Writing 2: 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: