Writing 1 Class Notes -- February 6 (Week 4)

Greetings!

We began our class with a discussion about the story behind Groundhog Day.  According to folklore, if a groundhog sees its shadow (in other words, it's a sunny day), he will be frightened and go back into his hole, and winter will last another 6 weeks.  If the day is overcast and the groundhog sees no shadow, we'll have an early spring.  Of course, this is all a moot point in Minnesota where winter sometimes lasts until May!

For our Quick Write, I asked the students to choose an animal and create a national holiday that revolves around that animal.  We had days dedicated to bears, gerbils, hamsters, and monkeys.





Below are our Latin phrases for today.  Since we've done a few of these, some words were a bit familiar.  They are also getting the hang of recognizing derivatives and cognates of the Latin words.  I gave them extra credit if they knew any of the words in the phrases.

acta est fabula -- literally means "the act is the story;"  used as a "The End" for open air plays; related to the words fable and fabulous
a Deo et Rege -- from God and King;
Adeste Fideles -- literally "come faithful ones;" the Latin title for "O Come all ye Faithful."
ad gustum -- to (ones) taste; a term used in old cookbooks

I handed back the rough drafts of the Narrative Essays.  As a combined Grammar and Writing lesson, we discussed common errors in the papers.  We spent quite a bit of time talking about active and passive sentences.  Sentences written in passive form usually use more words to say the same thing than one written with an active verb.  These sentences are not incorrect, but most young writers have to be careful about bogging down their sentences.



The final drafts of their Narrative Essays are due next week.  In addition to including their rough drafts, on a separate page I would like them to write the thesis statement for this essay and the reasons for 5 corrections made from the rough draft.  IF they make corrections/improvements that I didn't mark, they should make mention of those and I will give extra credit.

We started our The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde discussion with small groups.  One table discussed the questions from Chapter 5 while the other one discussed the questions from Chapter 6.  We followed with a whole class discussion of these sections.  They were alert, involved, and insightful.  I'm enjoying their ability to think carefully about literature.  They are to read the next 2 chapters and answer 5 questions from the study guide from either or both sets of questions.

A note on assignments:  Sometimes circumstances keep students from handing in assignments in on time.  Computer and printer issues are pretty common problems.  Busy schedules and illness also play a role.  Since we only meet weekly, it's important that students not get behind, especially with assigned essays.  If a student cannot hand in a paper at class time, I would like them to e-mail their papers to me as soon as they can. In the case of rough drafts, I can then get them corrected, scanned, and returned. However, if assignments are too late, they will not be counted.


Assignments for Next Week:

-- Final Draft of the Narrative Essay

     -- Include rough draft, thesis statement, 5 reasons for corrections

-- Read Chapters 5 & 6

-- Answer 5 questions, choosing from the sets for the two chapters.

This week's blogs:

Class Notes

Passive/Active Sentence Resources

Have a great week!  Stay warm & make wise choices.

Mrs. Prichard