Writing 1 Class Notes -- August 30

Greetings!

We had a great first day of class!  I'm looking forward to spending this year teaching your child. 

I start each class with a "Quick Write" and a "Mystery Word."  The Quick Write is a short, impromptu writing activity aimed at getting the "writing juices flowing."  Sometimes they're thoughtful, but most of the time they're light-hearted.  They give the student the opportunity to be creative.  The Mystery Word is an unusual vocabulary selection for which the students must guess or deduce its meaning.  Both of these activities help the student to settle in to the class.  This morning I had the students make name tags and on the back of the tags they wrote 2 truths and 1 lie about themselves. I'm enjoying getting to know them!

I had a number of handouts for the students today. We looked at the syllabus for the semester and took a significant amount to go over the "Classroom Policies."  One assignment for next week is to have a parent read through the policies and sign it under their names.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

I gave the students some background on George Orwell, and we had a brief discussion about socialism and Russian history.

Their first writing assignment is a Personal Essay.  It's not an autobiography or personal history, but a paper about a topic, concern or interest about which the student feels strongly.  It can be about a hobby, current event, or personal favorite item.  This short paper is to be about 1 page and a minimum of 3 - 5 paragraphs.  This is a 2-part essay with a rough draft and a final copy.  Later in the year as the papers become more involved, we'll follow a 3-part process:  pre-writing activities, rough draft, and final copy.

Assignments for next week:
--  Have a parent read and sign the Classroom Policies handout.
--  Read the Preface and Introduction of Animal Farm.
--  Write the rough draft of the Personal Essay.

You will be getting an invitation from Dropbox where I have the handouts and documents for the class.  Click on the link, sign, and you can access the file for the class.  I apologize if some of this seems like information overkill, but I'd rather have too much than not enough.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Tammy Prichard