Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (Oct. 10)

Greetings!

Our Quick Write for today was this prompt:  If you could learn anything from anyone, what would it be and from whom would it be?  The purpose of this prompt was to cause students to look inward, forward, and outward. In life, it helps when we can identify what we want to learn for the sake of our futures; then we need to engage in the world around us to find mentors and teachers.  They shared both practical ideas and more abstract, personal growth ideas.

We did not have any Words of the Day this week.

This week the class handed in their final drafts of their Process Essays, along with their rough drafts, so it was time to assign another essay.  This time, they can choose to write either a Classification Essay or an Extended Definition Essay.  We took time to discuss what each of these essays would look like, how to choose a topic, and how to organize these types of essays.  If a student wants to, he/she can write 2 essays and get extra credit for the second one.  Most students won't need that much extra credit for a good grade, but they might want the extra essay-writing practice. 

During our discussion of the essay, I also explained the new stage of the writing process that we will be using for this and the rest of our essays.  In addition to a rough draft and final draft, students are to do a Pre-Write for their essays.  This can look like a mind map or an outline, and the goal of a pre-write is to facilitate brainstorming and organizing. (Here is a link with a picture of a mind map.)  This will give them an extra week to plan, research, and organize their essays.   (In fact, for this essay, they have the extra week of fall break.)

For the Literature Discussion about our book, My Antonia, the students broke into small groups to discuss 2 questions about our current reading assignment:  How were Lena and Antonia different from one another? and Why did Cather devote a large portion of the book to this "secondary" character?  As a circulated through the classroom I heard some good, insightful comments.  

Many students have already handed in their proposals for their My Antonia Book Project, but those who haven't need to hand them in next week (Oct. 10)  We will start presentations on Nov. 14.

We did not have any direct Grammar instruction, but I gave the students some work to do related to sentence patterns.  Their work will tell me how much instruction on this topic will be needed. 

A note about My GradeBook:  I worked with a couple of students and discovered that they were putting the class code where the password should go.  If you are having difficulties, remember that the temporary user name (until you change the primary log in) is the class code, and your student's first name and last initial (unless I've had to change it for you) is the password.  

You'll also find a link at the end of this email to a new feature of the class -- Student Notes (Rocketbook).  Every week I will have a student take notes, especially those elements that are written on the board.   

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read pages 141 - 153

-- 3 Reader Responses

-- 5 Vocabulary Words

-- Pre-Write for Extended Definition Essay OR Classification Essay

-- Sentence Patterns Practice Worksheet (Mr. Jackson)

-- Sentence Patterns Practice Worksheet (Three of my friends)

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Student Notes (Rocketbook)

Mind Map Image

My Antonia Proposal

My Antonia Final Project

Sentence Patterns Practice (Three of my friends)

Six Basic Sentence Patterns

Sentence Patterns Practice (Mr. Jackson)

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 6 (Sept. 26)

Greetings!

Again, another great class.  This group of students brings a lot of positive energy and attitudes to the class.  The prompt for our Quick Write today was the  190th anniversary of Scotland Yard.  We discussed detectives, law enforcement, mysteries, and perspectives about rules.  Students could take the topic(s) in any number of directions.

We skipped the Words of the Day this week because I knew that we already would have a full class.  We'll resume next week.  A new element that I'm adding to the class is the role of a "Class Scribe."  I recently purchased a Rocketbook, that is a digital notebook, and I want students to take turns taking handwritten notes, especially of the examples and diagrams that I put on the board.  Those notes then get shared to the Google Drive folder for the class and a link to them will be included with the Class Notes.

I handed back rough drafts of their Process Essays.  These were amazing essays that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Whenever I hand back rough drafts, I take a significant amount of time to go over common errors/mistakes so that we can make those mistakes into learning opportunities.  The three most common mistakes this week included the following: 

1. Having the right spelling but it's the wrong word (spell check and auto-correct can be helpful but not always trusted); e.g. costumer/customer, plane/plain, right/write, heard/herd
2. Parallel structure.  If students have a list, all of the elements need to be in the same form, such as all nouns or all verbs with the same endings.
3. Comma splice & Run-on sentences.  We will probably talk about this all year long!
4. There is/There are sentences.  These sentences postpone the subject and are considered grammatical expletives.  (go here for more information)
5. Amount vs. Number, which has to do with countable and non-countable nouns

I took some time to discuss some new guidelines for formatting their papers, moving towards MLA formatted papers.  (Here is a video for formatting in Google Docs, and here is one for doing the same in Word.) Going forward, I would like the students to format their papers in the following way:  1 inch margins, 12 pt. font, double spaced, header in the upper right margin with last name and page number, and a heading on the left side with full student's full name, class name, teacher's name, assignment name, and date handed in. This document is a "sample."  

With all of our essays, I'm having the students designate a section of the note-taking to those "Watch Out For" points that I've noted in the comments section of my corrections.  Along with making revisions for their final drafts, I want students to fill out the little half-sheet titled, "My First 5 Errors."  For this worksheet, students should look at the first five marks that I made on their rough drafts and write what the error was and, if they know, what grammar rule is connected with the error.  Under the First 5 section is a place for them to write about what area they want to improve in.

Because we discussed a lot of grammar topics while going through the rough drafts, I felt that was enough grammar for the day. 

For our discussion of My Antonia, I had the students gather in "table groups" to discuss the primary characters and their behaviors as exhibited in sections we've recently read, which included Antonia, Wick Cutter, grandmother, and Jim.  One table group discussed 2 significant events from these pages:  the dance and graduation. In our reading of the book we will be transitioning from Jim as a boy and teenager to Jim as a young adult in college.  

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read Book III, Sections I - IV (pages 119 - 140)

-- 3 Reader Responses & 5 Vocabulary Words

-- Work on Book Project (the proposal is due Week 8, Oct. 10)

-- Process Essay Final Drafts

-- My First 5 Errors worksheet

-- Verbs Homework

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Class Scribe Notes

Grammatical Expletives

Countable Nouns

Sample Google Doc with Formatting

School House Rock Verbs Video

How to Format a Google Doc in MLA

How to Format a Word document in MLA

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard