Writing 1 Class Notes -- January 31

Greetings!

We had another good class today.  The students were bright, alert, and engaged.  The Quick Write was titled "For the Cause."  I asked the students to think about a cause about which they were passionate (or to make up one) and to write what they would do to further that cause.  (Our family had just watched The Help and was touched by the message of the movie.)

Our Vocabulary Work included words from the O. Henry short stories that were assigned for this week.  O. Henry has a broad and colorful vocabulary.  Two examples:  obmutescence and philoprogenitiveness.  We passed the dictionary around to find the definitions of the words.

We spent some time talking about the 3 short stories by O. Henry.  As we discuss these, I especially talk about making clear observations and using precise language.  When we discuss the irony found in these stories, the students tap into some higher level thinking skills.  They'll use these as they do their own writing.

We're beginning a new book next week.  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court ("ACY") is a delightful book by Mark Twain and will continue to stretch the students as thinkers and writers. I have some handouts for the students, but I'm afraid my printer wasn't working so that I could print copies for everyone.  I've attached these with this e-mail.  One is an introduction to the book, characters, and themes.  Two are worksheets for the characters and themes in the book.  A fourth is for vocabulary that the students find in their reading.  Since I wasn't able to hand out copies this week, we'll discuss them in length next week.

The students handed in their rough drafts of their News Stories.  I look forward to reading them.  When you think about it, writing is a pretty complex activity which combines grammar, creative thinking, knowledge and information, specific writing strategies, and just plain hard work.  I'll hand back the rough drafts next week and students will have a week to write up the final copies.

Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Introduction Worksheet for ACY
-- Print worksheets for Themes, Characters, and Vocabulary
-- Read through Chapter 7 of ACY.
-- Fill out SourceBank up to Week 4

The worksheets are available on Dropbox and can be seen on the blog:  Introduction, Vocabulary Worksheet, Character Worksheet, Themes Worksheet.

This Week's Class Notes on the blog.

Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard