf of French bread?

We had some great comments about lack of respect that we see in the world today.  And while the students might not say anything to you, they realized that parents who are intentional and diligent in training towards respect, courtesy, and honor should be thanked because these characteristics are really needed.

We didn't have any "official" Words of the Day this week, but we did have a brief discussion about the word "word" and the word "of."  As a Germanic language, many of our small, every day words have Germanic roots, but because England was invaded multiple times by the French and Romans, we also have a lot of borrowed words, especially in our academic or religious vocabulary.

As I promised last week, we had a Quiz today with questions about their assigned short stories for today.  If they had read their stories, the questions were pretty easy.  On the other hand, if they had not done the reading, they would not have been able to answer them.  I don't do quizzes like this very often -- just often enough to keep them on their toes.  When we finished the quiz, we discussed "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin.  Every year, I get different interpretations of this story.  Some see the mother as frivolous and selfish while others see the justification in the way she spent her money and time.  You can read this story here -- how do you interpret the story?

The Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essays have been handed in, and we're on to the next essay.  (This will be the last "from scratch" essay that they will do this year.)  This essay is an Evaluation Essay, and it is a little more involved than some of the others.  For this essay, the students are to first establish some criteria that they will use to evaluate their topic.  Similar to the Sherlock Holmes Final Essay in which they first defined what a hero was and then used that definition to determine whether Holmes was or was not a hero, the students will explain the criteria, determine what good and bad look like in those areas, and then evaluate their topic.  We brainstormed how we might do this with a political figure, a book, or a type of restaurant.    The Pre-Writes for these should be done by the week after break.

For our Grammar work, we did some work with comma splice and run on sentences.  We worked on them in class so that they could ask questions.  We've gone over this material, but it takes a while for it to fully stick in our heads so that it makes a difference in our writing.

Assignments for April 5

-- Evaluation Essay Pre-Write

-- Read Pirandello (p. 149); de Maupassant (p. 134);

-- Write 3 Discussion Questions for each story

-- 2 Grammar Worksheets

     -- Correcting Comma Splice

     -- Run-on Sentences Practice

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Evaluation Essay

Correction Comma Splice Sentences

Run-on Sentences Practice

Have a WONDERFUL Spring Break!

Mrs. Prichard

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due April 5; Rough Draft due April 12;  Final Draft due April 26

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 15)

Greetings!

We had another good class.  This is such a friendly group of students, and they interact well with each other and with our discussion topics.

I gave the students four ideas for Quick Writes.  Firstly, it was the Ides of March (3/15), which is the date that the Roman Senators killed Julius Caesar, so they could write about something political.  Wednesday was Pi Day (3/14), so they could write about something mathematical.  I also gave them a prompt from one of my creative writing books:  "Eva looked at the egg in her hand.  There was nothing left for her to do but contact the FBI."  And finally, if nothing inspired them with these prompts, they could draw a picture of a flower yawning.  I had quite a variety of creative responses!

Our Words of the Day were chosen by Daniel

Calvados-- an apple brandy named after the city of Calvados in the Normandy region of France

voortrekker --    a member of one of the groups of Dutch-speaking people who migrated by wagon from the Cape Colony into the interior from 1836 onward, in order to live beyond the borders of British rule.

inamorata-- from the Latin word, amo, "to love" -- a girl friend

mot-- from French, short for bon mot, a pithy, witty word -- 

I handed back the Rough Drafts of their Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Essays.  Some of the essays tackled pretty significant issues, and the students offered some thoughtful responses.  A couple were more light-hearted and creative.  Both types were enjoyable to read.As is my practice, I like to go over common errors that I find in the papers in mini grammar or writing lessons. The most common errors include commas with introductory elements, commas with compound sentences, commas with complex sentences, subject/verb agreement and noun/pronoun agreement.

The next item on our agenda was to discuss our Short Stories. This week our discussion was focused on Bret Harte's "The Luck of Roaring Camp."   For next week, students should make sure that they read all of the stories because I heard a rumor that there might be another quiz.

For the grammar section, our lesson today was again on complex sentences.  For the most part, unless students have practice identifying and then have practice with their own writing, I feel that a lot of grammar instruction goes in one ear and out the other because they don't see an immediate need for the information.  That's why I take time talking about their own writing and the grammar issues that I find while correcting.

A note about absences and homework:  When students are absent due to an illness, travel, or some other activity, it is up to them to find out what they are missing.  All missing worksheets can be found in at least one of the following places:  attached to the class notes, a shared Google document (f it's a pdf), or as a blog post (if it's a Word doc).  The content of the class and homework assignments can be found in the class notes e-mail, the related blog post, and the syllabus.  They can always check with me if something is unclear, but they should also check these other resources.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Chopin (p. 30); London (p. 122); Mansfield (p. 130); Gilman (p. 50)

-- No Worksheets

-- Finish Final Drafts

-- 3 Grammar worksheets

Links for this Week:

Class Notes

Commas and Complex Sentences

Compound-Complex Sentences 2

Cumulative Sentences

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Commas & Complex Sentences

Follow the directions for each sentence.

COMPLEX SENTENCES

Add commas where they are needed.

1.      She did not eat the cookies nor did she chew the gum that Jane made for her.

2.      I am going to bed to read the book  that Elizabeth wrote.

3.      Paul is going to the movie  and may not come home until late.

4.      Did Mary go along with her parents to the game?

Put the independent clause in parentheses and underline the dependent clause. Insert commas where they are needed.

5.      George could not find his son’s bat or his glove that he had just bought for him.

6.      Because she wasn’t very hungry Julia only ate half of her sandwich.

7.      I was tired of doing homework even though I had only worked for fifteen minutes.

8.      Sue brought her books to class but Janet left hers in the car because she tends to be forgetful.

COMPOUND/COMPLEX SENTENCES

Insert commas where needed. Underline any subordinate/dependent clauses

1.      She wanted to go to bed and read her new book but she didn’t realize that it had fallen behind the sofa.

2.      Jack is going to the movie about World War II so he may be home late because it a three hour long movie.

3.      Denise was upset that she could not go to London but she chose to save her money in order to pay for college.

4.      I told her not to eat the fresh bread but she didn’t pay attention because she was so hungry.

Put the independent clause in parentheses and underline the subordinate/dependent clauses.  Add commas.

Note:  A compound sentence has two independent clauses.

5.      Chris had tried to find his puppy but it had run around the house and hid under a bush.

6.      My father told me that he was proud that I had improved my grades and I celebrated with pizza.

7.      Peter found a part-time job around the corner so it was easy for him to get to work.

8.      I am planning to take the children to the park so that we can have a picnic because their father has the day off.

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 8)

Greetings!

We had a productive class today.  We covered a lot of material, and the students engaged well with our work.

I took our Quick Write prompts from a list of table topic prompts that Toastmasters uses.  Our prompts:  "What does your joy look like today?" and "When was the last time you tried something new?"  We discussed what it might look like to stand up and talk off the cuff on one of these topics.

I chose our Words of the Day, selecting words that I thought students might encounter in their academic work:

nuance -- a subtle difference in or shade of meaning

oxyomoron -- an expression that expresses opposites; ex. a loving enemy, and open secret, a deafening silence

perestroika -- the restructuring of the political and economic systems in the USSR during the early 1980s

queue -- a British term that refers to forming a line of people waiting for a service or an item. 

Our next activity was a Pop Quiz about the reading assignment for today.  Last week when it was apparent that a number of the students had either not read the assigned stories or done the homework, I mentioned that a quiz might happen.  In the past I've told the students that when they don't do homework, they are really only hurting themselves.  This is not completely true.  In classes where group discussions are important, coming unprepared to class affects everyone. Sitting back and letting those who have done the reading and finished the assignments be the ones responsible for making the discussions move forward is unfair and irresponsible.  (There may be more quizzes in the future . . . just sayin'.)

With that said, the students did a great job with our discussions of our three short stories, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." and "The Cask of Amontillado."  We talked about the fountain of youth, intentionally ambiguous writing, teseracts and wrinkles in time, and revenge.  Next week, we have more short stories by American authors.

The rough drafts and pre-writes of the Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essays were due today.  For those students who planned on e-mailing them, please get them in over the weekend.  A note about digital copies of papers -- please send them as Google Docs or Word documents.  I don't have the patch on my computer for Apple Pages.  If neither of these options is available to a student, the text of the paper can be copied and pasted into an e-mail.

We are continuing to work on sentence construction, and this week our focus was on compound sentences, coordinating conjunctions, and commas.  Kayla led our work through one of the worksheets (and did a great job!)  I plan to utilize students more to lead these discussions.  Why should I have all the fun?

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read the stories by Harte (p. 64), Twain (p. 175), Jewett (p. 87) and Crane (p. 34)

-- Complete both sides of the two short story worksheets.  One of the sides can be substituted with an artistic response (i.e. a drawing, poem, painting, etc.)

-- Finish Grammar Worksheets

-- Gather any missing homework.

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Short Story Worksheet #1

Short Story Worksheet #2

Compound Sentences

Have a great weekend.  Spring is just around the corner, so enjoy your winter activities while you can!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 6 (March 1)

Greetings!

We had a great class yesterday.  The tables had been put back into the U-shape that we used at the beginning of the year. The challenge with this arrangement is that students can more easily distract one another.

Our Quick Write prompts came from the National Days for March 1:  National Peanut Butter Lovers/ Minnesota/ Pig/ Horse Protection/ and "Dadgum that's Good" Day.  The other option was inspired by the March 2 birthday of Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss).

Our Words of the Day were chosen by a student from my book of foreign words and phrases:

nada -- Spanish, "nothing" -- informal, colloquial "nothing"

wienerschnitzel -- German, Wiener, "from Vienna," schnitzel, "to cut, scrape" -- a breaded veal cutlet, sometimes used to refer to a German sausage

herpes -- Greek, herpein, "to creep;" Latin herpes "shingles" -- a viral disease caused by a virus that infects tissues and the nervous system

After our beginning of class activities, we looked over the homework that I had handed back. One piece was of particular interest -- the list of finished and/or missing assignments with scores. If an assignment had a zero, it is too late to hand it in unless a student had been absent due to an illness. If an assignment hasn't been handed in but is still within the allowed time, I wrote the "last chance date" on it.  As of yesterday, My GradeBook was up to date with all assignments.  If you have any questions about scores or homework, please don't hesitate to send an e-mail.

About our Mystery Stories -- I had such a great time reading the final drafts of their stories.  I would like to post the stories on the blog.  You can check out last year's stories on the sidebar of the class's blog. 

We talked at length about their next essays, their Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Essays.  The Pre-Write was to be done for this week, but some students were still having a hard time finding a topic.  We shared our topics, so I hope some students got some ideas from their classmates.  The Rough Drafts along with the pre-writes are due next week.

I broke the class into small groups to discuss the Short Stories.  After a few minutes, I had the students re-group and discuss other stories.  It was pretty apparent that some of the students had not read the stories or done the homework.  I suggested that some teachers might give pop quizzes if they suspect students are not doing their work.  I'm just sayin' . . .

For Grammar, we worked again on compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. They have two worksheets to do.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read the short stories by Hawthorne (p. 73); Bierce (p.10), Poe (p. 156)

-- Write 3 discussion questions for 2 of the stories

-- Rough Draft of Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Essay

-- Complex Sentences #3

-- Complex Sentences #4

Links for this Week

Class Notes

Complex Sentences #3

Complex Sentences #4

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard