Can you believe that we're halfway through the fall semester? Where does the time go? So far, I feel that we've had a productive class, and I'm enjoying this group of students.
I had overheard students talking about having lots of homework and looking forward to the fall break. So, for the Quick Write, I asked them to either write about their favorite stress-relief strategy or to tell what they do to keep from getting stressed. Music, food, exercise, naps, and prayer were key points of their coping strategies.
Our Words of the Day were words that might be considered "red herrings," words that don't really mean what they might first appear to mean. Apparently, the origin of the phrase is connected to training hunting dogs. (Check this Wikipedia article.)
Potatory -- fr. Latin, potatorius, drinkable -- of, relating to, or given to drinking
Gyrovague -- fr. Latin gyro , circle + vagus, wandering about -- a vagrant monk who wandered from monastery to monastery
Discommode -- fr. French dis, "un" + commoder, convenience -- to inconvenience, disturb, trouble (None of the students knew any meanings of commode, i.e. a small cupboard or a portable toilet, so they didn't see how this was a red herring)
Friable -- fr. Latin friabilis, to crumble -- easily crumbled or reduced to powder
I handed back the Final Drafts of the Personal History essays today. They did a great job on these. They are currently working on their Extended Definition essays. A couple of students mentioned having trouble coming up with a good topic, so we discussed this. Below are a couple of online resources that might be helpful. The pre-writing part of this paper was to be done this week, but is not to be handed in until next week. Because the essays are getting more complicated, this extra week gives students time for brainstorming, organizing, and researching. The rough drafts are to be handed in on October 27, the week following our break.
We had a good presentation about Adjectives this week from Zoe, Dillon, Sofia, and David. They had a video, an activity, and a worksheet for the students. We even came up with a new word: articladjectives. All articles (a, an, the) are also adjectives because they help describe and explain nouns.
We finished our time together this week with a Final Test for the book Animal Farm. Most of the students finished the test before leaving. It was a fairly straightforward multiple choice test. When we meet again in two weeks we will start our next book, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- No reading
-- No grammar (we did it in class)
-- Rough Draft of Extended Definition Essay
Links for this Week
Class Notes
Have a great 2 weeks!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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