Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 11 (March 31)

 Greetings!

We had a lovely class this week.  One aspect that I especially enjoy with this Writing 1 class is that they all get along well and participate in a harmonious way.  We have good, productive conversations.

For our Quick Writes, here were their options:

• Wednesday (3/30) was National I am in Control Day.  What areas of your life do you feel like you are in control of?  What would you like to be more in control of?  What would you like to NOT be in control of?

• Thursday (3/31) is National Taters Day.  What is your favorite way to eat potatoes?  Or you could list all of the ways that you can think of to fix potatoes.

• Friday (4/1) is April Fool’s Day.  What is the best prank that you have ever done or heard of?  Or what prank would you like to pull?

• Sunday (4/3) is World Party Day.  If you didn’t have to worry about the expense, what kind of party would you like to throw?  Describe it in detail.

We had some unusual Words of the Day:

polychromatic-- fr. Greek, polys, "much" and khroma, "color" -- showing a variety or change in colors, e.g. Joseph and his polychromatic coat.

taciturn -- fr. Latin tacere, "to be silent" -- disinclined to participate in a conversation

Before we proceeded to the next part of our class, I introduced Amanda Gonsalves, my replacement for teaching Writing 2 next year.  For the past 10 years I've been teaching part time at CHAT and at Arcadia Charter School in Northfield where I live.   I've been offered a full-time position at Arcadia, and I feel I'm to focus more time in my community.  I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED teaching at CHAT, so this has been a very hard decision.  In Writing 1 and Writing 2 we build a good community of learners & writers, and I've come to know and appreciate each one of the students.  Saying good-bye to students I've gotten to know so well these past 2 years will not be easy.  Kim Witthuhn will be teaching the Writing 3:  Research and Writing class next year.  Many students are familiar with her middle school writing and social studies classes.  Now onto the rest of the class stuff before I get teary again ......

They have handed in the rough drafts of their Evaluation Essays.  This is one of the hardest essays of the year.  Students must first establish and explain criteria used to evaluate a product, event, person, etc., and then they need to apply that criteria to their topic.  All of the students have grown as writers over the year, and I look forward to reading their essays.

We are now reading Poetry for our Literature portion of the class. Some students like poetry, but many aren't that crazy about it.  For our first poetry discussion, I did Jigsaw groups again.  The students were first in groups that discussed one of the assignment poems.  Then I remixed the groups so that a group had a representative for each of the poems.  From both groups I heard some thoughtful comments about both the surface and deeper meanings of the poetry.  Well done, class!

The class has their new poetry books, and they should read the poems of the poets listed below.  For their homework, they need to respond to 2 poems, and the have some 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.

6.  Do some kind of movement (creative dance or acting out) that relates to the poem.

For our Grammar section of the class, we had a special lesson on the semicolon.  Most people (students and adults alike) are confused about the bit of punctuation; they use it as a comma or as a colon.  I use the Reese's peanut butter cups as an object lesson.  Ask your students about how the semicolon is like this candy.  They also have 2 worksheets to practice putting semicolons and colons in the right place.  [Note:  I did not print a KEY for these worksheets, so if they handed them in during class I will correct them.  If they do them over the week, they should use the KEY attached to the Google Classroom assignment.]

Have a beautiful weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:

• Evaluation Essay Pre-Write

• Evaluation Essay Rough Draft

• Poetry: Read Harper (27-29), Wilcox (33), Thayer (34-35), Johnson (41), Dunbar (p. 41 – 43)

• Week 12 Poetry on Google Classroom (pdfs)

• Poetry Packet (2 Poems)

• Grammar:  Wk11 -- The Colon
• Grammar:  Wk11 -- Using the Semicolon and Colon

Links for this Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 11 (March 31)

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

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

-- Grammar:  Wk10 - Ellipsis

Links for this Week:  

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

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 17)

Greetings!

We are definitely heading into spring.  I saw some students in shorts and lighter-weight jackets as opposed to the heavier winter apparel.  

Here were the prompts for today’s Quick Write:

• How do you define success?  What would success look like to you in your future?

• What qualities do you see in yourself that you also see in other family members?  How are you alike or not like someone you’re related to?

• Who is someone you admire? Why do you admire this person?  What qualities does this person have that you would like to have?

• What fictional character would you like to meet?  Why? What would you do or talk about?

Our Words of the Day came from our students:

inimical-- fr. Latin in, "not" & amicus, "friendly" -- not friendly; hostile

cordiform-- fr. Latin cor, "heart" & formia "shaped" -- something that is heart-shaped

heterochromatic-- fr. Greek, hetero, "different" & chromos, "colors" -- to have eyes that are 2 different colors

bibliophile -- fr. Greek biblio, "books" and philo, "love" -- a lover of books

Students have handed in the Final Drafts of their Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essays. We're now ready to start our final "from scratch" essay. (Following this essay, students will complete a re-write of an earlier written essay and a short reflection paper.) This next writing assignment is an Evaluation Essay. This writing assignment is one of the more complicated essays that they will write. Firstly, they need to decide what they want to evaluate. We brainstormed some possible topics: cars, movies, teachers, restaurants, books, food items, etc. After they've chosen the topic, they need to decide what qualities of that their topic they will evaluate; in other words, they need to establish criteria. After they've developed their criteria, they need to decide what good likes and what bad looks like. The rough draft and pre-write are due March 31 but it will be helpful for them to start early choosing a topic and doing any need research.

Following the writing discussion, we briefly covered one of our Short Stories, which was Kate Chopin's "A Pair of Silk Stockings." For this discussion, I use the Jigsaw small group activity. In this type of small group work, students are grouped, and each group has it's own discussion topic. After they've fully discussed that topic, they are regrouped so that the new groups have someone from each of the specific topics. The first small groups discussed the characters, plot, setting, and themes of the story. Then I re-grouped them, and they were tasked with using the information that came up in their first conversations to answer this question: What is your opinion about Mrs. Sommers' choices for how she spent her day and her money. Every year when I assign this story, I get a wide range of responses; some say she was foolish and selfish and others completely sympathize. (Note: If you're curious about the story, here's a link to my personal blog that has the text of the story.)

To cover the other 2 stories, I've included a short stories quiz on Google Classroom.

We continue to work on punctuation for our Grammar instruction. We've been working on commas, and this week we're working on commas with dates and addresses.

Have a blessed weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

• Evaluation Essay Pre-Write (due 3/31)

• Short Stories Quiz (Chopin, Pirandello, de Maupassant)

• Read Short Stories: Larsen (110), Anderson (1), Hardy (56), and London (122

• Week 9: Short Stories Questions

• Grammar:  Wk9 - Dates, Addresses

• Grammar:  Wk9 - Commas, Dates, Addresses

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 17)

About the Evaluation Essay

Week 9 Short Stories: Audio & Pdf versions

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 10)

 Greetings!

We are officially over half way through the Spring semester.  I don't know about you, but once we hit daylight savings time and the days get longer, the days also seem to fly by more quickly!

For the Quick Write this week students had 3 options: 

• March 10 is National Pack a lunch Day. Write about your favorite lunches.
• Where is the one place you never want to go to again?
• List 20 of your favorite foods
• And, as always, the "Whatever" option

We had three Words of the Day

lunette-- fr. French, lunette, "little moon" -- a small window, often crescent shaped in a dome

telluric -- fr. Latin, terra, "earth" -- of or pertaining to the earth

ozostomia -- fr. Greek, ozein, "to smell' and stoma, "mouth" -- having bad breath

I handed back the rough drafts of the Cause/Effect and Problem/Solution Essays that the students had written.  As part of our writing/grammar instruction, I covered common errors in the papers.  For this round of essays, these were the topics:  paper format, the word "things," there is/are sentences, comma splice sentences.  The final drafts are due next week.  In addition to the final draft, students are to fill out a form for their first 5 and last 5 mistakes on their rough drafts.

We have read more Short Stories by Twain, Jewett, Crane, and Gilman.  As promised, we had a short quiz.  I asked students to write a 1-minute version of the stories they had recently read.    

Then for the rest of our Grammar portion of our class, we are continuing our work with commas.  This time, we are practicing putting commas in the correct places for dates and addresses.  We had time in class to work on our worksheets.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:

• Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Final Draft

• First Five and Last Five Mistakes

• Read Short Stories: Chopin (30), Mansfield (130), Pirandello (149), de Maupassant (134)

• Short Story Packet #2

• Grammar:  Wk8 - Commas & Items in a Series

• Grammar:  Wk8 - Using Commas in a List

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 10)

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 3)

 Greetings!

It was so good to see the students; including our week off and the week my son subbed for me, it's been 3 weeks since I've seen their smiling faces. 

Below are our Quick Write prompts for the day.  

• Tuesday, March 1, is National Minnesota Day!!  What do you like the most about Minnesota?  What might you say to convince someone to move to or at least visit Minnesota?  If you were to have visitors from a far away place come to Minnesota, what sights would you like them to see?
• Wednesday, March 2, is World Teen Mental Health Day.  What does it mean to be mentally healthy?  What do you do to be mentally healthy?  How do you help others who might be struggling with their own mental health?
• Friday, March 4, is National Grammar Day  (It’s “imperative” that we “march forth” on this day!)  Write either a rant or a praise about what you think of this system for understanding language and communicating with one another.

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 Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Rough Draft. 

Speaking of the  Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Rough Draft, we took some time for each student to share about their topics.  The framework for this essay is fairly straightforward.  As we went around the class sharing topics, I was impressed with wide variety of topics and their good ideas.  I look forward to reading their rough drafts this week.

We turned our attentions to our short stories.  We watched a short Lego animation of a story that is assigned for next week, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country."   After that we broke into small groups to share funny stories that had happened in their lives.  It seemed that a number of the students had not read all of the stories assigned for this week.  When that happens, I often find a good "pop quiz" is in order.  

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.  

Blessing,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

• Short Stories by Twain, Crane, Jewett, Gilman

• 2 Short Story Worksheets
  

• Week 7 - Appositive Phrases

• Week 7 - Appositive & Parenthetical Phrases

• Week 7 - Interrupters Phrases

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 3)

Quick Write (3/12)

Week 7 Short Stories -- Audio Versions

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 5 (February 10)

 Greetings!

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

We started with a Quick Write, and these were our prompts:  

• Ask me (Mrs. Prichard) 3 questions, and I will answer at least one of them.
• Tell me something you've not told anyone.
• Write about keeping a secret or planning a surprise.
• Tell about something mysterious that has happened to you
• Whatever . . . 

Our Words of the Day came from Ike, Megan, and Grace.  

avuncular-- fr. Latin, avunculus, "uncle" -- pertaining to an uncle

uxorious -- fr. Latin, uxor, "wife" -- devoted to or ruled by a wife

ataraxia-- fr. Greek, ataraxia, "impassiveness" -- calmness; impassivity

hystricine-- fr. Latin, hystrix, "porcupine" -- pertaining to porcupines 

ailorophile-- fr. Greek, ailouros, "cat" and philo, "love" -- a lover of cats 

We are now in Week 5, so students need to check in on their homework. 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.  According to my late homework policy, any assignments due on Week 2 is now overdue.  You will be getting a Grades Report sometime over the weekend.  

Students handed in the final drafts of their Mystery Story.  I'm really looking forward to 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 should be handed in to the Google Classroom assignment. 

When we finish one paper, we start another.  For the next round of essays,  students can choose to write an Cause/Effect Essay or a Problem/Solution Essay.  We did a lot of brainstorming about how to structure these kinds of essays.  Students have the next three weeks to do their brainstorming and research.  The pre-writes and rough drafts should be handed in on March 3.

We have finished our Sherlock Holmes stories and are not reading from a selection of short stories. For this week they read 3 stories by Russian authors, and we discussed the main points and overarching themes for each.  Then I gave the students cards from a game, Storymatic, and they were to compose a story that incorporated one of the themes from the Russian stories.  When they were done, they shared their stories with the rest of the class.

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.  The have 2 worksheets to  practice this.  

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!

Next week my son Ryan Prichard will be subbing for me.  I will Zoom in for part of the class and he will take charge of the rest.  

Assignments for March 4

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Pre-Write (due Mar 3)

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Rough Draft (due Mar 3)

Read Dickens (45); Wilde (189); Kipling (101); Munro (140)
Week 6:  Dickens, Wilde, Kipling, Munro (Short Story Worksheet)

Grammar:  Wk5 - Introductory Commas

Grammar:  Wk5 - Commas after Introductory Phrases

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 5 (February 10)

About Cause/Effect and Problem/Solution Essays

Have a good weekend and a wonderful week off!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

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

 Greetings!

We had an fun class today -- we covered a lot of material.  Before we started with our Quick Write I had them do a little drawing exercise, using as inspiration a picture I drew when I was a toddler.  They had to draw a stick figure -- with their eyes closed. 

Here are the Quick Write prompts for the day:

• February 2 –  World Read Aloud Day.  Do you have a favorite story that was read aloud to you when you were young?  Write about it.

• February 4, 2004 –  the day that Facebook was launched.  Do you use Facebook?  What are your thoughts about social media?

• February 4, 1789 – the day that George Washington was elected our first president by a unanimous vote of the first electoral college.  Do you have any opinions about the electoral college?  Do you have opinions about what makes for a good elected leader

Our Words of the Day

mellifluous -- fr. Latin mel, "honey" and fluus, "flowing" -- sweetly flowing

monoglot -- fr. Greek, mono "one" and glotto "tongue" -- speaking only one language

borborygmus -- fr. Greek, borborygmos, "to have a rumbling in the bowels" -- a rumbling or gurgling noise in the digestive system

progeniter -- fr. Latin, progenit, "begotten -- an ancestor, parent, or origin (as of an invention or practice)

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 your 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.

I gave them their next book, Great Short, Short Stories,  they have a reading assignment, but no required homework for the stories.  

Our Grammar  was on hold for the week.  Students have enough other work to do for the week.

Assignments for next week

• Mystery Story Final Draft

• Sherlock Holmes Final Exam

• Short Stories: Read  Pushkin (162); Tolstoy (169); Chekhov (26)

Links for This Week

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

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard