Sunday, March 20, 2016

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 17)

Greetings!

This week in class we started with a Quick Write that asked about family heritage since it was St. Patrick's Day.  While my kids are "mutts," a blend of 8 or 9 nationalities, we have incorporated some Scandinavian traditions into our family celebrations.  As I write this, I'm thinking that it would be fun to incorporate some those British, German, and Scotch-Irish elements into our family, too.

The Words of the Day were short words or words for very small items:
aglet -- fr. OF aiguillette, a small needle -- the plastic or metal end of a shoelace
chad -- origin unknown -- a small round or square bit of paper formed when a hole is punched
grommet -- fr, OF gromette, curb of a bridle -- a metal or plastic ring encasing and reinforcing a hole
vim -- fr. an Americanism; fr. Latin vis, energy, force -- a lively and enthusiastic spirit
mauw -- fr. German, maul, muzzle -- the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal

I handed back the Rough Drafts of the Themes/Character Essays.  The class did a wonderful job with this assignment.  When I hand back rough drafts, I like to use that as an opportunity to go over common errors.  Students can learn points of grammar with worksheets, but it makes the most sense in the context of their own writing.  I had the students come up and list on the board errors that were on their own essays, and then I added a few others.  We also talked briefly about plagiarism, which is taking the data, information, or comments of another and writing them as if they are your own.  It's good to add insights from others, but it's important to give credit where credit is due.  (We will cover this more in Writing 2)

The class had read 2 O. Henry short stories for this week:  "Makes the Whole World Kin" and "The Furnished Room."  We read aloud portions of first one and discussed it.

For the past few weeks, during the Grammar portion of class we've been learning about various types of phrases.  Now, we're moving on to types of sentences and elements in a a sentence.

Assignments for this Week:
Read "Retrieved Reformation" and "Pimienta Pancakes"
Fill out one Short Story worksheet for each story (both sides)
Final Drafts of Themes/Character Essays
Grammar Worksheets -- 9.2 and 9.3

Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Retrieved Reformation (audiobook)
Retrieved Reformation (Listen & Read)
Pimienta Pancakes (audiobook)

Have a beautiful week!
Mrs. Prichard

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