Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 27)

Greetings!

This week's Quick Write prompts were taken from the list that the students in Writing 1 and Writing 2 contributed to last fall.  Here are the prompts for today’s Quick Write:

• What is a favorite childhood memory?

• What is one of the best days of your life?

• What was a highlight of your week?

• Whatever …..

Our Words of the Day came from Michael, Nina, and Annelise

virile-- fr. Latin vir, "man" -- strong, manly

corvine-- fr. Latin corvus, "raven"  -- resembling a crow  

feriation-- fr. Latin, feriatus, "to rest from work" --  to take a vacation or holiday

misanthrope -- fr. Greek, mis, "hate" and anthropos, "man" -- to hate mankind

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Mystery Stories.  Many of them enjoyed writing these and felt that they wrote more than they usually wrote.  Others felt that this writing assignment was a bit harder since it's not easy to be creative.  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:

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

• Characterization of Sherlock Holmes

• Grammar:  Wk3 - Complex Sentences & Commas

• Grammar:  Wk3 - The Complex Sentence (3 pages)

 

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 27)

Video, audio, and pdf versions of "The Final Problem"

Video, audio, and pdf versions of "The Empty House"

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 20)

 Greetings!

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

1. What are some of your pet peeves?
2. What do you do that annoys others, either accidentally or intentionally?
3. What is the grossest thing you've ever eaten?
4. What is the best/worst part of your hous?
5. Whatever????

Our Words of the Day were from Michael, Nina, and Annelise

cantillate--  from Latin cantillare, "to sing low" -- to chant or intone

onychophagy-- from Greek onux, "nail;" phago, "to eat" -- nail-biting 

apathy -- from Greek a, not, without; pathos, feeling/emotion -- lack of feeling or interest; indifference

empathy -- from Greek em, "in;" pathos, feeling/emotion -- the ability to identify with feeling the suffering of others.

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 read sections from the first pages of the story and we discussed the character and abilities of Sherlock Holmes.  Then I divided the class into 2 groups, and they played the game "Enter the Mystery Mansion."  Students were given cards with pictures, and as a group, they were to compose a mystery and/or spy story.  When they were done, they retold their stories for the Zoom portion of the class.  They were quite creative!

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.  T

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Mystery Story Pre-Write

Mystery Story Essay Rough Draft

Spring Writing Survey

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? -- Note: This one's extra credit because I left the worksheet at home

Writing Compound Sentences

Links for this Week

Writing 2 Class Notes

A Scandal in Bohemia (YouTube)

The Red-Headed League (YouTube)

Adventure of the Speckled Band (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb (YouTube)

The Engineer's Thumb Cartoon

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 13)

 Greetings!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's smiling faces.  

For our Quick Write today, students had 3 options:  1) On January 12, it was National Hot Tea Day, and students could write about their experiences with tea; 2) Yesterday, January 13, is National Stickers Day, and students could write about sticker collections or uses for stickers; and 3) Today, January 14, is National Take a Missionary out to Lunch Day, and students could write about a missionary they know.   

We did not have any Words of the Day, but students can bring them to class for us to enjoy.  (And get some extra credit, too.)  For the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  

The first topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Mystery Story.  This is one of my favorite assignments of the whole year.  Every year students come up with such creative and clever stories.  We talked at length about what made for a good mystery, and one student offered some good advice, which is to start the mystery from the end.  In other words, know how it will resolve and work backwards.  If you go to the CHAT Writing 2 blog, you will find on the right side-bar some stories from previous years.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due in 2 weeks on January 27.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  This semester we will be reading 6 Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Many are familiar with the BBC show Sherlock, which takes some of the original stories and gives them a 21st century interpretation.  In our pre-reading discussion we discussed the elements for a detective novel.  I'm looking forward to hearing their impressions of the original stories.  [NOTE:  Most of these stories can be found as audioversions on Youtube or Librivox. Feel free to listen to the stories.]

Last semester in the Grammar portion of the class we covered types of phrases, including verbal phrases.  This semester, we will be all about the comma (and a few other bits of punctuation.  I find that to fully understand comma rules, a writer must understand basics about other facets of sentence writing.  In other words, I'm using the comma as an avenue to teach other aspects of grammar.  As with last semester, students must correct their own worksheets and hand them in with corrections.  I must see clear evidence of that, or the assignment will get a zero.  

Glad to be back in the classroom with these great students!  See you all next week!

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read "The Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Redheaded League"

-- 4 Study Guide Questions

-- Spring Writing Survey

-- Start working on the Mystery Story

-- Mystery Story PreWrite & Rough Draft

-- Grammar -- Compound & FANBOYS

-- Grammar -- Compound Sentences & Commas

-- Simple or Compound Sentences

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 13)

Zoom Recording for 1/13

Writing 2 Syllabus

Writing 2 Assignments Checklist

Homework & Late Guidelines

About the Mystery Story

Characteristics of a Detective Story

Comma Reference Sheets

Writing 2 -- Grades are coming!

 Dear CHAT Writing 2 Students & Parents,

I've just finished calculating the grades for the Fall semester, and you will be finding them in your inbox in just a few minutes.  As tutors, we give you suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.

For those who are new to my classes, let me share my thoughts on grades.  As I homeschooled my own children, I didn't give them grades.  I felt that grades were far too subjective, especially coming from their mother.  Instead, I taught my own children for mastery, and we didn't proceed with a topic until they were ready, no matter how long that took.  In a class setting, knowing where each student is with regards to his/her understanding of a topic is not always possible, so any grade given is not a complete representation of what the student learned or accomplished this year.

Letter grades are a funny thing.  For some students, it becomes the only motivation for doing well.  For some, it becomes a measure of their worth as people or as  academic learners.  I personally don't like these "side effects" of the grading system.  On the other hand, grades can be a valid reflection and reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.

When teaching students to be good writers, I give a lot of consideration for growth and improvement. Each student has a starting place; over time I look for him or her to learn the mechanics of grammar, good writing techniques, and analytical thinking skills.

For this class, I gave points for attendance, participation, short assignments, literature assignments, grammar exercises, and longer essays. (I tend to be an "easy grader" and like to see my students encouraged to do their best.)  The final drafts of the essay assignments were graded using a rubric that divided the papers into the following categories:  focus, content, organization, and mechanics.  

The scores for class work is divided into the following categories:  Assignments (Quick Writes and in class activities), Writing, Literature, and Grammar.  A student may have been strong in one area and not in another, and this will be reflected in these categories.  These scores are also weighted; in other words, not all of the categories have the same importance. The Quick Write points are worth are 15% of the total grade, the Writing assignments are 30%, the Literature homework is 28%, and the Grammar work is 27%.

The grade breakdowns for Writing 2 are as follows:

98% - 100% (A+), 93% - 97% (A), 90% - 92% (A-),

87% - 89% (B+), 83% - 86% (B), 80 % - 82% (B-),

77% - 77% (C+), 73% - 76% (C), 70% - 72% (C-),

67% - 69% (D+), 63% - 66% (D), 60% - 62% (D-),

55% - 59% (Pass), 50% - 54% (Fail); 0% - 49% (Incomplete)

Each student (and parents) will receive an e-mail with percentages and a suggested overall grade for this semester. (Note:  You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the document.)   I’ve seen each student improve with each paper.  Good Work!

Blessings to all,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 15 (December 16)

 Greetings!

We have a wonderful day today.  I try to get most of the hard work of the class done before this last week so that we could have some fun on this final day.  

Quick Write

For our final Quick Write, I had the students do a mini reflection about their semester.  I asked them to write about what worked well, what didn't work, what amazing "thing" they learned, and what they might do differently next semester.  Reflection is a powerful learning tool; when students take time to think about their learning and themselves.

Homework & Grades

Students handed in their final drafts of their Comparison/Contrast Essays.  I will go over the essays and any other homework that was handed in; my goal is to have final grades out soon.  I mentioned to the class that I will take any homework December 19 at 11:59 p.m. If there are any questions, please contact me.  Because I have final drafts from all of the classes, I know that I won't have the essays and homework ready for final grades until after Christmas.  Look for them some time after the New Year.  

A Contest

Following the Quick Write, we had the Annual Writing 1 Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest.  They were pretty intent on their drawing and coloring, which I complemented with a video of a fire with Christmas music.  Oh, and we had the lights turned down.   After they drew and colored, we voted on the best (and it wasn't ugly at all!) picture.  Great work, Carmela!

A "Test"

After the coloring, we had a "test" in the shape of a Jeopardy game.  The categories included questions for My Antonia, Writing, Grammar, Christmas Trivia, and Christmas Movies.  I divided the class into 3 teams, and they took turns answering questions.  There were 20 questions which they answered or tried to answer; when they got the wrong answer, they lost points.  It was a fairly competitive game/test.  (By the way, research also indicates that using gamification to ignite learning increases recall, retention, and cognitive growth.  So while we were having fun, we were still intellectually engaged in our topics.) 

Links for this Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 15 (December 16)

Quick Write -- 12/16

Reindeer Games (all of the links for today's class)

Ugly Christmas Carol template

Most Relaxing Christmas Music

Writing 2 Christmas Game

Gamification & Learning

My prayer is that all of you have a great Christmas that includes lots of love and laughter!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 14 (December 9)

 Greetings!

We had a wonderful day in class today.  A lot of the hard work of the semester is over, so we our "work" today was a little more fun.

Quick Write

We had 3 options for today:  1) Favorite family Christmas traditions; 2) Invent a new tradition; and 3) what toy/item have you always wanted?

Words of the Day 

natal -- fr. Latin natus, "pertaining to one's birth" -- often this word is used to describe the star that appeared over Bethlehem, i.e. Jesus' natal star  [Note:  nativity also comes from the same root.]

epiphany -- fr. Greek epiphainein, "to reveal" -- a festival, manifestation, or commemoration; traditionally, Epiphany is on January 6 and is a celebration of the the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).

poinsettia -- fr. John Poinsett, an ambassador to Mexico who brought this plant to the attention of botanists -- a plant of large green leaves and large red blossoms that is used to decorate at Christmas.

wassail -- fr. Old Norse, ves heill, "be well/healthy" -- a greeting of good cheer; also hot mulled cider, drunk traditionally as an integral part of wassailing, a Medieval Christmastide English  ritual intended to ensure a good cider apple harvest the following year.

swaddling -- fr. Middle English, swathlen, to bind with clothes -- longs strips of cloth used to wrap or bind.  Jesus was "laid in swaddling clothes."   

Writing

I handed back the rough drafts of their Comparison/Contrast    Essays.  I really enjoyed reading these; they've chosen some fascinating topics, and they're becoming better writers.  The final drafts are due next week.  They MUST bring their rough drafts back to class next week so that I can use them to correct the final drafts.  

Grammar

The class was given a Fall Grammar Test about parts of speech and verbal phrases.  We had some time in class to work on it, but they could take it home to finish it.  I explained to the class that the best way of learning grammar is through lots of reading and writing. Direct instruction of grammar is important and helpful, and combined with literature and writing it can be pretty potent.  Next semester we'll be working on commas!

Literature

We had some more presentations today.  Each one of them showed not only that the students had a good grasp on the details of our book, My Antonia, but they also had a strong understanding of the themes and motifs of the book.  We saw some new book covers, an ABC book, and a stop motion video.  The students have done a great job with their book projects.  The final ones will take place next week.

Next Week

Our last week of the semester is next week, December 16.  All work should be handed in by that date.  That said, I've given them until Sunday, December 19 to get any last work in.  They should not wait until then to do their work and hand it in.  Next week we will have our "Classy Classmas Party."  I will bring treats, and students can bring goodies if they like.  We will have a contest, play a Jeopardy Game, and sing some songs.  

This Week's Class Notes

Assignments for Next Week:

Quick Write (12/9)

Comparison/Contrast Essay Final Draft

Presentation Self Evaluation

Fall Grammar Test

Have a great weekend!

Be Blessed!

Mrs. Prichard

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18)

 Greetings!

We had a good day in class and covered a lot of ground.

Quick Write

For today's Quick Writes, we had the following prompts:

1 -- Contribute to the list of Quick Write ideas to be used for my classes for the rest of the year.

2 -- Write about a sports mis-hap that happened to you or that you know about.

3 -- November 18 is National Princess Day and November 16, 1553, was the day that Queen Elizabeth I became the queen of England following the death of her sister, Mary.  Write about any royalty that you are especially interested in.

Homework Check

A reminder to students:  make sure you correct your grammar worksheets and show on the worksheet or the Google Classroom assignment that you're corrected it.  Also, make sure you turn in assignments that you've done on Google Classroom.  A number of assignments have been finished, but students have forgotten to turn the work in .  

Writing Discussion

Students have been assigned another essay -- a Comparison/Contrast Essay.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due the week after Thanksgiving break.  We did some brainstorming about how to organize a Comparison/Contrast Essay.  On the handout that they were given, they have a couple of organizational plans.  

Literature Discussion

We started with our My Antonia book project presentations.  We had a model of the farmland around Antonia and Jim's home, an original song, and a "book in a bag."  Joe, Tate, Rachael, and Annelise did great work.  After Thanksgiving, we'll have presentations from Grace A, Michael C, Sofia P, Nina N, Danica, B, Katelyn G, Gracie M.  As part of the project, students need to fill out a self-evaluation rubric about what they think of their own work.  (See the link below.)

Grammar

For homework, students are to complete a Phrases Review, which is posted as a Google Form on Google Classroom.

Assignments for December 2

Quick Write (11/18)

Comparison/Contrast Pre-Write

Comparison/Contrast Rough Draft

My Antonia Self-Evaluation Rubric

Phrases Review

Links for This Week

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18)

Week 12 (11/18) Zoom Recording

About the Comparison/Contrast Essay

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Blessings!

Mrs. Prichard