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

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due March 26; Rough Draft due April 4;  Final Draft due April 23

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due April 5; Rough Draft due April 12;  Final Draft due April 26

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due March 30; Rough Draft due April 13;  Final Draft due April 27

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Evaluation Essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due April 7; Rough Draft due April 14;  Final Draft due April 21

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due March 26; Rough Draft due April 9;  Final Draft due April 23

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 12 (April 10)

Greetings!

Our Writing 2 Class went well this week, and I'm sure that most of the students are looking forward to having another break from CHAT classes for our Easter break.  We'll resume classes again the week following Easter/Resurrection Sunday.

The Quick Write for this week recognized Washington Irving, an early American writer whose birthday was this month.  Though most of the students were unfamiliar with his writings, I'm sure parents are familiar with his two well-known stories, "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  Since Rip Van Winkle was a lazy man whose plan to get out of work cost him 20 years of his life, I asked the students to think about and write about their favorite getting-out-of-work strategies. I heard some very interesting ideas from this creative group of students.

Our Words of the Day were words that sound the same, spelled the same, but have different meanings:

principle (a basic belief or primary idea) & principal (the leader of a school)

capitol (the building that houses a state's or nation's legislature) & capital (the primary seat of government)  

council (an assembly of persons with a focus/goal) & counsel (wise advice)

Embedded in this discussion were some other terms related the relationships between certain types of words.  Below are some helpful definitions:

homograph -- words with the same spelling, different sound, different meaning.  E.g. The wind blows/ Wind the clock.  Lead the people to safety./ Avoid using paint with lead in it. The desert has sand./ Don't desert your friends.

homonym -- words with the same sound, same/different spelling and different meaning.  E.g. Spruce up the house./I have a spruce tree.  I will pay a fair price./ Will you go to the fair?

homophone -- words with the same sound, different spelling,and different meanings,  E.g. to/two/too.  their/they're/there

synonym -- words that mean the same.  E.g. big/large/huge/immense/colossal/sizable/massive

antonym -- words that are opposites.  E.g. hot/cold; huge/tiny; wealthy/poor

We spent quite a bit of time discussing citations and formatting both in-text citations and Works Cited entries.  In other words, we had a "MLA style lite" lesson.  For more help, the blog post from last week has both websites and videos.

I handed back to them the Rough Drafts of the most recent essay, an Evaluation Essay.  In class we discussed some of the common errors and mistakes that I found as I read them.  In addition to revising and editing their rough drafts, I also want them to fill out a self-evaluation for their essay.  These self-evaluations give them time to reflect on their own writing.  I've handed out the rubric that I use when grading the essays.  On the back side of the self-evaluation sheet, I would like them to list 5 corrections they made on their essays and explain their reason for the correction.

We're continuing to read from our Poetry book. This week we discussed some poetry from the earliest period of American literature.  The poem we spent time on was Longfellow's "The Arrow and the Song."  For next week we will be discussing poetry from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s.  

About the Poetry Presentations:  I have scheduled Presentations for the last 2 classes of the semester.  At the other school where I teach, they hold annual Poetry Out Loud competitions and have hosted a Poetry Slam.  In a Poetry Out Loud competition, students recite poetry from a pre-selected list.  Poetry Slams, on the other hand, feature original poetry.  In past years, we've done at the end of the school year what I have called a "Poetry Slam Out Loud."  Students can choose to either recited poetry from our book or recited something they have written.

Assignments for April 24:

-- Read poems by the following poets: 

     Wilcox:  Solitude

     Thayer:  Casey at the Bat

     Dunbar:  The Lesson, Sympathy, We Wear the Mask

     Frost:  (all poems on pages 44 - 50)
     Sandburg:  Chicago, Fog, I am the People, the Mob

     Williams:  The Great Figure,, The Red Wheelbarrow, This is Just to Say, The Widow's Lament in Springtime

     Hughes:  (all poems on pages 75 - 78)

-- Finish Final Draft of Evaluation Essay

     -- Complete Self-Evaluation and 5 Corrections

-- Be thinking about your poetry selection for our Poetry Presentations.

This week's links:

Class Notes

National Poetry Month

Poetry Out Loud

Poetry Slams

Homonyms, Homophones, Homographs

Have a great week and very blessed Easter!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 11 (April 3)

Greetings!

We had a great class this week.  The students engaged well with the discussion today.

Our Quick Write this week acknowledged the birthday on April 2 of Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish children's author. I had the students write about their favorite children's book.  If they weren't inspired about that topic, they could write about the Winder Misery Index

The Words of the Day came from my book of foreign words and phrases.  They were chosen at random by students who closed their eyes and pointed to a word on the page. 

harem -- [Turkish - sanctuary; Arabic - something forbidden]; the multiple wives and female servants of a man in the Middle East, esp. during ancient times

hajji -- [Arabic, pilgrim]; a Muslim who has successfully complete a pilgrimage to Mecca

halcyon-- [Greek, kingfisher bird];  adjective:  peaceful, calm, prosperous

The students were to hand in the rough drafts of their for Evaluation Essays today.  I always look forward to reading their essays and will read and correct these so that I can give them back next week.  If anyone did not hand it in, the essays can be e-mailed to me.  I had planned on discussing the citations, but we spent more time on the literature selections.  I will have a special blog post with more information.  Many of the students were already familiar with the MLA format.

We finished our Short Story unit with some lengthier discussions of our final three stories by Sherwood Anderson, Nella Larsen, and Thomas Hardy.  Following the class discussion, I divided the class into small groups for more discussion and evaluations of the stories. Since they have been writing evaluation essays and have that format in mind, I asked them to think about what criteria makes a good short story and then to use that criteria to determine which stories illustrated those points the best.  They are a marvelous group of students, and they fully engaged in their small group discussion.

We are done with our short stories and have moved on to Poetry.  Some students claim to like poetry while others really don't like it at all.  I am usually able to coincide our poetry reading with the month of April, which is National Poetry Month.  

Bradstreet (p. 1); Wheatley (p. 1); Holmes (p. 21); Emerson (p. 4, 5); Longfellow (p. 6 – 10); Whitman (p. 22 – 26); Dickinson (p. 29 – 32)

Assignments for next week:

-- Read poems by the following poets:  Anne Bradstreet (p. 1); Phyllis Wheatley (p. 1); Oliver Wendell Holmes (p. 21); Ralph Waldo Emerson (p. 4, 5); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (p. 6 - 10); Walt Whitman (p. 22 - 26); Emily Dickinson (p. 29 - 32)

-- Fill out the poetry worksheets:

     -- Choose 4 poems and answer the questions on one side of the worksheet for that poem.  You only need to answer 4 out of the 9 questions.

This week's blogs:

Class Notes

Poetry Worksheet

Helpful MLA Citation Links

See you next week!

Mrs. Prichard

Evaluation Essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as a criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due March 27; Rough Draft due April 3;  Final Draft due April 24

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Evaluation Essay

Evaluation Essay

Definition

            In an essay of evaluation, a writer acts like a roving critic, exploring the significance of your topic.  The purpose of an evaluation essay is to demonstrate the overall quality (or lack thereof) of a particular product, business, place, service, or program.  To develop an essay of this type, think in terms of a subject’s value, impact, and significance; its strengths and weaknesses; its place in the scheme of things.

Choosing a Subject

            An Evaluation Essay explores a particular event, a current trend, an extended project, a recent decision, a new product, and so on.  Consider recent experiences, conversations, and headlines for possible ideas.  It can focus on current events, political or social events, or developments in medicine or technology.

Thesis Development

While any evaluation involves injecting some form of opinion, if an evaluation is done properly, it should not come across as opinionated.  Instead, the evaluation should seem reasoned and unbiased. 

Organization

In order to give a clear representation and reasonable, unbiased discussion of your topic keep the following elements in mind:

• Critera – This refers to the elements or qualities that demonstrate an ideal for any similar situation.  Having clear criteria establishes your paper with facts and details so that it does not appear to be only an opinion.  For example, if evaluating a restaurant, you would choose the common characteristics of menu items, cleanliness, staff, prices, etc. 
• Judgment – This establishes whether or not your topic meets the appropriate criteria that you’ve chosen to consider in your evaluation.  Using the example of a restaurant, if you’ve chosen as a criteria the quality of food, the judgment states whether or not the particular restaurant offers food that meets or exceeds this stated quality.
• Evidence – These are the details that support your judgment of the criteria.  Again, in the restaurant example, if you have determined that the quality does not meet a certain standard, give an explanation that serves as evidence.

Generally, each body paragraph of an evaluation essay is going to focus on one specific criterion, which should be fully explained, followed by the judgment and a variety of evidence offered as support.  Because of this, it is important that any evaluation contains several different criteria, judgments, and evidence.

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due April 3; Rough Draft due April 10;  Final Draft due April 24

– Essay length:  800 – 1000 words (between 3 and 6 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay