Thursday, December 13, 2012

Writing 1 Class Notes -- December 12

Greetings!

We closed out our Fall semester in great fashion.  I had made brownies, and other students brought in treats.  Our class yesterday was an effort to have a party while finishing up our writing class for the semester.

Our Quick Write was a group effort. Dividing the class into 3 groups, they were each given a list of Christmas Jokes without their punchlines.  They were to either guess what the real answer was or come up with a better one.  Most of the answers were puns or mutations of Christmas related words. Do you know the answer to these?
        1.   What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
        2.   Who is never hungry at Christmas?
        3.  How do you know when there is a snowman in your bed? 
Some of the jokes were clever, and some were real "groaners."

Following our activity with the Christmas jokes, students handed in their final drafts of their History Essays.  They also handed in any out-standing/ missing assignments.  After I finish grading these papers, I'll send out grades along with my thoughts about points and grades.

We finished our study of A Christmas Carol with a "Final Exam" which was more fun than hard work.  I handed to each student the name of a character in the book.  They then needed to interact with another student who was a different.  For example, Tiny Tim might have to talk with the Ghost of Christmas Past.  Or Charles Dickens might narrate directions to any of the other characters.  The students did a great job at being creative and thinking quickly "on their feet."  The second half of this "exam" dealt with some of the vocabulary words.  Dividing the class into two teams, they were each given a word from one of the Staves that they had to act out in order for the other team to guess.  The words were not simple ones:  solitary, covetous, decanter, withering.  Again, they did very well.

To end the class, we watched two scenes from my favorite version of A Christmas Carol, the Muppets version.

I've enjoyed this semester with this group of students.  They are a fun crew and are growing as writers. I'm looking forward to our Spring semester.

Have a blessed holiday season!
Mrs. Prichard

PS.  The punch lines to the jokes above:
        1.  "It's Christmas, Eve."
        2.  The turkey -- it's stuffed.
        3.  It's all wet.

This week's blog

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