Even though we were on the edge of Fall Break this week, students engaged well with the material and our discussions. For the Quick Write, I gave them these three National Days as options: National Bring your Teddy Bear to Work Day (10/9), National Cake Decorating Day (10/10), and National Free Thought Day (10/11). We had some great comments on favorite childhood toys, fancy birthday cakes, and conversations we have in our heads.
I used the Words of the Day part of the class for a different kind of activity. I gave them three unusual words (oblivescence, cacozelia, and busticate) and asked them to come up with definitions for at least 2 of them. We had a wide range of silly options and some that came pretty close to the real meanings. (You can follow the links to find the definitions.)
Students have been assigned to write either an Extended Definition Essay or a Classification Essay. They were to have worked on the the Pre-Write for today, but it does not need to be handed in until they hand in the rough draft on Oct. 24. I briefly covered a few topics: how long should a paragraph be; where should the thesis statement go; and how to divide the essay into paragraphs. Some students inquired about writing both types of essays. They may do this, and they will get double the points. If students are thinking about doing this, they should remember that both essays should be strong essays, not 2 "half" essays. This is a great option for students who want extra practice writing.
We are nearing the end of our book, My Antonia, and are now discussion Antonia and Jim as adults. As I used questions from the study guide to direct our discussion, I noticed that it was the same students who were answering the questions. Many students have valuable thoughts in their heads that they could contribute but hesitate to do so, especially in a large class. Over the course of the year, I will be including instruction related to group discussions so that the students can become more autonomous in moving the topics forward among themselves.
The Final Project Proposals were due this week, and a few students mentioned that they felt the need to change their earlier proposals. These students can send me an email that answers the questions on the form (go here to see what those are.) We will do the presentations on Nov. 11 and Nov. 28.
We talked again about what makes a sentence, especially its basic elements and how independent and subordinate clauses are different. (See Week 5 for equations and diagrams.) Many times what goes wrong in a sentence is that the subject and verb aren't working together, or students write a dependent clause thinking it's a complete sentence. The homework they have for this week includes a worksheet for finding subjects and verbs and one for finding compound subjects and verbs.
Assignments for Oct. 24
-- Read pages 154 - 175 of My Antonia
-- 2 worksheets: Subjects and Predicates and Compound Subjects/Predicates
--Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of Extended Definition and/or Classification essays.
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Have a great break!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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