We had a good, productive day in class today. Even though this is the first class of the day, the students come in ready to work.
I used the Pope's visit to the country for the prompt for our Quick Write. This morning the Pope addressed the joint houses of Congress, our Representatives and Senators. I asked the students to think about what they might want to say if they were to stand before Congress. They could have 3 bullet points for their presentations. Three topics, issues, concerns, encouragements, or even jokes.
Our Words of the Day, compliments of class members:
catafalque -- fr. Italian, catafalco -- a decorated wooden framework supporting the coffin of a distinguished person during a funeral or while lying in state.
internuncio -- fr. Latin, inter (between), nuntio (messenger) -- a messenger, intermediary, go-between
jinni -- fr. Arabic, djinn (demon) -- an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels, able to appear in human and animal forms and to possess humans.
I handed back a number of items which we discussed in class. Firstly, we talked about the pre-test for the Parts of Speech unit that they had taken. While they weren't excited about the scores, I explained that this was a test to see how much they knew BEFORE the instruction. For this test, the students will all receive the same participation score.
Another piece of homework that they got back were their final drafts of the Descriptive Essays. I evaluate these in 4 areas: Focus, Content, Organization, and Mechanics. I'm not a very hard grader because I want to encourage them and to see them enjoy writing.
Some students also received a piece of paper that listed any missing assignments. My plan is to give these out 2 - 3 times a semester so that students can keep on top of their homework. I also told the students that they should keep all of their homework for this class until the end of the semester. Sometimes an assignment gets graded but missed when I enter them in my gradebook.
Today we had our first Parts of Presentation -- Tadashi gave us an explanation of Nouns, complete with a video and worksheet. He did a great job! Next week: Pronouns (Jonathan G., Jeremiah)
Following the nouns presentation, I discussed thesis statements. As I've mentioned to them, many of the papers that they probably wrote when they were younger were reports. Writing essays requires that they form a thesis -- that they take a stand or form an opinion about their topics. I gave them a template that can be helpful when writing essays:
________________ is/are _______________________
because 1) ___________________, 2) ___________________,
and 3) ___________________________.
A well-formed thesis statement gives an essay direction.
Quickly, before I dismissed for the day, we pulled out our books, Animal Farm. This book has three horses; two of them stay faithful to the cause of Animalism while one defects back to the humans. One reviewer of this book said that it was a case of "living well with the enemy instead suffering with comrades."
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 7 & 8
-- Answer 3 Study Guide questions
-- Fill in 3 Vocabulary Words
-- Nouns homework
Links for this week:
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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