Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 11 (April 3)

Greetings!

We had a great class this week.  The students engaged well with the discussion today.

Our Quick Write this week acknowledged the birthday on April 2 of Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish children's author. I had the students write about their favorite children's book.  If they weren't inspired about that topic, they could write about the Winder Misery Index

The Words of the Day came from my book of foreign words and phrases:  

jardiniere -- [French, female gardener]; an ornamental ceramic flowerpot or flowerpot holder

jeune premier -- [French, first young man]; an actor who takes the juvinile lead ina play or film, playing a young hero

jalapeno -- [Spanish, fr. Jalpa, Mexico];  a small, dark, green hot chili pepper

The students were to hand in the rough drafts of their for New Story Essays.  I always look forward to reading their essays and will read and correct these so that I can give them back next week.  If anyone did not hand it in, the essays can be e-mailed to me.  

We are done with our short stories and have moved on to Poetry.  Some students claim to like poetry while others really don't like it at all.  I am usually able to coincide our poetry reading with the month of April, which is National Poetry Month.  

This week we read "A Negro Speaks of River" by Langston Hughes, "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, and"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost.  The Williams poem is one of my favorites, so we took a considerable time to discuss it.  I'm not sure that I won any fans for this poem.  I'm including it below:

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel 

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

For next week, the students will read more poems and fill out some worksheets.

Assignments for next week:

-- Read poems by the following poets:  William Wordsworth (p. 12); Robert Browning (p. 19); Emily Bronte (p. 24); and Gerard Manley Hopkins (p. 31)

-- Fill out the poetry worksheets:

     -- Choose 4 poems and answer the questions on one side of the worksheet for that poem.  You only need to answer 4 out of the 9 questions.

This week's blogs:

Class Notes
Poetry Worksheet

William Carlos Williams & The Red Wheelbarrow

See you next week!

Mrs. Prichard