Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 6

Greetings!

We had an enjoyable class this week.  The first signs of spring often invigorate us and give us fresh energy for the tasks at hand.  (That is, until the change in weather makes us antsy to be done with all school work!)

Our Quick Write for this week was this:  “BREAKING NEWS:  Mrs. Prichard’s writing class has a bad case of ………”  The students must have felt inspired because they took a bit of time to finish their writing.  I also tested to see if they knew a bit of trivial information about this past Sunday.  None of them knew that the day was an “imperative” (“March forth.”) or that it was National Grammar Day.  I suppose those are details that writing teachers are more aware of.

Many of the students wrote clever “literary love letters” for our Valentine’s Day Quick Write.  They’ve given me permission to put them on the blog site.  I’ll let you know when I get those up.

We took some time to discuss our literature, A Connecticut Yankee.  Within the context of looking at some of the particulars of the plot, we discussed Twain’s humor and his use of words.  Regarding word usage, we talked about denotation (the dictionary meaning of words), connotation (the emotional nuances and shades of meaning), vernacular and colloquial speech (common every day language as opposed to formal expressions.)  We discussed how a writer will carefully word portions so that we like or don’t like characters.

As part the students’ end-of-the-book test, we will play a Baseball Game.  Hank, the main character in ACY, “invents” the game of baseball for the knights to play.  The students are to come up with questions ranging in difficulty (singles, doubles, triples, and home runs) that will be “pitched” to their classmates.  For the remainder of the weeks that we’re reading this book, the students will be assigned to write questions to be used in this game.  These questions can be about the characters (names, descriptions, etc) the setting, the plot (events, conflicts, etc.), themes, or vocabulary words.

In our writing portion of the class, we worked on editing a sample of bad writing.  Being able to recognize and correct poor writing is a skill that will help them in editing their own work.  I was impressed not only with the 3 revisions that the students formulated, but their insight into the fine differences in meaning in each of the sentences. 

The students have handed in their editorial (short persuasive essay) rough drafts.  I will correct them and have them ready next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read ACY through Chapter 31

-- Write 6 “Baseball Questions.”

-- Rewrite either #1 or #2 from the Bad Samples worksheet.

-- EXTRA CREDIT – Write a bad paragraph (at least 5 sentences long) that the class can correct.  E-mail this to me before Monday morning.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

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