It's good to be back to CHAT classes. We're at Week 10, which feels a bit like the home stretch -- five more weeks!
For the weekly Quick Writes, I listen for current news or try to find out what happened in history on that particular day. I found an interesting website this week, National Day Calendar, that lists the many designated national days. You've never guess we had so many celebrations! On April 7, it is National Coffee Cake Day and National No Housework Day; on April 9 it's National Name Yourself Day. The class had the option of writing about one of these or they could choose the "Design Your Own National Holiday" option.
Our Words of the Day were place name words that have developed broader meanings and book-related words.
El Dorado -- a legendary place in South America of great treasure; a place offering great wealth and opportunity
Timbuktu -- a city on the edge of the Sahara in West Africa; a desolate, inaccessible place
Brigadoon -- an invisible city that can only be seen one day our of 100; an idyllic place, unaffected by reality
bibliophile -- fr. Greek, biblio (book) and philo (love) -- a book lover
biblioklept -- fr. Greek, biblio (book) and klept (thief) -- a book thief
I handed back their homework, which included the final drafts of their Jekyll/Hyde essays. They did a wonderful job with these essays. Some of them also received a handout listing any Missing Assignments for this semester. With 2 breaks, vacations, and illnesses, it's not surprising that some work here and there hasn't gotten in. Students should check their folders for any work that is on that list. We had a brief discussion about the Pre-Writes & Themes Charts & Character Charts. To clarify, if students chose to write about a character, they will be required to fill out the the character chart, but will not have to do the one for a theme.
Next on our agenda was a check in about the their News Stories, the next writing assignment. These News Stories could be a real or imagined event; they could be performance reviews, political issues, or human interest stories. The Rough Drafts are due next week.
Our final O. Henry story is my personal favorite, "The Ransom of Red Chief." As we began to discuss this particular story, we also listed some descriptions of O. Henry's style: witty, clever, unexpected plot twists, unusual vocabulary, fascination with crime, light-hearted, quirky and full of irony. This story is quintessential O. Henry. The two bad guys to a city named "Summit" that is as flat as a pancake. In a town known for its philoprogenitivenss (a love for large families) the bad guys kidnap the only child of a wealthy family. This kid is so bad that in the end the kidnappers pay the father to take him back. I've included a link to a middle school play of this story and one to a trailer for a Disney movie, No Deposit, No Return, that has a similar story line.
Now that we are done with our short stories, it's time for poetry. Coincidentally, April is National Poetry Month. I gave them their poetry books, and they are to read poems by Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Frost. They should write 1 Discussion Question per poem.
Our Grammar portion of class focused on Sentence Types: Simple Sentences, Compound Sentences, and Complex Sentences. Students have a handout; the first part has some explanations and the last has 3 Exercises. Students are to follow the directions and finish the three. Below I've included links to some helpful videos about types of sentences.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- News Story Rough Draft
-- Read poems by Langston Hughes (p. 51), William Carlos Williams (p. 48), and Robert Frost (p. 44)
-- Write 1 Discussion Question for one poem by each poet.
-- Grammar Worksheets (Exercises 1, 2, and 3)
Links for This Week:
Class Notes
Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard
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