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

5 First Errors

Name:  _________________________________

Topic:  _________________________________

My First 5 Errors

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Primary area to work on

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Sample Editing Marks

Below is a picture of the editing symbols that I use most often when I'm editing the rough drafts of the students' essays.  I put the squiggly line under problematic words.  A word might be mispelled or the wrong word for that sentence.  For example, contractions are not allowed in essays and will get the squiggly line.  

The next symbol, the line with the loop, is used for words that should be deleted or replaced.  The upside down "v" is put in a sentence where a word or phrase needs to be added.

The double-stemmed backwards "P" is the paragraph symbol.  I put this where it would be good to start a new, indented paragraph.  Finally, the three little lines are placed under a letter that needs to be capitalized.

Bad Writing Samples 1, 2 & 3

BAD WRITING SAMPLES

#1       The amount of grammer and usage error’s today is astounding. Not to mention spelling. If I was a teacher, I’d feel badly that less and less students seem to understand the basic principals of good writing. Neither the oldest high school students nor the youngest kindergartner know proper usage. A student often thinks they can depend on word processing programs to correct they’re errors. Know way!

            Watching TV all the time, its easy to see why their having trouble. TV interferes with them studying and it’s strong affect on children has alot to due with their grades. There’s other factors, too, including the indifference of parents like you and I. A Mom or Dad often doesn’t know grammer themselves. We should tell are children to study hard like we did at they’re age and to watch less TV then their classmates.

#2       The television can be helpful sometimes, especially when people watch the news, but of course we all know that you can’t get everyone to watch the news. Some people watch television to learn about things that go on in our world. And there’s people that watch it cause there’s nothing else to do. People that watch television because there’s nothing else to do are making television harmful because almost all of the shows have something wrong with them like the language, their actions, and some of the things that they show. And most of the kids that watch these shows want to be the same way. Like say that a teenager killed someone, the kids that watch it and think that’s cool and do the same thing when they get older.

            Some shows are learning experienses like a show on saving our economy, if you  watched this you could help save the economy. I think that there are too many people using television in the harmful way such as gaining weight from sitting in front of the television too much. There are also a log of people who stay away from television as often as they can and try to be more active, but still do watch the educational way of shows and that is the education way of doing it. There are also a lot of controversy going on about some of the things they on television. But it you think about it television is very helpful.

#3       As that there are alot of people (weather they are philosophers or not) there are many exceptions to moral rules or laws. One thing I find interesting about Immanuel Kant, are his strong feelings toward not lying at any time ever no matter what and not to deal with the consequences and the considerations of individual situations and circumstances and possible exceptions that need to be accounted for when making a decision of morality and ethics. Immanuel Kant felt strongly that lying was always wrong, he was against it. But whose to say? Wasn’t lying just Kants biggest how shall I say "pet-peeve"? "No lying ever, no exceptions" needs to be addressed more seriously in the future by later philosophers, if you ask me its worth a try. Immanuel Kant was probably one of the most supportive philosiphers of absolute rules in the ethical and moral decision-making systems of thought I have studied.