Friday, February 7, 2014

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

Greetings!
We had a great day in class this week.  After a week of snow and another of sub-zero temperatures, it was nice to have a run-of-the-mill cold winter day. 
This year is the 10th anniversary of Facebook.  Thinking of how pervasive computer technology is in today's culture, I asked the students to write as their Quick Writes:  "Imagine a day without computer technology."  For some students, this would be a difficult challenge, while for others, they wouldn't know much of a difference.  I mentioned to them that our family occaisionally takes media & technology fasts.  It's good to clear our heads from so many distractions.
Our Words of the Day were:
suave -- French; pleasant, sweet, sophisticated
subito -- Italian/Latin; suddenly. abruptly
subpoena -- Latin; literally, under penalty; a legal document requiring that a person appear in court
sub judice -- Latin; literally, under a judge; this phrase means that a case is before the court and currently under consideration
I handed back the rough drafts for the Narrative Essays.  Generally, as I read through the rough drafts, I keep track of common mistakes and error.  These become our Grammar lessons for the day.  The most common errors that need attention as they revise and edit their papers are problems related to contractions, compound sentences,  and "there are" sentences.  I gave the students half-sheets for taking notes.  When they hand in their final drafts, I would also like them to list the first five corrections and the last five corrections in their papers.
Since we took so much time to talk about the papers and grammar, we didn't take time for discussion about our book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  We'll discuss the book at length next week.

Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 6 & 7 of Jekyll/Hyde (no discussion questions)
-- Finish Final Draft of Narrative Essay
-- Include a list of first five and last five corrections on your essay.

This week's blog
Class Notes

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Prichard

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