Writing 2: Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 10 (March 31)

Greetings!

Another great day!!

Here are our prompts for the Quick Writes:

Prompt #1
On March 24, 1603, Elizabeth I died and King James I was crowned the King of England, and on March 25, 1306, Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland. How much do you know about the history and rule of other countries? Is this important knowledge for us to have? Why?

Prompt #2
On March 26, 1874, American poet Robert Frost, much admired for his depictions of rural New England life and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people, was born in San Francisco. What are your thoughts about poetry? Do you like to read it and do you think it’s an important part of our culture?

Prompt #3
Next Week is National Cleaning Week. How would you describe your cleaning style? Do you do fall or spring cleaning at your house? Write about anything cleaning-related.

Our Words of the Day were from Annelise and Michelle

hippophile -- a lover of horses

peristeronic -- of or relating to pigeons

We had a brief check in on their Evaluation Essay; the rough drafts are due on March 31. Some students have given this some thought, and others have waited until this next week to work on it. Establishing criteria and evaluating something with that criteria is an important academic skill.

We finished up with our Short Stories unit with a discussion of Nella Larsen's story "Sanctuary." This is an early 1930s. She was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming of black American cultural and artistic voices of the early part of the twentieth century. I also recommended a short book, Passing, by Larsen that deals with being in and out of the black culture as a mixed race person.

We are finished with our Short Stories and are now onto Poetry. Our poems come from a book titled 101 Great American Poems, and they will be reading a chronological collection of poems, starting with poetry from the early 1800s to that of the mid-1900s. Students have the books, but I will also post the poems on Google Classroom.

After the students read all of the poems, they are to choose 2 poems to respond to; here are their options:

1. Fill out a Poetry Worksheet for one or both
2. Write a paragraph about the poem(s) that analyzes the poem; discuss what you think it means and why you like or don't like it.
3. Instead of writing a paragraph, record a video commentary about the poem. Youtube LiveStream or some other app on a device is OK as long as it can be seen by me.
4. Do a piece of art that connects with the content and meaning of the poem.
5. Make a video of your recitation of the poem.

Finally, for our Grammar portion of the class, we continued our discussion of punctuation. This week we went over how parentheses and dashes are used and how they differ from commas.

Have a blessed weekend!

Blessing,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Week 11 (April 15)

-- Evaluation Essay Pre-Write

-- Evaluation Essay Rough Draft

-- Poetry: Read Emerson (4-5); Longfellow (6-10); Holmes (21), Whitman (22-26),Dickinson (29 - 32)

Week 11 Poetry Pt. 1 -- Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow

Week 11 Poetry Pt. 2 -- Whitman, Dickinson

-- Poetry Responses (2 Poems)

-- Grammar: Wk10 - Dashes & Parentheses

-- Grammar: Wk10 - Parentheses & Dashes