Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 20

Greetings!

We had a good class today.  The students were alert and well-engaged.  For our Quick Write today the students had the following prompt:  "A Spring Mystery."  Some students found it an easy assignment while others drew a blank.  I guess that shows us that inspiration is an important aspect of writing.

The students handed in their final copies of their Editorial/ Short Persuasion Essays.  I also have them hand in their rough drafts along with the final copies so that I can see how they made the corrections.  I enjoy seeing their writing improve as they figure out how to rewrite sentences.  A couple of students are a bit behind because of absences, difficulties with printers, etc.  Any old assignments should be handed in next week.

We also went over an assignment from last week in which the students were to rewrite a poorly  written paragraph.  Three common mistake that the students made in their corrections:
     -- amount vs. number:  you use the word "number" when referring to countable items.
     -- that vs. who:  you use "who" when referring to people and "that" for things, animals, and abstract nouns.  We also discussed collective nouns which are words that represent a number of people or things with a single word.  e.g. audience, congregation, community.  Since these nouns can also be in plural form, they take a singular verb even though they represent an entity that is more than one.
     -- compound sentences & comma splices:  sometimes students try to combine sentences with a comma instead of a semi-colon or with a comma and a conjunction.

At the beginning of our discussion of A Connecticut Yankee, I re-explained the worksheets that I had handed out at the beginning of our study of this book.  The students are to fill out information for 4 themes and 4 characters.  Our next writing assignment is an essay about our literature.  The students are to write an analysis about one of the themes or characters, and these worksheets will help them.  We made a couple of mind maps in order to brainstorm to write an essay like this.

After discussing the next writing assignment, we opened our books and read aloud a couple of portions.  Reading aloud helps us to experience the book together and often helps the students understand it better.  We were able see and appreciate the humor of Twain's writing.

Assignment for Next Week:
-- Read to the end of ACY (including the P.S.)
-- Finish the take home quiz in which you fill in the chapter numbers for the events
-- Continue working on Character, Theme, and Vocabulary worksheets.  They will be due on April 10.
-- Pre-writing for the Theme or Character Essay.


Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard