We began class with some discussion about the elections. I wanted to give the students some time to process their thoughts in writing. I've found that many times thoughts and emotions rumble around inside, and the process of writing about them not only helps to bring clarity but to gives room for the Lord to speak to us as we write.
Before we began writing, I spoke a bit about the need to hear from the Lord about our individual roles in this wonderful country of ours. Where should we serve? Who are the needy and broken for whom we can be the hands and feet of Jesus? In the book of Luke, the work and gospel of Jesus is often expressed of in term of peace. Peace, not anger that responds to hatred that is responding to more hatred, is our calling from the Lord. OK, now I shall get off my soapbox. I am so grateful to have the class of thoughtful homeschool students whom I can encourage in the Lord!
For the Quick Write, students could write about the election, Veteran's Day (November 11), the anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps (November 10, 1775), or marshmallows vs. popcorn.
Our Words of the Day came from our reading of A Christmas Carol:
deftly -- fr. Middle English daefte, awkward, meek -- nimble, skillful, clever
corroborate -- fr. Latin, corroborare, to strengthen -- to make certain, confirm
plaque -- fr. French, plaquer, to plate -- an inscribed, commemorative tablet, the stuff on your teeth
laden -- fr. Old Dutch, hlatha, loaded -- burdened, loaded down
jocund -- fr. Latin, jocundus, pleasant -- cheerful, merry, blithe
While the students are busily writing their Quick Writes, heads down and focused on their papers, I hand out corrected homework, which we discuss after we've discussed the Quick Writes and Words of the Day. This week I gave to each of the students a print out from My GradeBook of their scores up to this point. The Overall Summary can be a misleading score due to the challenge of giving the adequate number of points or accurately weighting the variety of assignments. Look at the individual categories to see how your student is doing in that area of the class. My main purpose for handing out this information was for students to see if they are missing any work. Any zeros represent homework that hasn't been handed in. I accept any late work without penalty up until the last day of class. Below is an example of the grid that I will send out at the end of the semester. I will explain more about grades and my philosophy for grading when I send out individual grades.
ASSIGN
|
WRITING
|
LITERATURE
|
GRAMMAR
|
COMBINED
|
SUGGESTED GRADE
| |||||
%
|
Grade
|
%
|
Grade
|
%
|
Grade
|
%
|
Grade
|
%
|
Grade
| |
They have handed in the Final Drafts of their Examples/Illustration Essays, so we are moving on to the next writing assignment. For these next essays, they can choose between a Biographical Essay or an Historical Essay. These essays are to be thesis-driven papers; in other words, they need to not only give me factual information, but they need to express some stand or opinion about a person or event. They have the next week for Pre-Writing work: researching, brainstorming, and outlining.
Our Prepositions Professionals presented this week. Once you get the hang of prepositional phrases, they can be pretty easy and fairly simple to pick out in a sentence. The three who presented gave a good explanation, had plenty of examples, provided a fun activity, and assigned a couple helpful worksheets for homework.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Stave Three
-- Answer 3 Study Guide questions
-- Write definition for 4 Vocabulary Words
-- Prepositions Worksheets
-- History/Biography Pre-Writes
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs. Prichard
No comments:
Post a Comment