Writing 2: March 2021

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 25)

Greetings!

It was a beautiful day outside and a fun learning day inside.

Our Quick Write this week included prompts from the students themselves:

If you could start a business or company, what would it be?
What kinds of hairstyles do you like or not like?
If you could change your name, what would it be?
What were the highs and lows of this past week?

For our Words of the Day were feline and canine inspired. One of my favorite books, The Play of Words by Richard Lederer, has fun lists of words, including words that start with "cat" and "dog." Our words included catastrophe, category, catacombs, doggerel, dogma, dog-tired, dog-fight, and dog-tags.

Students have handed in the Final Drafts of their Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essays. We're now ready to start our final "from scratch" essay. (Following this essay, students will complete a re-write of an earlier written essay and a short reflection paper.) This next writing assignment is an Evaluation Essay. This writing assignment is one of the more complicated essays that they will write. Firstly, they need to decide what they want to evaluate. We brainstormed some possible topics: cars, movies, teachers, restaurants, books, food items, etc. After they've chosen the topic, they need to decide what qualities of that their topic they will evaluate; in other words, they need to establish criteria. After they've developed their criteria, they need to decide what good likes and what bad looks like. The rough draft and pre-write are due April 15, but it will be helpful for them if they have some ideas about the topics they want to write about.

Following the writing discussion, we briefly covered our four Short Stories assigned for this week. I had the feeling that not everyone had read the stories, and that might be because of some confusion about which stories were assigned. For next week they are to read stories by Kate Chopin, Luigi Pirandello, Guy de Maupassant, and Nella Larsen, but not Katherine Mansfield. (A change for the original list of stories.) And there's a chance we'll have a quiz next week. Just FYI.

We continue to work on punctuation for our Grammar instruction. We've been working on commas, and this week we've looked at periods as end punctuation and for abbreviations. We also have a worksheet for inserting hyphens.

Have a blessed weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

Evaluation Essay Pre-Write
Short Stories: Chopin (30), Larsen (110), Pirandello (149), de Maupassant (134)
Short Stories Questions
Grammar: Wk9 - End Marks & Abbreviations
Grammar: Wk9 - Insert Hyphens

Links for This Week

Class Notes

About the Evaluation Essay

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Friday, March 19, 2021

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 18)

Greetings!

We are officially over half way through the Spring semester. I don't know about you, but once we hit daylight savings time and the days get longer, the days also seem to fly by more quickly!

For the Quick Write this week students had 3 options:

March 18 is National Awkward Moments Day. What is the most embarrassing or awkward situation that you’ve been in?
March 19 is National Let’s Laugh Day. Tell about one of the funniest experiences you’ve had.
Tuesday, March 16, was National Everything You Do is Right Day. If you didn’t have to worry about making mistakes, what challenge, adventure, or risk might you take?

We had one Word of the Day

fortuitous -- fr. Latin, fors, "chance" -- something good that happens by chance

I handed back the rough drafts of the Cause/Effect and Problem/Solution Essays that the students had written. As part of our writing/grammar instruction, I covered common errors in the papers. For this round of essays, these were the topics: amount vs. number; less vs. fewer; scared vs. afraid; the word "things;" contractions; and noun/pronoun agreement. The final drafts are due next week. Note: A number of students did not get their rough drafts in on time. I might be able to get them corrected before the next class period; if not, they will be returned next week during class.

We have read two more Short Stories by Hawthorne, Bierce, Poe, Harte, Twain, Jewett, Crane, Gilman. We briefly talked through some plot and character details.

Following our brief literature discussion, I divided the students into small groups to work together on a worksheet for which they needed to revise some "there is/are" types of sentences. Then for the rest of our Grammar portion of our class, we are continuing our work with commas. This time, we are practicing putting commas in the correct places for dates and addresses. We had time in class to work on our worksheets.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Final Draft

Short Stories: Read Twain (175), Jewett (87), Crane (34), Gilman (50) 

Short Story Packet #2

Grammar:  Wk8 - Commas Dates Addresses

Grammar:  Wk8 - Dates Addresses

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 11)

Greetings!

This group of kids did a great job at being flexible and engaged learners today with our distance learning day. Before our Quick Write, we talked a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of doing classes on Zoom. We also talked here and there throughout the class about how to be good online students, including participating in breakout room discussions and avoiding being a passive observer.

Below are our Quick Write prompts for the day. Students could put their writing in the Google Classroom assignment or write it by hand and turn it in next week. After they complete their writing, I divided them into breakout rooms, and they shared their thoughts with one another.

On March 11 In 1969, Levi-Strauss started selling bell-bottomed jeans. What are some fashions that you hope you never see again, and what are some of your favorite “classic” fashions that you don’t think should ever go away.
On March 11 in 1903 Lawrence Welk was born. A band leader, he hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1951 to 1982. (My parents LOVED this show.) Do you have any favorite old-time TV shows that you like? How would you compare older television programs to today’s?
On March 12 in 1789 the US Post Office was established. How would you compare the way we communicate now to the communication methods of the past? What are pros and cons for each?

We usually do a quick Homework Check between our beginning of class activities and instruction. Students can hand in their work for this week when they come to class next week. With the exception of their rough drafts. Those should be finished and put on the Google Classroom assignment for the Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Rough Draft.

NOTE: Any homework that was due during Week 4 and hasn't been handed in will get a zero. Track My Grades has been updated to reflect any work handed in by last Saturday.

This week we read four stories by British authors. I sent the students again to breakout rooms instructions to compare two of the stories. They had to come up with at least 5 points of comparison and then report back to the class. Oddly enough, all 5 groups chose the same stories! While they had similar comparisons, they also had some unique insights. For next week we'll read four stories by early American authors. On Google Classroom, they have two options of homework for the the readings: one is the discussion questions worksheet and the other is a set of charts. They only need to do one.

In our Grammar lesson we covered the simplest comma rule: series/serial/Oxford commas. These are the commas used when listing more than two items. Students have two worksheets on Google Classroom to practice putting in commas in the right places.

Have a great weekend.

Blessing,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

Short Stories: Read Hawthorne (73), Bierce (10), Poe (156), Harte (64)

Week 7 - Short Stories Questions (Option 1)

Week 7 -- Short Story Packet #2 (Option 2)

Grammar:  Wk7 - Commas & Items in a Series

Grammar:  Wk7 - Using Commas in a List

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Writing 2 Spring Google Drive

Quick Write (3/12)

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Friday, March 5, 2021

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 6 (March 4)

Greetings!

We had a full day in class this week. Breaks are nice, but I like it when we're back together.

For our Quick Write today, the students had options that came from their own suggestions: 1) If you could teach anything, what would you teach and why? 2) What is your favorite Bible verse? Why? 3) If you could bring someone back to life, who would it be and why? and 4) Discuss the benefits/evils of video games.

Our Words of the Day came from Ethan and Nina from Writing 1 --

italics -- fr. Latin italicus, "from Italy, Italian" -- a type of print with lines sloping to the right (Note: This type of print was introduced in the late 1500s with an edition of Vergil, and it became known as the "italic type."

bombinate -- fr. Latin, bombitare, to hum -- to hum or buzz like a bee

Between our beginning of class activities and instruction, we do a quick Homework Check. Along with misc. worksheets and other homework, I handed back the final drafts of their Mystery Stories. These were AMAZING! They did a wonderful job on this writing assignment. During this time I also reminded them about my homework correcting practices -- I correct homework one day during the week before the next week's class. All work that was handed in on time will get corrected, but if it was turned in late, it might not get corrected until the following week.

The students are on to their next writing assignment, which is either an Cause/Effect Essay or a Problem/Solution Essay. (There are some resources listed in the links below.) We talked briefly about this writing assignment. If students are still unclear about what they want to write, they should check the sites below.

For our literature portion of the class, we started with our book, Great Short, Short Stories and looked at three stories by Russian authors (Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Pushkin) Before some small group discussion, I asked the students to consider these questions: 1) When was a time when God became more than you thought He was; 2) When did you do something wrong and tried to justify it; 3) When was a time when you felt jealous of others and insecure about yourself. All of these were connected to themes in our stories. I was delighted to here such thoughtful and wise responses coming from the members in the groups. For next week, we will read stories by British authors.

For our Grammar lesson, we're still learning about commas. We've looked at commas with compound sentences, commas with complex sentences, and commas with introductory phrases/clauses. This week, we are adding commas to sentences with appositives and phrases that "interrupt" a sentence. We did almost half of the assigned work during class, so that students could ask questions.

Have a great weekend! The weather looks like it will be marvelous!!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week: