Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 11)

 Greetings!

This group of kids did a great job at being flexible and engaged learners today with our distance learning day.  Before our Quick Write, we talked a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of doing classes on Zoom.  We also talked here and there throughout the class about how to be good online students, including participating in breakout room discussions and avoiding being a passive observer.  

Below are our Quick Write prompts for the day.  Students could put their writing in the Google Classroom assignment or write it by hand and turn it in next week.  After they complete their writing, I divided them into breakout rooms, and they shared their thoughts with one another.  

• On March 11 In 1969, Levi-Strauss started selling bell-bottomed jeans. What are some fashions that you hope you never see again, and what are some of your favorite “classic” fashions that you don’t think should ever go away.
• On March 11 in 1903 Lawrence Welk was born. A band leader, he hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1951 to 1982. (My parents LOVED this show.) Do you have any favorite old-time TV shows that you like? How would you compare older television programs to today’s?
• On March 12 in 1789 the US Post Office was established. How would you compare the way we communicate now to the communication methods of the past? What are pros and cons for each?

We usually do a quick Homework Check between our beginning of class activities and instruction.  Students can hand in their work for this week when they come to class next week.  With the exception of their rough drafts.  Those should be finished and put on the Google Classroom assignment for the Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Rough Draft.

NOTE:  Any homework that was due during Week 4 and hasn't been handed in will get a zero.  Track My Grades has been updated to reflect any work handed in by last Saturday.

This week we read four stories by British authors.  I sent the students again to breakout rooms instructions to compare two of the stories.  They had to come up with at least 5 points of comparison and then report back to the class.  Oddly enough, all 5 groups chose the same stories!  While they had similar comparisons, they also had some unique insights.   For next week we'll read four stories by early American authors.  On Google Classroom, they have two options of homework for the the readings:  one is the discussion questions worksheet and the other is a set of charts.  They only need to do one.

In our Grammar lesson we covered the simplest comma rule:  series/serial/Oxford commas.  These are the commas used when listing more than two items.  Students have two worksheets on Google Classroom to practice putting in commas in the right places.  

Have a great weekend.  

Blessing,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

• Short Stories: Read Hawthorne (73), Bierce (10), Poe (156), Harte (64)
  

• Week 7 - Short Stories Questions (Option 1)

• Week 7 -- Short Story Packet #2 (Option 2)

• Grammar:  Wk7 - Commas & Items in a Series

• Grammar:  Wk7 - Using Commas in a List

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Writing 2 Spring Google Drive

Quick Write (3/12)

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 6 (March 4)

 Greetings!

We had a full day in class this week.  Breaks are nice, but I like it when we're back together.

For our Quick Write today, the students had options that came from their own suggestions:  1) If you could teach anything, what would you teach and why? 2) What is your favorite Bible verse?  Why? 3)  If you could bring someone back to life, who would it be and why? and 4) Discuss the benefits/evils of video games.

Our Words of the Day came from Ethan and Nina from Writing 1  -- 

italics -- fr. Latin italicus, "from Italy, Italian"  -- a type of print with lines sloping to the right  (Note:  This type of print was introduced in the late 1500s with an edition of Vergil, and it became known as the "italic type."

bombinate -- fr. Latin, bombitare, to hum -- to hum or buzz like a bee

Between our beginning of class activities and instruction, we do a quick Homework Check.  Along with misc. worksheets and other homework, I handed back the final drafts of their Mystery Stories.  These were AMAZING!  They did a wonderful job on this writing assignment.  During this time I also reminded them about my homework correcting practices -- I correct homework one day during the week before the next week's class.  All work that was handed in on time will get corrected, but if it was turned in late, it might not get corrected until the following week.

The students are on to their next writing assignment, which is either an Cause/Effect Essay or a Problem/Solution Essay.  (There are some resources listed in the links below.)  We talked briefly about this writing assignment.  If students are still unclear about what they want to write, they should check the sites below.

For our literature portion of the class, we started with our book, Great Short, Short Stories and looked at three stories by Russian authors (Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Pushkin)  Before some small group discussion, I asked the students to consider these questions:  1) When was a time when God became more than you thought He was; 2) When did you do something wrong and tried to justify it; 3) When was a time when you felt jealous of others and insecure about yourself.  All of these were connected to themes in our stories. I was delighted to here such thoughtful and wise responses coming from the members in the groups.  For next week, we will read stories by British authors.  

For our Grammar lesson, we're still learning about commas.  We've looked at commas with compound sentences, commas with complex sentences, and commas with introductory phrases/clauses.  This week, we are adding commas to sentences with appositives and phrases that "interrupt" a sentence.  We did almost half of the assigned work during class, so that students could ask questions.  

Have a great weekend!  The weather looks like it will be marvelous!!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:

• Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution Pre-Write and Rough Draft
• Short Stories: Read Dickens (45); Wilde (189); Kipling (101); Munro (140)
• Short Stories Questions (both sides -- for one story or for 2 separate stories)
• Wk6 - Appositive Phrases
• Wk6 - Appositives & Parenthetical Phrases
• Wk6: Commas with Interrupters

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Examples of Cause/Effect Essays

Organizing a Cause/Effect Essay

How to Write a Problem/Solution Essay

A Sample Problem/Solution Essay

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 5 (February 18)

 Greetings!

We had a delightful class this week.  Our class time was quite full.

We started with a Quick Write, and today they had 5 options (4 of which came from their own ideas): Tell what your favorite Disney character is; tell which you prefer, Marvel or D.C.; what would be better to live in, a tree house, a hobbit hole, or under water: what is that one product that you will not compromise quality for; or whatever else is on your mind.  I had a lot of homework to hand back, so they students had a lot of time to write.

Our Words of the Day came from Nalani, Ellie, and Maddy today.  As I put the words on the board, I asked the class to make up definitions for the words. Some of them had some pretty creative definitions

etymology-- fr. Greek etymon, "true sense" and logia, "the study of" --  studying the underlying semantics and meanings of words

gubbins-- from obsolete old English, gobbon, raw fish or flesh -- a foolish or futile person; the parings or refuse from a fish

gobbledygook-- first recorded in 1940/1945; a fanciful form of gobble -- language characterized by circumlocution and jargon

While the students were writing for their Quick Writes, I handed back homework; we usually do a short Homework Check after these beginning of class activities.  This week, I reminded them of my late homework policy.  I give students three weeks to get assigned work in (actually, they have 4 weeks from the assigned date until I will no longer take it.)  After that extended time, assignments will be given zeros.  I also explained that while I don't have a specific day for correcting homework, I correct homework all at once and don't check and re-check Google Classroom for late assignments.  If homework is handed in on time, it will automatically be included when I correct homework.  If it is late, it could be included, or it might not be.  Most weeks, I will enter scores on Track My Grades.  (Another reminder, you can check to see if you are missing on any homework on Google Classroom, but you need to use your chatclasses email. And a further reminder -- if you handed in an assignment in class, leave the assignment on Google Classroom alone.  I will go through and mark as finished.)

Students handed in the final drafts of their Mystery Stories, and  I'm really excited about reading these because their rough drafts were so good!  As a reminder, they should hand in their rough drafts with my marks/corrections when they hand in the final drafts.  The final drafts could be handed in during class or uploaded to the Google Classroom assignment.  

When we finish one paper, we start another.  For the next round of essays,  students can choose to write a Cause/Effect Essay or a Problem/Solution Essay. For the both of these essays, the writer usually chooses to focus the bulk of his/her attention on one part of this 2-part essay.  Students have the next two weeks to do their brainstorming and research.  The pre-writes and rough drafts should be handed in on March 11. 

We have finished our Sherlock Holmes book, and the students wrote an essay exam in which they define "hero" and then explain if Sherlock Holmes is a hero.  As it happens every year, the class was divided in their opinions.  I had the class separate into Hero/Not a Hero groups and told them to come up with their top 5 strongest points to support their position.  (We had a little bit of a debate, that probably would have been better if we could have hear one another better.  The concrete walls and masks muddies a lot of the voices.)  At any rate, they had done some careful thinking about the sides that they chose.

We are now starting into our next book, which is a collection of Short Stories.  The class is to read the Russian authors for our next class time and to fill out the worksheet that I gave them.

At the end of class, I gave a very brief Grammar  "power lesson" about the commas that follow introductory elements.  These elements can include interjections, personal addresses, prepositional phrases, and dependent clauses.  We finished a few in class, and they are to complete the worksheet for our next class time. 

I want to commend this class in its ability to take down the room every week.  Because we're the last class to meet in our room, the students have to fold the tables and take them to another room down the hall.  Then they have to load all of the folding chairs onto a rack.  They always do it with cheerful attitudes, and I'm so grateful for their work!

A reminder -- we don't have class next week ; the next time we see one another will be March 4.

Assignments for March 4

• Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Pre-Write

• Short Stories: Read  Pushkin (162); Tolstoy (169); Chekhov (26) (Note -- we are week behind with the stories because I didn't assign last week due to the essay exam
  

• Short Story Packet #1
  

• Grammar:  Wk5 - Introductory Commas

• Grammar:  Wk5 - Commas after Introductory Phrases

Links for This Week

Class Notes

About Cause/Effect and Problem/Solution Essays

Have a good weekend and a wonderful week off!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

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

 Greetings!

We had an fun class today -- we covered a lot of material,  We started with our Quick Write.  As I told them last week, the plan was to write letters of encouragement and gratitude to someone.  I also gave them 2 other options.  They could write a "literary love letter" to some aspect of writing or literature, or they could write a "love letter" to a person or some thing that they love.  Because I think it is really important to write real letters and send them in the mail, I'm offering extra credit to those who do that.  For those who wanted the extra credit, they wrote their letters, put them in sealed envelopes, and handed them in.  If need be, they can bring the addresses next week if they forgot to bring them today.  I will mail them.

We didn't have any Words of the Day because I wanted to make sure that we had enough time for other activities.  

I handed back the rough drafts of the Mystery Stories.  These were amazing!  I found myself thinking of the plots and characters long after reading and correcting them.  Many students wrote more than they usually did, and they were pretty creative.  As per my practice, I go over common mistakes as part of our rough draft discussions and use these for grammar instruction.  The most common errors I found in their write had to do with punctuating dialogue, paragraph formation, comma splice sentences, and compound sentences with commas.  Students are to revise their rough drafts into final drafts for next week. Ask you student to share his/her story with you. 

We've now finished our 6 short stories of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  To round out this literature unit, students are to write an essay exam in which they address the question, "Is Sherlock Holmes a Hero?"  They must first define what a hero is and then apply their definition to Sherlock Holmes.  We had NO discussion on these points because I want students to give me their own original ideas.  Usually we had a debate-like discussion after this assignment, so I look forward to that next week.

We discussed how, as any detective is solving crimes, it is important to be able to tell if someone is lying or not.  To that end, I handed out playing cards to each of the students, and 4 of them received an Ace, indicating that they were the Liar.  They were all to mingle and tell one another about something that they had done this year during the pandemic.  Everyone was to tell the truth except for the 4 "Liars."  At the end of this activity, student shared whom they thought were the liars.  Oddly enough 2 of the actual liars did not even make it on the list.  I wonder if this would have turned out differently if the students had not been wearing masks.  

I gave them their next book, Great Short, Short Stories, but we will hold off on reading any of the stories until after the Essay Exam.  

Our Grammar instruction centered again on dependent and independent clauses.  In our focus on commas, we are also learning a lot about sentence structures.  We took time to work  on the homework for next week so that students could work together and ask questions.   Students have 2 sides of one worksheet to do for next week.

A note on homework:  last week with 46 rough drafts from Writing 1 and Writing 2, I only corrected student papers.  The other grammar and literature homework will be graded and entered into Track My Grades this week. Again, if you are not able to get into Track My Grades, let me know.  We discovered today that I had the wrong email entered for one student, and I was able to correct it.

Assignments for next week

• Mystery Story Final Draft

• Sherlock Holmes Final Exam

• Spring Writing Survey

• Grammar:  Wk4 - Identifying Independent/Subordinate Clauses

• Grammar:  Wk4 - Writing Independent/Subordinate Clauses

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

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

Greetings!

We started our class thinking about "Gratitude."  I shared with the class that research shows that people who develop intentional habits of expressing gratitude have stronger cognitive functioning, better immune systems, and a greater degree of happiness.  For our Quick Write prompts today, students could choose from these options:  

• What is a simple pleasure that you are grateful for?
• What is something that you are looking forward to?
• Who is someone who could really use a "thank you note?"

The students had some great comments, and we decided that next week we would write some real thank you notes.  I will bring envelopes and stamps and the students are to bring addresses.  (What a great group this is!!)

Our Word of the Day came from Ethan:

apocalypse-- fr. Greek apokalupsis, "to uncover or reveal" -- something viewed as prophetic revelation; a revelation; also something perceived as catastrophic

For class this week, we had extras on Zoom due to the bad roads. We had enough on Zoom to make a small group for our literature discussion

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Mystery Stories.  Most of them enjoyed writing these, and many felt that they wrote more than they usually wrote.  This kind of writing required some different planning and a different kind of thinking.  I am looking forward to curling up with a cup of coffee and reading my pile of Mystery Rough Drafts.  

We are 4 stories into our book of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and the consensus this week was that the "Speckled Band" was more interesting than "The Engineer's Thumb."  Most agree that there was something satisfying about following clues and deducing solutions.  Someone mentioned the "red herrings" in the story about the speckled band.   These false clues and distractions add another layer of interest.

For the Grammar portion of class, we worked again on complex sentences.  In our unit on Commas, we also need to learn about sentence structures.  You won't understand where the comma goes with regards to dependent clauses in complex sentences if you don't know what a complex sentence is.  You won't know the difference between an independent and dependent/subordinate clause if you don't understand what the essential elements of a sentence are.  All of grammar is interconnected, and the students are doing a great job at working to understand these intricacies.  

Assignments for Next Week:

• Spring Writing Survey (This is a Google Form on Google Classroom. It is not due for 2 weeks, but students can do it right away if they would like)

• Holmes:  Read “The Final Problem” & “The Adventure of the Empty House"

• Characterization of Sherlock Holmes (Students can do this on the document attached to the Google Classroom assignment OR they can print it and do it with pen/highlighter on paper.)

• Grammar:  Wk3 - Complex Sentences & Commas

• Grammar:  Wk3 - The Complex Sentence

 

Links for This Week

Track My Grades (note -- if you can not find your password in the email sent to you, please let me know.)

Class Notes

The Final Problem (audiobook on YouTube)

The Final Problem (video with Jeremy Brett)

The Adventure of the Empty House (audiobook on YouTube)

The Adventure of the Empty House (video with Jeremy Brett)

Sherlock Holmes stories on Librivox

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

 Greetings!

We started today with a Quick Write using prompt options that they had written:

1. What is your favorite musical?
2. Who is your favorite Veggie Tales character?
3. Do you think college is worth it?

Our Words of the Day were chosen randomly from the students' contributions:

floccinaucinihilipilification--  from Latin flocci, nauci, nihili, pili (words meaning ‘at little value’) + -fication -- the action or habit of estimating something as worthless (Thank you, Ellie, for this word.)

consecotaleophobia -- the fear of chopsticks (Thank you, Jesse, for this word.)

[Note:  I reminded the students that they can bring 1 word each week for extra credit as long as they have the etymology and definition.]

The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order:  Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.  My plan is to give the last 10 - 15 minutes of every class to working on Grammar assignments so that if students have questions, they can ask them right in class. 

For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Mystery Stories.    The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week. We discussed for a bit how writing this story will take a different kind of planning.  Students are thinking about putting in clues and even red herrings.  I am really looking forward to reading their stories next week!  By the way, if students want to read some student-written stories, they can go to the Writing 2 blog, and the stories are listed on right hand margin.  

The class has read the first 2 stories from our book, Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories. I had cued a video of "A Scandal in Bohemia" (an 1984 version with Jeremy Brett) to watch a couple of scenes. In addition to that video, YouTube has a number of episodes from this Sherlock Holmes series.  We talked about some of his deductions.  They are to read 2 more stories for next week. [Note:  Below I have links to videos and audio books for some of our Holmes stories.]  

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates along with compound sentences.  I often use fairly simple sentences to illustrate the concepts, but then we take these concepts and apply them to the students' own writing.  Then the students had time to work on the worksheets and ask questions.  Some of them got a lot of work done during that time.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Mystery Story Essay Rough Draft

Mystery Story Pre-Write

Holmes: Read  “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” & “The Engineer’s Thumb”
Answer 4 questions for one of the two stories

Commas and Coord Conjunctions

Is it a Compound Sentence?

Writing Compound Sentences

Links for this Week

Class Notes

Track My Grades

Spring Writing 2 Syllabus

Spring Writing 2 Assignments Checklist

A Scandal in Bohemia (YouTube)

The Red-Headed League (YouTube)

Adventure of the Speckled Band (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb audio book (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb Cartoon

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)

 Greetings!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's faces (at least I'm sure there were faces behind the masks.)

For our Quick Write today, I asked the students to write something somewhat connected with our mystery stories.  I had them think about what they would do if they were on the run -- either from some bad guys or some good guys (which meant they might be a bad guy.)  They were to think of possible options for hiding and staying safe.  This is a very creative bunch!  I heard some of their ideas and look forward to reading what they wrote.

For our Words of the Day for the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  Here's how it will go:  Students can bring in 1 word a week written on a note card, Post-it note, or small piece of paper; we'll put them in the Homework Bin and randomly pull a few out.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  Students will get extra credit for bringing a word in, whether or not we use it that day.

Before we dug into our new topics for the semester, I quickly reviewed some of the basics, including Google Classroom and Track My Grades.  As last semester, all assignments will be posted in Google Classroom.  With the exception of our essays and a few online quizzes, students can hand in their homework when they come to class.  However, last semester some students preferred to do them on Google Classroom.  Either way will work, but students MUST remember to only hand in their homework in one place -- EITHER during class OR via Google Classroom.  Not both.  Note:  For those who have been trying to get onto Google Classroom, the site had been down for a couple days.  It's up and running and at its regular speed. 

Last semester I used a set of grade sheets that I built out of Google Sheets, but it didn't quite do everything I wanted it to do, so this semester I'm using Trackmygrades.com.  You should have received an invitation (and I will send another following this email).  To log in, you will need your chatclasses.com email and the 4-digit password that they have assigned you.  The best way to differentiate Google Classroom and Track My Grades is this:  Google Classroom will give you the specifics of an assignment and will tell you if you are missing any work; Track My Grades will tell you the scores for the work that has been handed in.  

The first topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Mystery Story.  In years past, most students have really liked this assignment, but some would rather not do the creative writing.  If that is the case, a student can write a non-fiction essay about something that is mysterious or hard to solve.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due February 4.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  We are reading some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.  I'm a big fan of mysteries, and most students have a passing knowledge of his stories.  We'll be reading 2 stories a week and answering study guide questions. 

This spring we will become "Masters of the Comma."  I love the comma, and I'm pretty picky about its use in essays.  We start with compound sentences and move onward.  Coincidentally, when you learn the comma, you also learn a lot of other important grammar rules while you're learning about commas.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

Mystery Story Pre-Write

Holmes: Read “A Scandal in Bohemia” & “The Red-Headed League”  
Week 2 -- Study Guide Questions

Week 1 -- Compound & FANBOYS

Week 1 -- Compound Sentences & Commas 

Week 1 -- Simple or Compound Sentences

Links for This Week

About the Mystery Story

Writing 2 Assignments Checklist

Writing 2 Spring Syllabus

Spring Writing 2 Students Google Drive folder

Comma Reference Sheets

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)