Again, another great class. This group of students brings a lot of positive energy and attitudes to the class. The prompt for our Quick Write today was the 190th anniversary of Scotland Yard. We discussed detectives, law enforcement, mysteries, and perspectives about rules. Students could take the topic(s) in any number of directions.
We skipped the Words of the Day this week because I knew that we already would have a full class. We'll resume next week. A new element that I'm adding to the class is the role of a "Class Scribe." I recently purchased a Rocketbook, that is a digital notebook, and I want students to take turns taking handwritten notes, especially of the examples and diagrams that I put on the board. Those notes then get shared to the Google Drive folder for the class and a link to them will be included with the Class Notes.
I handed back rough drafts of their Process Essays. These were amazing essays that I thoroughly enjoyed. Whenever I hand back rough drafts, I take a significant amount of time to go over common errors/mistakes so that we can make those mistakes into learning opportunities. The three most common mistakes this week included the following:
- Having the right spelling but it's the wrong word (spell check and auto-correct can be helpful but not always trusted); e.g. costumer/customer, plane/plain, right/write, heard/herd
- Parallel structure. If students have a list, all of the elements need to be in the same form, such as all nouns or all verbs with the same endings.
- Comma splice & Run-on sentences. We will probably talk about this all year long!
- There is/There are sentences. These sentences postpone the subject and are considered grammatical expletives. (go here for more information)
- Amount vs. Number, which has to do with countable and non-countable nouns
I took some time to discuss some new guidelines for formatting their papers, moving towards MLA formatted papers. (Here is a video for formatting in Google Docs, and here is one for doing the same in Word.) Going forward, I would like the students to format their papers in the following way: 1 inch margins, 12 pt. font, double spaced, header in the upper right margin with last name and page number, and a heading on the left side with full student's full name, class name, teacher's name, assignment name, and date handed in. This document is a "sample."
With all of our essays, I'm having the students designate a section of the note-taking to those "Watch Out For" points that I've noted in the comments section of my corrections. Along with making revisions for their final drafts, I want students to fill out the little half-sheet titled, "My First 5 Errors." For this worksheet, students should look at the first five marks that I made on their rough drafts and write what the error was and, if they know, what grammar rule is connected with the error. Under the First 5 section is a place for them to write about what area they want to improve in.
Because we discussed a lot of grammar topics while going through the rough drafts, I felt that was enough grammar for the day.
For our discussion of My Antonia, I had the students gather in "table groups" to discuss the primary characters and their behaviors as exhibited in sections we've recently read, which included Antonia, Wick Cutter, grandmother, and Jim. One table group discussed 2 significant events from these pages: the dance and graduation. In our reading of the book we will be transitioning from Jim as a boy and teenager to Jim as a young adult in college.
Assignments for Next Week
-- Read Book III, Sections I - IV (pages 119 - 140)
-- 3 Reader Responses & 5 Vocabulary Words
-- Work on Book Project (the proposal is due Week 8, Oct. 10)
-- Process Essay Final Drafts
-- My First 5 Errors worksheet
-- Verbs Homework
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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