Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

 Greetings!

We started today with a Quick Write using prompt options that they had written:

1. What is your favorite musical?
2. Who is your favorite Veggie Tales character?
3. Do you think college is worth it?

Our Words of the Day were chosen randomly from the students' contributions:

floccinaucinihilipilification--  from Latin flocci, nauci, nihili, pili (words meaning ‘at little value’) + -fication -- the action or habit of estimating something as worthless (Thank you, Ellie, for this word.)

consecotaleophobia -- the fear of chopsticks (Thank you, Jesse, for this word.)

[Note:  I reminded the students that they can bring 1 word each week for extra credit as long as they have the etymology and definition.]

The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order:  Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.  My plan is to give the last 10 - 15 minutes of every class to working on Grammar assignments so that if students have questions, they can ask them right in class. 

For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Mystery Stories.    The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week. We discussed for a bit how writing this story will take a different kind of planning.  Students are thinking about putting in clues and even red herrings.  I am really looking forward to reading their stories next week!  By the way, if students want to read some student-written stories, they can go to the Writing 2 blog, and the stories are listed on right hand margin.  

The class has read the first 2 stories from our book, Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories. I had cued a video of "A Scandal in Bohemia" (an 1984 version with Jeremy Brett) to watch a couple of scenes. In addition to that video, YouTube has a number of episodes from this Sherlock Holmes series.  We talked about some of his deductions.  They are to read 2 more stories for next week. [Note:  Below I have links to videos and audio books for some of our Holmes stories.]  

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates along with compound sentences.  I often use fairly simple sentences to illustrate the concepts, but then we take these concepts and apply them to the students' own writing.  Then the students had time to work on the worksheets and ask questions.  Some of them got a lot of work done during that time.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Mystery Story Essay Rough Draft

Mystery Story Pre-Write

Holmes: Read  “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” & “The Engineer’s Thumb”
Answer 4 questions for one of the two stories

Commas and Coord Conjunctions

Is it a Compound Sentence?

Writing Compound Sentences

Links for this Week

Class Notes

Track My Grades

Spring Writing 2 Syllabus

Spring Writing 2 Assignments Checklist

A Scandal in Bohemia (YouTube)

The Red-Headed League (YouTube)

Adventure of the Speckled Band (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb audio book (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb Cartoon

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)

 Greetings!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's faces (at least I'm sure there were faces behind the masks.)

For our Quick Write today, I asked the students to write something somewhat connected with our mystery stories.  I had them think about what they would do if they were on the run -- either from some bad guys or some good guys (which meant they might be a bad guy.)  They were to think of possible options for hiding and staying safe.  This is a very creative bunch!  I heard some of their ideas and look forward to reading what they wrote.

For our Words of the Day for the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  Here's how it will go:  Students can bring in 1 word a week written on a note card, Post-it note, or small piece of paper; we'll put them in the Homework Bin and randomly pull a few out.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  Students will get extra credit for bringing a word in, whether or not we use it that day.

Before we dug into our new topics for the semester, I quickly reviewed some of the basics, including Google Classroom and Track My Grades.  As last semester, all assignments will be posted in Google Classroom.  With the exception of our essays and a few online quizzes, students can hand in their homework when they come to class.  However, last semester some students preferred to do them on Google Classroom.  Either way will work, but students MUST remember to only hand in their homework in one place -- EITHER during class OR via Google Classroom.  Not both.  Note:  For those who have been trying to get onto Google Classroom, the site had been down for a couple days.  It's up and running and at its regular speed. 

Last semester I used a set of grade sheets that I built out of Google Sheets, but it didn't quite do everything I wanted it to do, so this semester I'm using Trackmygrades.com.  You should have received an invitation (and I will send another following this email).  To log in, you will need your chatclasses.com email and the 4-digit password that they have assigned you.  The best way to differentiate Google Classroom and Track My Grades is this:  Google Classroom will give you the specifics of an assignment and will tell you if you are missing any work; Track My Grades will tell you the scores for the work that has been handed in.  

The first topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Mystery Story.  In years past, most students have really liked this assignment, but some would rather not do the creative writing.  If that is the case, a student can write a non-fiction essay about something that is mysterious or hard to solve.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due February 4.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  We are reading some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.  I'm a big fan of mysteries, and most students have a passing knowledge of his stories.  We'll be reading 2 stories a week and answering study guide questions. 

This spring we will become "Masters of the Comma."  I love the comma, and I'm pretty picky about its use in essays.  We start with compound sentences and move onward.  Coincidentally, when you learn the comma, you also learn a lot of other important grammar rules while you're learning about commas.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

Mystery Story Pre-Write

Holmes: Read “A Scandal in Bohemia” & “The Red-Headed League”  
Week 2 -- Study Guide Questions

Week 1 -- Compound & FANBOYS

Week 1 -- Compound Sentences & Commas 

Week 1 -- Simple or Compound Sentences

Links for This Week

About the Mystery Story

Writing 2 Assignments Checklist

Writing 2 Spring Syllabus

Spring Writing 2 Students Google Drive folder

Comma Reference Sheets

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)