Greetings!

We had a good day in class yesterday.  We started with a Quick Write.  The two prompts for today were inspired by two October 8 events.  In the year 876, Charles the Bald was defeated in the Battle of Andernach.  I was struck by the unusual nickname, so nicknames were the topic of one option.  Also on October 8, 1871, was the Great Chicago Fire.  I asked students to write about fires, especially if they had a fun fire-related story.

Following our Quick Write, we looked over the rough drafts of the Process Essays that I had handed back.  As is my custom, I use their own writing to explore grammar issues with which they are struggling.  For this round of essays, we discussed introductions and conclusions, comma splice sentences, run-on sentences, and compound sentences. I also explained to them two types of writing problems that we will work on to eradicate this year:  using the word "things" and writing "There is/are" sentences. Sentences that start or include "there is/are" types of structures are considered an expletive construction.  In other words, as an expletive (don't worry, we didn't use any!) is a placeholder, when students write this kind of sentence, they are not clearly designating a subject and verb.  Grammar Revolution has some more information and a short video. 

(By the way, here's an old blog post with explanations and pictures pertaining to the marks that I make.)  Their Final Draft of the Process Essay is due next week.

For the rest of the class, we divided into Writing Circles to discuss personal writing goals and the role that working with others in the context of writing might be helpful.  All of the groups agreed that having others read and give feedback on their writing would allow them fresh perspectives and could be really encouraging.  My hope is to incorporate time in class for them to do that.  

Next week, we will again have Literature Circles for our discussion of My Antonia.  We'll use the same circles as before, but the students can change roles.  Literature Circles are a way for students to have academic conversations for which they each have specific roles and responsibilities.   The students gathered in their groups and chose their roles:  discussion leader, illustrator, luminary, word nerd, connector, summarizer.

• Discussion leader -- be ready to lead the discussion by reading the assigned portion; be thinking about the major events and themes of that portion; 
• Illustrator -- draw a picture of one of the scenes or an interpretation of one of the themes
• Luminary -- find quotes that seem to sum up the main points of the section; choose quotes that seem particularly thoughtful, funny, or serious
• Word Nerd -- select words that are especially unusual and look up their roots
• Connector -- be ready to connect events, themes, character types, etc. with real world examples
• Summarizer -- at the end of the discussion, summarize and connect 

These are the students & circles:  

• Circle 1:  Ellie, Peter, Ethan, Benjamin, Anna, Maria
• Circle 2:  Michael M, Sam, Kara, Josie, Maddie, Ingrid
• Circle 3:  James, Tyler, Raya, Grace, Zach, Elliot
• Circle 4:  Bennett, Jesse, Carson, Philip, Jessie, Gabriella
• Circle 5:  Leighton, Levi, Nalani, Josh, Michael S, Ava

The Discussion Questions that will be a focus of the Literature Circles are these:

1. Jim says of the immigrant girls who work in Black Hawk, “If there were no girls like them in the world, then there would be no poetry.” Explain his statement.
   

2. Frances Harling says of Jim, “the problems with you, Jim, is that you’re romantic.”  Was this meant as a compliment or as an insult.  Is it an accurate comment?

3. Jim and Antonia have experienced a number of changes so far in the book.  List at least 6 changes for each.
   

And finally, for the Grammar portion of the class, the students were assigned a worksheet about Gerunds, which are a verbal phrase.  The class unanimously wanted more time for the Writing Circles over a Grammar lesson, so I said I would include a video lesson.  Students can go to the Google Classroom assignment with the worksheet to find 2 good videos that explain Gerunds.  I've also included the videos with the links below.

A note about Google Classroom:  I've reminded students that they should NOT turn in an assignment on Google Classroom if they have already turned in the paper copy.  Doing so causes some confusion for me when I'm grading assignments.  In the future, I will deduct points from their assignments if they unnecessarily turn in their assignments to Google Classroom. 

Have a wonderful weekend.  The weather should be perfect for enjoying the fall colors!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

--  Final Draft of the Process Essay

-- Read pages 94 - 118 of My Antonia

-- NO Reader Responses

-- Prepare for Literature Circle  (see Discussion Questions above)

-- The Gerund Phrase

-- Identifying Gerund Phrases

Links for This Week

Class Notes 10/8

     A quick note about the blog post:  The blog post includes the same information that is in this email, but I do not include links to either assignments or documents specific to this class due to security concerns.  If you're looking at the blog for assignments and need a link, use the date of the blog post to find the email with the links.  

Student Notes 10/8

     Often I will have a student take notes of the information covered in class.  This week Ingrid took great notes.  Students can refer to them if their notes are a little spotty.

Fall Writing 2 folder

What is a Gerund?

Gerunds

Quick Write 10/8

Grammar Revolution -- There is/are

Sample Editing Marks

Charles the Bald

Great Chicago Fire

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (Sept. 17)

 Greetings!

We had a great class yesterday.  This is a good, conscientious group of students.

We started with a Quick Write.  For today's prompt, I offered them 2 options.  September 15 was Agatha Christie's birthday, and she is known as the "queen of mysteries" with over 80 books to her name.  She also wrote the world's longest running play, The Mousetrap.  Students could write their opinions about mysteries, a mysterious event, or an original mystery.  The other option was related to National Apple Dumpling Day (Sept. 17).  Baked apple goods seem to be the quintessential fall food.  Students could write about apples or some other favorite fall food.  (And, as always, they can always choose the third, "Whatever" option and write on something completely different.)

Following our Quick Write, I went over some Google Classroom "Protocols," hopefully clarifying questions that students have had.

• 99.9% of your assignments are on Google Classroom (GC)
• You can hand in work on GC or in class but NOT BOTH
• If you do the assignment on Google Classroom, remember to "Turn In"  (button in the upper right corner of the window.)
• If you have handed in an assignment during class (the paper version), please the Google Classroom assignment alone.  I will assign a grade and return in.
• Some assignments can ONLY be done on Google Classroom. When that is the case, those homework assignments will be designated (GC)
• For the Final Drafts of your essays, follow these steps IN ORDER:
• Open your Rough Draft document, select/highlight all of the content (Ctrl-A) and copy it (Ctrl-C)
• Open the Google Classroom assignment for the Final Draft and then open the document/template.
• Paste the contents of the Rough Draft onto this document.
• Make corrections and revisions. (DO NOT MAKE CORRECTIONS WHILE IT IS STILL IN THE ROUGH DRAFT DOCUMENT!)
• Turn it in!

This week, students were to take notes of class, and these notes are due in class next week.  Sometimes when we are covering a significant amount of content, I will have students take notes and then turn in copies of those notes.  Students can hand in the paper copies of their notes next week OR upload copies to the Google Classroom assignment.  

I handed back their Rough Drafts of their Personal Essays.  I believe that students learn grammar best in the context of their own writing, so I like to take a generous amount of time to go over common mistakes and for them to ask questions from their own mistakes.  I had the students write on post it notes either the error most-corrected on their rough drafts or a grammar issue that they didn't understand.  After they brought these up to the white board, I covered those areas that seemed to need the most attention.  This week, those areas included contractions, the use of numbers, sentence fragments, and commas with compound sentences.

For the Final Drafts of these essays, students should submit them via Google Classroom (see the notes about the protocols.)  They should also bring to class on Sept. 24 their rough drafts with my corrections.

This week we didn't talk a lot about our book, My Antonia, but we took time to set up our literature circles for next week. Literature Circles are a way for students to have academic conversations for which they each have specific roles and responsibilities.   The students gathered in their groups and chose their roles:  discussion leader, illustrator, luminary, word nerd, connector, summarizer.

• Discussion leader -- be ready to lead the discussion by reading the assigned portion; be thinking about the major events and themes of that portion; 
• Illustrator -- draw a picture of one of the scenes or an interpretation of one of the themes
• Luminary -- find quotes that seem to sum up the main points of the section; choose quotes that seem particularly thoughtful, funny, or serious
• Word Nerd -- select words that are especially unusual and look up their roots
• Connector -- be ready to connect events, themes, character types, etc. with real world examples
• Summarizer -- at the end of the discussion, summarize and connect 

When they gather next week, they should come prepared.   The two topics that should guide their preparations and discussions are:  1) The conflicting worldviews between the immigrants and the other Black Hawk residents; and 2) The connections between the landscape and the people.  In addition to the Literature Circle preparation, students should complete 3 Reader Responses for pages. 24 - 47. 

Because we have more literature to do this week, the grammar assignments are postponed a week.  

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Draft of Personal Essay (GC)

-- Remember to bring the rough draft to class on 9/24

-- Read Cp. 24 - 47 in My Antonia

-- 3 Reader Responses

-- Literature Circle Preparation

-- No Grammar this week  (If students have already done them, they won't have to do them next week.)

Links for This Week

Fall Writing 2 Google Drive Folder

Class Notes 9/17

My Antonia audiobook, part 1

My Antonia audiobook, part 2

My Antonia audiobook, part 3

My Antonia audiobook, part 4

My Antonia audiobook, part 5

My Antonia on Vibrivox (downloadable)

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (Sept. 5)

Greetings!

We began class this week, as usual, with a Quick Write. This week's prompt was inspired by the fact that it was National Cheese Pizza.  I asked the students to write something pizza related.  As they shared their responses, they expressed their opinions about square pieces over triangular pieces, thin crusts vs. thick crusts, and the important question regarding the appropriateness of pineapple on pizza.  

Our Words of the Day were contributed by students and selected from this week's reading of My Antonia:

supercilious-- adjective, fr.Latin superciliosis, "above the eye"  -- haughtily disdainful or contempuous

docile-- adjective, fr. Latin, docere, "to teach"  -- easily managed or handled; teachable

from-- preposition, fr. Old High German, fram, "from" --  used to specify a specific starting place

Most of the time while the students are writing their Quick Writes I am passing out completed homework, and we follow the Word of the Day work with any questions pertaining to the homework.  This week we followed our beginning of class work with the Writing portion of the class.  Whenever I hand back rough drafts of essays, I take a good portion of the class to go over common errors in their writing.  In my classes I have students label a page "Watch Out For," and under this title they are to list the items that I noted on their corrected rough drafts.  We will use this list to develop writing goals as the year progresses.  This week we talked about contractions, conjunctions, sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, and the word "things."  For next week, students are to make corrections on their rough drafts so that they can hand in their finished final drafts of their Personal Commentary Essays.

For the literature portion of the class, the students broke into their Literature Circles to discuss My Antonia.  As they read through the assigned portion of the book, students were to prepare for their individual roles:  Discussion Director, Illustrator, Luminary, Word Nerd, Connector, and Summarizer.  I sat in on each of the four groups and heard good comments about their reading.   The value of these structured small groups is that everyone has to participate in order for the groups to be successful.  The circles also give a structure and framework to help the students with academic talk.  We will continue to use these circles throughout the semester.

As the students were in their groups, I handed out packets of a parts of speech review for them to do.  I had originally planned to start a Grammar section on sentence construction, but decided to use this review of packet instead of taking time from their literature circles.  As they work through the packet, they will notice a few items:  1) they have already done the sections for Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, and Adverbs; 2) the header says Writing 1; and 3) there is a typo on the Adjectives section.  Students only need to do the sections for Verbs, Interjections, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. 

Assignments for Next Week

-- Extra Credit -- Bring to class information about the origins of the Oxford Comma

-- Final Draft of Personal Commentary Essays

-- Read p.  47 - 69 of My Antonia

-- 3 Reader Responses (either study guide questions or ala carte)

-- 5 Vocabulary Words 

-- Parts of Speech Packet (see notes above)

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Literature Circle Guidelines

Nouns & Pronouns Worksheet

Adjectives & Adverbs Worksheet

My Antonia audiobook, part 1

My Antonia audiobook, part 2

My Antonia audiobook, part 3

My Antonia audiobook, part 4

My Antonia audiobook, part 5

My Antonia on Vibrivox (downloadable)

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (Aug. 29)

Greetings!

As with every week, we had a full class time.  In fact, I do my best to fill every minute with good learning opportunities.  

This week's prompt for the Quick Write asked the students to write convincing arguments why they should be admitted to the exclusive "Awesome Problem Solving Club" and include specific contributions that they might make.  Their responses showed a wonderful blend of the practical skills, interpersonal abilities, and creativity that are in this group of students. 

Our Words of the Day were contributed by students.  These words came from their My Antonia reading.

oracular -- adj, fr. Latin, oraculum "speaking" -- of or relating to being a person giving wise or authoritative answers; a prophet or seer

vermilion -- noun, fr. Latin vermiculus, "bright red color" -- a vivid reddish orange

impetuously -- adv., fr. Latin impetus, "drive by force" -- marked by impulsive or vehement action

Students should be writing these words down because we will have an end of the semester test.

Before we proceeded the bulk of our the content of the day, I walked the students through the My GradeBook site.  Some of them had already signed in.  If you or your student have not done that yet, go to this document, Instructions for My GradeBook,  for instructions.  As I told the students, they might never need to go to this site if they are keeping track of their homework.  However, if they are absent for a number of weeks or have forgotten if they have handed something in or not, this is a good place to find that information.  As parents, you can check it to see if work is getting in or to check on current grade status.  It is by no means required of students or parents to regularly check this online grade book.    

Students were to hand in their rough drafts of their Personal Commentary Essays.  For those who want to hand in digital copies, they can choose any of the following options:  email a Word attachment, send a PDF of the paper, share a Google Doc, or share a OneDrive doc.  This week I will go over their essays and hand them back next week.  They will then make corrections and revise their rough drafts into final drafts.  

Students were assigned to read pages 1 - 23 of My Antonia, and I had them divide into small groups to discuss their impressions thus far about the time period, geography, characters, and themes of the book.    For those who are interested, I've included links to audio versions of the book with the links at the end of these emails.  For next week, the students will be with the same students in Literature Circles.  In these small groups, students are assigned specific roles for discussing the assigned reading for next week.  Those roles -- discussion leader, illustrator, luminary, word nerd, connector, summarizer -- have been assigned and students should prep for the circles by doing the following:

• Discussion leader -- be ready to lead the discussion by reading the assigned portion; be thinking about the major events and themes of that portion; 
• Illustrator -- draw a picture of one of the scenes or an interpretation of one of the themes
• Luminary -- find quotes that seem to sum up the main points of the section; choose quotes that seem particularly thoughtful, funny, or serious
• Word Nerd -- select words that are especially unusual and look up their roots
• Connector -- be ready to connect events, themes, character types, etc. with real world examples
• Summarizer -- at the end of the discussion, summarize and connect the comments that everyone has made

The Discussion Leaders for next week are Laura M, Aaron H, Elliana S,and Annika C.  In a separate email, I will send the students contact information for one another in case they need to make contact.  (Note:  Students will be graded on participation.)

We rushed through our Grammar portion of the class, but the material I handed out will probably be review for most of the students.  They were give 2 sets of worksheets, one for Nouns & Pronouns and one for Adjectives and Adverbs.  These are to be done for next week.

Assignments for Next Week (Sept. 5)

-- Read p. 24 - 47 of My Antonia

-- No Reader Responses

-- Prepare for Literature Circle roles

-- 5 Vocabulary Words

-- Nouns/Pronouns Worksheet

-- Adjectives/Adverbs Worksheet

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Literature Circle Guidelines

Nouns & Pronouns Worksheet

Adjectives & Adverbs Worksheet

My Antonia audiobook, part 1

My Antonia audiobook, part 2

My Antonia audiobook, part 3

My Antonia audiobook, part 4

My Antonia audiobook, part 5

My Antonia on Vibrivox (downloadable)

Have a beautiful Labor Day Weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Literature Circle Guidelines

            When the class divides into small groups to discuss an assigned portion from our literature selection, having specific roles and responsibilities in the groups helps each person engage more actively in the discussion and think more deeply about the book.  Below is a list of roles that will either be assigned or chosen when we break into small groups.

Roles & Responsibilities

Discussion Director

·         Clarifies the assigned question or topic

·         Facilitates group discussion; helps everyone stay on task

·         Asks questions not only about plot, characters, and setting but also deeper critical thinking ones

·         Makes sure that everyone has a chance to speak

Illustrator

·         Draws a sketch to represent a scene from the assigned portion

·         Ties the sketch into the specific discussion points

·         Uses the drawing to further discussion

Luminary

·         Looks in the book for specific quotes that pertain to the assigned question or topic

·         Finds quotes from the book that are powerful, funny, important, puzzling, or worth hearing

Word Nerd

·         Selects words from the text that are unusual or difficult

·         Asks the rest of the group for definitions or finds definitions from dictionary or phone app

Connector

·         Points out relationships between the text and real world situations

·         Compares characters, setting, or plot to similar situations or events

Summarizer

·         At the end of the discussion, summarizes the main points and provides a big picture perspective

·         If applicable, shares the gist of the discussion with the rest of the class