We had a great first class for our 2016 school year! This is a great group of students, and I'm looking forward to this year.
This first week of classes is about taking care of the business regarding how the class is run. I handed out a lot of papers, which you will find attached to this e-mail, inserted into the blog and on Dropbox. As I told the students, they have multiple ways to find assignments and handouts should they be missing any.
We began the class with a Quick Write, which we will do every week. The purpose of the Quick Write is to get the students in a writing mood. Most of these are light-hearted; often they are connected to a current even or something that happened on that day in history. The topic for today's Quick Write was the fact that it is National Banana Split Day. Students could write anything about ice cream that they wanted. We had some interesting ideas for specialty desserts.
Another key beginning-of-class activity is our Word of the Day. This semester, we will be selecting words from my book of foreign words and phrases and the book Crazy English by Richard Lederer. Some of the words and phrases in the book are familiar, but the students will probably not be acquainted with many of them. My goal is to expand their vocabularies and to pique their interests regarding words.
Today's Words of the Day:
Today's words were those "thingamajig" and "whatchamacallit" kinds of words.
ferrule: the cap at the end of the staff of an umbrella
pintle: the verticl pin inserted in a hinge
aglet: the plastic end of a shoe lace
chimb: the metal rim of a barrel
neb: the curved tip on the wooden handle of a knife
opisthenar: the back of the hand
After these beginning exercises, we got down to business with all of the handouts. We went over, at length, my Classroom Policies for this class that included conduct, communication, and grading. I especially talked about electronics and cell phone use in class. More and more students have smart phones, and some find it difficult to keep them stowed away during class. This year, if I suspect a student is using his/her phone, I will ask and then confiscate the phone if needed. Parents will get an e-mail if this happens. The students were in agreement with me, and I don't anticipate this being a problem with this class.
The rest of the handouts for today include: Writing 1 Syllabus, Animal Farm Introduction, Animal Farm Study Guide, Animal Farm Vocabulary Worksheet, Descriptive Essay, Animal Farm: What Makes a Good Leader?
Note: Some students already have copies of Animal Farm from older siblings; I'll reimburse $3.50 of the supply fee.
I gave a brief introduction to our literature selection, George Orwell's Animal Farm. For next week, they are to read the Introduction handout and to write a short response to the question, "What Makes a Good Leader?" On the handout, they can ignore the second set of writing assignments.
I also assigned them their first essay, a Descriptive Essay. The handout explains that this essay is to choose a place or situation, observe carefully, and describe it using the 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The rough draft for this is due next week. It was asked in class whether this should be a standard 5-paragraph essay with an introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusions. My response was that if that is a writing structure is familiar, go for it. If writing essays is a new adventure, write 1 - 2 paragraphs. I consider this essay to be their first writing samples. We will talk more about thesis statements, introductions, conclusions, etc. as the semester proceeds.
The agenda for this week was full, so we did not have time to start the Parts of Speech Unit. Next Week!
The agenda for this week was full, so we did not have time to start the Parts of Speech Unit. Next Week!
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read the Classroom Policies and have parents read and initial.
-- Read the Introduction handout for Animal Farm
-- Respond to the question, "What makes a good leader?"
-- Write the rough draft of the Descriptive Essay
Links for this week:
(Note: Most of these links are to the blog and are copies of the handouts for the week's class and discussions. Occasionally I will include links to other helpful or interesting web resources.)
Class Notes
Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard
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