It's great to be back at CHAT again. Students were lively and alert, and I have good material planned for this semester that I'm excited to teach.
We began the day, as usual, with a Quick Write. In Bulgaria, January 20 is "Babin Den," which is "Grandmother's Day." Tradition says that when the grandmothers hold their newborn grandchildren, they pass on their wisdom. I asked the students to write about their own grandmothers.
Our Words of the Day this semester will taken from a selection of SAT Word flashcards. I let students pick four words from the deck. (We won't have a test on the words this semester, but I still like to help students expand their vocabularies.) Our words this week were:
congregate: v. to gather together; to assemble
construct: n. something built; an complex idea taken from simpler ideas
bolster: v. to aid, support, uphold
concise: adj. brief yet comprehensive
The next item on my agenda for class was "New Stuff." I handed out the Syllabus for the semester and gave a concise overview of our Writing, Grammar, and Literature units. I'm trying something new this semester. I gave each student an Individual Assignment Log. This chart has the assignments for the semester and places to either check off or put in scores for assignments. I feel this will be helpful for students who like to know ahead of time what assignments are coming up and who like to check items off a list. If this is not a helpful tool, students don't need to do it.
We begin the semester reading The Strange Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This book by Robert Louis Stevenson is a classic tale that unpacks the ideas of good vs. evil, among other themes. I gave the students some background information and a study guide.
One of our writing assignments later in the term will be either a Character or a Theme essay. They have worksheets to help with this; we'll discuss those at greater lengths next week.
The first writing assignment for this term is a Narrative Essay. We talked at length how this essay is to have a thesis statement (a single sentence that combines the topic and an opinion). While the students are to re-tell an event, it is to be with a purpose, i.e. thesis.
Last semester, we focused on the 8 parts of speech for our Grammar. This semester, we will focus on phrases and clauses. Careful writers use these groups of words to liven and "bedazzle" the sentences and paragraphs of our essays. We started this week with 2 worksheets on Misplaced Modifiers and Dangling Modifiers.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Ch. 1 & 2 of Jekyll/Hyde
-- Answer 2 Study Guide questions for each chapter
-- Narrative Essay Pre-Write
-- 1 Grammar Worksheets
-- 5.4 (# 1 - 15)
-- 5.5 (# 1 - 15)
Links for This Week
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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