Writing 2

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 4 (February 11)

Greetings!

We had a good week in class again. Since this weekend we are celebrating Valentine's Day, I asked the students to write a Literary Love Letter as their Quick Writes. We had comments of affection and appreciation for authors, punctuation marks, and even the spaces between words. I plan to type them into the blog later this week.

Our Words of the Day were "Reduplicatives." These expressions are pairs of words that can repeat (bonbon), be similar (ping pong) or rhyme (higgeldy-piggeldy). Our words:

shilly-shally -- to procrastinate, hesitate, or vacillate

tussie-mussie -- a bunch of flowers, a bouquet, nosegay

herky-jerky -- moving in a sudden, spasmodic, irregular way

wishy-washy -- lacking in decisiveness, determination, or purpose

I handed back the rough drafts for their Mystery Stories in class. Well, I handed back most of them. They were exceptionally prolific writers for this assignment; some of the stories were almost 10 pages long. This has been, by far, the most fun I've had correcting rough drafts. Unfortunately, I didn't budget enough time to get through all of them. The remainders were sent out Thursday evening.

In class today we discussed some of the common errors that were found in the rough drafts of their Mystery Stories. The primary difficulties were punctuating dialogue and being consistent with verb tenses. Using their own writing is one of the best ways to teach grammar and writing principles. This is one case when learning from mistakes is a great strategy.

We have finished the Sherlock Holmes stories and took time to discuss their definitions of heroism and their opinions about Sherlock as a hero. As has happened in years past, the class was fairly evenly split in their opinions. I look forward to reading their essays.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Drafts of Mystery Stories

-- No Literature assignment

-- No Grammar Worksheets

Links for this Week:

Class Notes

Happy Valentine's Day!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (February 4)

Greetings!

We had a productive day in class this week. Our Quick Write began with a discussion about figures of speech and cliches related to "hands." We compiled quite a list:

I gotta hand it to you; in the palm of my hand; being fingered for a crime; wrapped around my finger; 5-finger discount; back of my hand; a slap in the face; thumbs up/down; give me five; lend a hand; hand it over, etc. After this little brainstorming, I asked the students to write something about hands. They could use some of our cliches or they could write about the use of their hands. When they were done, I had them watch a short video about hands by spoken word artist, Sarah Kay.

This week's Words of the Day were "coined words;" in other words, they were words that someone just made up and they ended up "sticking" in our American vocabulary.

boondoggle -- coined by Robert H. Link, a Boy Scout leader, in reference to a small braided piece on the scout uniform. It has come to mean some project or venture that is a useless waste of time and resources.

heebie-jeebies -- coined by cartoonist Billy DeBeck in the early 1900s; a feeling of nervousness and creepiness

runcible -- coined by Edward Lear as a word with obscure meaning, it was later applied to a combination spoon, fork, and knife utensil; like a spork.

We discussed the Rough Drafts of their Mystery Stories this week. One question that some students had brought up was concerning the suggested word count. Most of them were finding that they were going over the limit and that it was pretty easy to write a lot. My advice to them was to write what the story needs. If it's short and concise and yet complete, they can consider it done. This prompted a general conversation about word counts for essays. Since they have shown themselves to be conscientious writers, we can discontinue the word counts for the next essays. I feel that they have a good sense for when they have fully covered a topic.

I am especially excited to sit and read the rough draft of their stories. While the rest of the American world is watching the Super Bowl, I will be curled up with a cup of tea reading these!

We're working on Phrases during the grammar section of class this semester in Writing 2, and we took time to work as groups on Prepositional Phrases. In their groups, they were to come up with a selection of prepositional phrases, then write sentences using them, then determine if the phrases in the sentences were adjective phrases or adverb phrases, and finally draw an arrow from the phrase to the word it modifies. Students can understand that an adjective or adverb is a word that modifies a noun or verb, respectively. It's a bit harder to view a group of words (i.e. phrases) that do the work of an adjective or adverb. They did marvelously!

Our final topic of discussion for the class time was their Final Essay Exam for the Sherlock Holmes stories. After reading all six stories, I would like them to respond to this question:

What Makes a Hero?

Is Holmes a hero? What qualities do you admire in heroes? In at least 3 paragraphs, discuss whether or not Holmes possesses these qualities, using examples from the text. Specific instances and quotes should support your comments. You may want to consider whether some of the flaws Watson acknowledges keep Holmes from becoming truly heroic in their eyes. Feel free to compare Holmes with other literary characters.

For this essay, they should first define what a hero is and then explain whether Holmes fits this description or not. I will grade this essay on how many independent points and how many specific references they include. This is an open

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House"

-- Final Exam for Sherlock Holmes

This Week's Links:

Class Notes

Sarah Kay's "Hands"

Writing 2 -- Sarah Kay's "Hands"

Sherlock Holmes -- The Final Problem audiobook

Sherlock Holmes Final Exam

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Sarah Kay's "Hands"

Our Quick Write began with a discussion about figures of speech and cliches related to "hands." We compiled quite a list:

After this little brainstorming, I asked the students to write something about hands. They could use some of our cliches or they could write about the use of their hands. When they were done, I had them watch a short video about hands by spoken word artist, Sarah Kay.

Sherlock Holmes Final Exam

What Makes a Hero?

Friday, January 29, 2016

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 29)

Greetings!

We had great discussions this week about our Writing, Literature, and Grammar.

The prompt we started with for the Quick Write was "Clothes make the man." According to the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the phrase was found recorded in the early 15th century, but it comes from an earlier saying in classical Greek, "the man is his clothing." In essence, clothing can both reveal and determine status. I asked the students to write about one particular piece of clothing -- their shoes.

For the Words of the Day, I chose words from the book A Word A Day by Anu Garg. (I may also continue to use SAT words, but they seemed a bit common place and not as fun.) Our words this week were collective nouns used for groups of animals. Did you know that a group of ducks swimming together is a "paddling," while a group of ducks flying is called a "team?"

sounder -- a group of wild boars

nide -- a nest or group of pheasants

skein -- a flock of geese, ducks or other similar birds in flight; a ball of yarn

skulk -- a pack of foxes

bevy -- a group of birds or animals; a group or collection of any kind; an abbreviation for a beverage (used in the UK)

We had a quick check in with our current writing assignment. The Pre-Writes for the Mystery Story was to be done today. (While it was due this week, they don't need to hand it in until next week when they hand in their rough drafts.) We talked about how it was going and especially the challenges in writing fiction. We had a variety of "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" and "thumbs side-ways." They need to think a little differently for this kind of writing. The sticking points seem to be incorporating clues, coming up with motives, and avoiding sounding stupid. I have great faith in this creative group.

We then dove into our reading selections, "Scandal in Bohemian" and "The Red-Headed League." We read the first portion of the first story and compiled a list of qualities for Sherlock Holmes. In the second story, we especially noted his powers of observations.

And finally, we closed out the class with a Grammar discussion. Phrases and clauses are the focuses for this semester, and we started with Prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases are used either as adjective phrases describing nouns or as adverb phrases describing verbs. I've attached two links at the bottom to instructional videos about Prepositional phrases from EDpuzzle.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read "The Speckled Band" and "The Engineer's Thumb"

-- 4 Study Guide Questions

-- Mystery Story Rough Draft

-- Grammar Worksheets: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 (but not Exercise B)

Links for This Week:

Blog Posts:

-- Class Notes

-- The Prepositional Phrase and Objects

-- Prepositional Phrases as Adjectives and Adverbs

From EDpuzzle:

Objects of Prepositions