Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Writing 1 Class Notes -- September 5

Greetings!

We had a good second class.  I'm enjoying getting to know the students.  Our Quick Write was food related.  The students could choose one of two options:  1) Write about your favorite meal; 2) Come up with a recipe for "Elephant Stew."  Usually I have the students write for 5 - 7 minutes.  I also include Vocabulary Builders from time to time.  This week we had the words "masticate" (to grind or crush with teeth for swallowing), "gastronomical" (good eating, culinary culture), and "repast" (a meal).  When I introduce words, I also like to look at the roots of words and other related words.  One of my goals for the class is to expand their vocabulary.

We discussed the rough drafts for the Observation Reports.  It was not necessary that these essays have thesis statements, but we discussed how a thesis statement is a sentence about your topic in which you take a stand or express an opinion.  The students handed in the rough drafts, and I will go over them and hand them back next week.  I gave them advance notice that they should expect to find lots of red marks and comments.

We didn't take time to discuss much Grammar today.  According to my plan, we were to briefly discuss verbs as one of the parts of speech.  Next week we'll discuss verbs, nouns, and pronouns.

We took a longer portion of the class to discuss our book, Animal Farm by George Orwell.  The students were to read the Preface and Introduction which are more difficult reading than the rest of the book.  We discussed how we might experience the book as a fairy tale (the subtitle) and the background political ideas of capitalism, socialism, and communism. 

Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 1 & 2 of Animal Farm
-- from the Animal Farm Study Guide:
     -- Choose one question from the Discussion section and write out the answer.
     -- Choose one question from the Short Writing Exercises and write out the answer.

Have a great week and enjoy the wonderful fall weather!
Mrs. Prichard

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