We had a good class today. Each week I do my best to challenge the students as writers and thinkers and to have some fun and lively discussions. Today's Quick Write included some thoughts about learning and play. April 21, 1782 was the birth date of Friedrich Froebel who wrote a lot about children learning through play and music. He started the first Kindergarten in 1837 and was one of the first to develop educational toys. I gave the students 3 options: 1) Write about learning and play; 2) Write about a kindergarten memory; 3) Write about your earliest memory.
Our Words of the Day were word-related words that linguists or those interested in phonetics might use:
dittography -- the accidental repeating of a letter, word, or phrase in a text; ex. rememember
eye dialect -- the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to a character quality; ex. enuff, cuz, wuz
epenthesis -- the additions of one or more sounds into a word; ex. film -to- fillum, something -to- somepthing; drawing -to- drawring
idiolect -- a language unique to a person; ex. Yoda
The next order of business for class were the assigned Poems. I divided the class into three groups; each group had two poems to talk about. I asked them to discuss any story described, any rhyme or rhythm, and any deeper meanings. They came back to the larger group and shared their thoughts with the rest of the class. I know that not everyone enjoys the poetry to the same degree, but talking and thinking about words and meanings in the context of poems helps them to grow as thinkers.
Speaking of poetry, I end every Spring semester with poetry presentations. Our classroom is the scene for a "Poetry Jam," a combination of a Poetry Slam and Poetry Out Loud. Students will give poetry recitations in a "team competition." They can begin looking for 3 poems to present. We will talk more about this next week.
Following our Literature portion of the class, we had a Grammar lesson inspired by common errors found in the Rough Drafts of their News Stories. These stories were great! I always learn so much from what my students write. The most common mistakes that students make when writing are those related to comma usage. (Next year in Writing 2 we will spend a lot of time on commas and become "Masters of the Comma.") The two most common comma mistakes: the comma in a compound sentence before the coordinating conjunction and the comma following an introductory dependent clause in a complex sentence. (See the link below about punctuation.)
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Final Draft of the News Story
-- Poetry: Choose 3 poems to read that hasn't been assigned
-- Write 3 Discussion Questions
-- No extra Grammar
Links for This Week:
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
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