Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 11)

 Greetings!

This group of kids did a great job at being flexible and engaged learners today with our distance learning day.  Before our Quick Write, we talked a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of doing classes on Zoom.  We also talked here and there throughout the class about how to be good online students, including participating in breakout room discussions and avoiding being a passive observer.  

Below are our Quick Write prompts for the day.  Students could put their writing in the Google Classroom assignment or write it by hand and turn it in next week.  After they complete their writing, I divided them into breakout rooms, and they shared their thoughts with one another.  

• On March 11 In 1969, Levi-Strauss started selling bell-bottomed jeans. What are some fashions that you hope you never see again, and what are some of your favorite “classic” fashions that you don’t think should ever go away.
• On March 11 in 1903 Lawrence Welk was born. A band leader, he hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1951 to 1982. (My parents LOVED this show.) Do you have any favorite old-time TV shows that you like? How would you compare older television programs to today’s?
• On March 12 in 1789 the US Post Office was established. How would you compare the way we communicate now to the communication methods of the past? What are pros and cons for each?

When the students were finished writing, I sent them into breakout rooms to share what they had written. 

We usually do a quick Homework Check between our beginning of class activities and instruction.  Students can hand in their work for this week when they come to class next week.  With the exception of their rough drafts.  Those should be finished and put on the Google Classroom assignment for the Examples/Analogy Rough Draft.

NOTE:  Any homework that was due during Week 4 and hasn't been handed in will get a zero.  Track My Grades has been updated to reflect any work handed in by last Saturday.

Speaking of the Examples/Analogy Rough Draft, I sent the students again to breakout rooms to talk about their topics and to talk about any challenges they had with writing this essay.  This is probably the hardest essay they'll write this year.  The type of writing and organizing that they need to do is not as straight forward as the others.  A reminder:  the rough drafts should be handed in via Google Classroom.

We talked about two of our O. Henry Short Stories this morning.  O. Henry is a lovely writer -- he has a crisp, clear writing story, throws in some unusual words to spice things up, and often includes surprise twists at the end.  We'll read two more for next week.

Our Grammar lesson was a review of linking verbs and predicate complements.  Students have two worksheets on Google Classroom to practice identifying those sentence elements.  (If they need further review, there's a video in the list at the bottom for that.)

Have a great weekend.  

Blessing,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

• Short Stories:  Read Makes the Whole World Kin & The Furnished Room

• 2 Short Story Worksheets

• Grammar – Wk7:  Predicate Adjectives

• Grammar – Wk7:  Predicate Complements

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Writing 1 Spring Google Drive

Quick Write (3/12)

Sentence Patterns: N-LV-N/Adj

What is a Sentence?

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (March 4)

 Greetings!

We had a full day in class this week.  Breaks are nice, but I like it when we're back together.

For our Quick Write today, the students had options that came from their own suggestions:  1) If you could teach anything, what would you teach and why? 2) What is your favorite Bible verse?  Why? 3)  Compare a friend or family member with a fictional character. and 4) Discuss the benefits/evils of video games.

Our Words of the Day came from Nina, Halle, and Rachel -- they were fun words today -- 

bombinate -- fr. Latin, bombitare, to hum -- to hum or buzz like a bee

aubade -- fr. French, auba, "dawn" -- a poem or piece of music appropriate to the dawn or early morning

fideism -- fr. Latin, fide, "faith" -- a doctrine that states that faith rather than reason is the means by which Christian truths are known

Between our beginning of class activities and instruction, we do a quick Homework Check.  Along with misc. worksheets and other homework, I handed back the final drafts of their Narrative Essays.  They did a wonderful job on this writing assignment.  During this time I also reminded them about my homework correcting practices -- I correct homework one day during the week before the next week's class.  All work that was handed in on time will get corrected, but if it was turned in late, it might not get corrected until the following week.

The students are on to their next writing assignment, which is either an Examples Essay or an Analogy Essay.  (There are some resources listed in the links below.)  We talked briefly about this writing assignment.  If students are still unclear about what they want to write, they should check the sites below.

For our literature portion of the class, we closed out our reading of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  Many people remarked that the ending was a bit unsatisfying.  With all of the build up about the race from the bad guys, the ending seemed abrupt.  Many students had ideas about what would have made it a better story.  

Our next reading selections come from a book of O. Henry Short Stories.  O. Henry is one of my favorite writers.  He tells a good story and often ends them with unexpected twists.  Our first two stories are "Gift of the Magi" and "After Twenty Years."  The students just need to read the stories, and we will discuss them next week.

For our Grammar lesson, we looked at two similar sentence structures:  N-LV-N and N-LV-Adj sentences.  Many times, when students think of verbs, they only think of action words. I have them a handout with a Venn diagram illustrating linking verbs, helping verbs, and state of being (to be) verbs.  We worked half way through the worksheets, and they should finish them for next week.

Have a great weekend!  The weather looks like it will be marvelous!!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:  

• Examples/Analogy  Pre-Write and Rough Draft

• Short Stories:  Read Gift of the Magi & After Twenty Years
  

• Wk6: Sentence Patterns (N-LV-Adj) 
  

• Wk6: Sentence Patterns (N-LV-N)

Links for This Week

Class Notes

O. Henry Short Stories (pdfs)

About the Example/Illustration Essay (including example essays from Writer's Resources)

How to Write an Examples Essay

How to Write an Analogy Essay

Examples of Analogies

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 5 (February 18)

 Greetings!

We had a delightful class today.  Our class time was quite full.

We started with a Quick Write, and today they had 5 options (4 of which came from their own ideas): Tell about a favorite memory from 2020; If you were stranded on an island, what 3 things would you like to have; explain your thoughts and ideas about socialism; describe what you would do if you had 3 days without electricity; or whatever else is on your mind.  I had a lot of homework to hand back, so they students had a lot of time to write.

Our Words of the Day came from Nina, Rachel, and Annelise today.  As I put the words on the board, I asked the class to make up definitions for the words.

griffonage -- fr. French, from Middle French grifouner to scribble (from griffon stylus, from griffe claw) + -age -- : careless handwriting : a crude or illegible scrawl.

docetism -- from medieval Latin Docetae , the name, based on Greek dokein ‘seem’ -- a belief that Jesus was human but not divine.

raconteur -- French, from raconter ‘relate, recount’ -- an excellent story teller

While the students are writing, I hand back homework, and we do a short Homework Check after the beginning of class activities.  This week, I reminded them of my late homework policy.  I give students three weeks to get assigned work in (actually, they have 4 weeks from the assigned date until I will no longer take it.)  After that extended time, assignments will be given zeros.  I also explained that while I don't have a specific day for correcting homework, I correct homework all at once and don't check and re-check Google Classroom for late assignments.  If homework is handed in on time, it will automatically be included when I correct homework.  If it is late, it could be included, or it might not be.  Most weeks, I will include scores on Track My Grades.  

Students handed in the final drafts of their Narrative Essays.  I'm really looking forward to reading these because their rough drafts were so good!  As a reminder, they should hand in their rough drafts with my marks/corrections when they hand in the final drafts.  The final drafts could be handed in during class or uploaded to the Google Classroom assignment.  The students also need to finish the First Five Mistakes form.

When we finish one paper, we start another.  For the next round of essays,  students can choose to write an Examples Essay or an Analogy Essay.  For both of these types of essays, the students should be thinking explaining one thing with one or more other things.  Students have the next two weeks to do their brainstorming and research.  The pre-writes and rough drafts should be handed in on March 11. 

We had a brief discussion about Richard Hannay and our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps.  Some of the students like the adventurous character of Mr. Hannay, and others don't like him.  I love it when a book elicits strong opinions from readers.  We will finish the book by next week.

At the end of class, we worked through our Grammar worksheet, practicing identifying and classifying prepositional phrases.  Prepositional phrases function either as adjective phrases or adverb phrases, and it can be tricky to tell what kind of phrase it is.

A reminder -- we don't have class next week ; the next time we see one another will be March 4.

Assignments for March 4

-- Examples/Analogy  Pre-Write
-- Read Ch. 9 & 10 of The 39 Steps
-- Week 6 – 3 Study Guide Questions 
-- Classifying Prep Phrases

Links for This Week

Class Notes

About Examples/Analogy Essays

Have a good weekend and a wonderful week off!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 4 (February 11)

 Greetings!

We had an fun class today -- we covered a lot of material .  We started with our Quick Write.  As I told them last week, the plan was to write letters of encouragement and gratitude.  to someone.  They wrote their letters, put them in sealed envelopes, and handed them in.  If need be, they can bring the addresses next week if they forgot to bring them today.  I will mail them.

Our Words of the Day came from the class contributions:

thalassophile -- fr. Greek, thalasa, "sea" -- a lover of the sea

geminate --  fr. Latin, geminatus, "twinned, divided, equal" -- duplicated, found in pairs; something arranged in pairs

susurrate -- fr. Latin, susurare, "to hum, murmur, mumble" -- to make a whispering or humming sound

costermonger -- fr. French, costard, a large variety of apple; Old English mangare, "merchant, broker" -- a vendor of vegetables

I handed back the rough drafts of the Narrative Essays.  These were very enjoyable essays to read.  Many students wrote more than they usually did, and they told interesting stories in the contexts of their essays.  As per my practice, I go over common mistakes and use these for grammar instruction.  The most common errors I found in their write had to do with punctuating dialogue, paragraph formation, comma splice sentences, and compound sentences with commas.  Students are to revise their rough drafts into final drafts for next week.  In addition to their final drafts, they must fill out a form titled, "First Five Mistakes" on a Google Classroom assignment.

We had a short discussion about Richard Hannay and The Thirty-Nine Steps.  We talked about how Hannay was so quick to share his story with those he met, even though dangerous spies were on his trail.  We discussed employing a "willing suspension of disbelief."  In other words, some parts seem unbelievable, and they will remain just that -- unbelievable.  We accept it and go on.  In the chapters that they will read for next week, the spy aspect of the story will evolve, so that by the end, there is a solution to the whole mysterious situation.  For next week, they will read Chapters 7 & 8 and take a quiz.  If they want, they can do the study guide questions for extra credit.

Our Grammar instruction centered on prepositional phrases.  These phrases function as either adjectives or adverbs.  It is important to identify them in sentences so that they can be eliminated as other sentence parts (e.g. subject, direct object, etc.)  Students have 2 sides of one worksheet to do for next week.

A note on homework:  last week with 46 rough drafts from Writing 1 and Writing 2, I only corrected student papers.  The other grammar and literature homework will be graded and entered into Track My Grades this week. Again, if you are not able to get into Track My Grades, let me know.  We discovered today that I had the wrong email entered for one student, and I was able to correct it.

Assignments for next week

• Narrative Essay Final Draft

• First Five Mistakes (GC)

• Read Ch. 7 & 8 of The 39 Steps

• Quiz:  Ch. 5 – 8 (GC)

• Ch. 7 & 8 Study Guide Questions (Extra Credit)

• Grammar – Wk4:  Prepositional Phrase Practice

• Grammar -- Wk4: Prepositional Phrases as Adj/Adv

• Remember to bring your address for your envelope.

Links for This Week

Class Notes

The Thirty-Nine Steps (Librivox)

The Thirty-Nine Steps (YouTube)

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 3 (February 4)

 Greetings!

We started our class thinking about "Gratitude."  I shared with the class that research shows that people who develop intentional habits of expressing gratitude have stronger cognitive functioning, better immune systems, and a greater degree of happiness.  For our Quick Write prompts today, students could choose from these options:  

• What is a simple pleasure that you are grateful for?
• What is something that you are looking forward to?
• Who is someone who could really use a "thank you note?"

The students had some great comments, and we decided that next week we would write some real thank you notes.  I will bring envelopes and stamps and the students are to bring addresses.  (What a great group this is!!)

Our Words of the Day came from Nina and Kaylynn:

oikofugic -- fr. Greek oiko, "house" and Latin fugere, "to flee"  -- a desire to wander or run away from home. 

lachrymose -- fr. Latin lachrymosis, "tear" -- suggest of or tending to cause tears; mournful

mammonism -- fr. Latin mamonao, "wealth" -- the greedy pursuit of riches.

For class this week, we had extras on Zoom due to the bad roads.  Unfortunately, the internet kicked me off, and I couldn't get Zoom up and running again.  I'm afraid those students attending on Zoom missed that last 1/3 of the class.

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Narrative Essays.  Most of them enjoyed writing these because they could write about personal experiences.  I look forward to reading them.

We are 4 chapters into our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and most of the students are enjoying the story line.  Some aspects are unfamiliar because it was written for another time and place.  I reminded the students to look up unfamiliar words.  We also read some of the landscape descriptions.  Even though these aren't the most important aspects of the story, they geography and Richard Hannay's response to the weather, plants, etc. have a subtle effect on the mood of the story.

For the Grammar portion of class, we worked again on simple and compound sentences.  We took time to do a few of the sentences on each worksheet. 

Assignments for Next Week:

• Read Ch. 5 & 6 of The 39 Steps

• Week 4 – 3 Study Guide Questions

• Grammar – Subject/Verb Agreement

• Grammar – Simple Sentences (Compound Subject & Predicate)

• Grammar – Simple Sentences Review

 

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Librivox -- The Thirty-Nine Steps audiobook

YouTube -- The Thirty-Nine Steps audiobook

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

 Greetings!

We started today with a Quick Write using prompt options that they had written:

1. Does water have flavor?
2. Do you have any family traditions or quirky things that only your family does?
3. What is your favorite room in your house?

Our Word of the Day was brought to us by Nina:

geloscopy -- fr. Greek gelos, "laughter" and scopein, "to examine" -- fortune telling by examining laughter.

[Note:  I reminded the students that they can bring 1 word each week for extra credit as long as they have the etymology and definition.]

The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order:  Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.  My plan is to give the last 10 - 15 minutes of every class to working on Grammar assignments so that if students have questions, they can ask them right in class. 

For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Narrative Essays.  The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week.  Students were reminded that a Narrative Essay is kind of like a "story with a purpose."  

The class has read the first 2 chapters of our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps.  I divided the class into 3 groups to discuss the overall plot development so far, points of confusion, and top traits or our main character, Richard Hannay.  As a class we agreed that some points were confusing simply because we skimmed rather than read carefully some sections.  Another challenge in reading this book is  that students are unfamiliar with the historical places and names, with some of the expressions, and with some of the vocabulary.  For example, Richard Hannay mentions the "veld" quite often.   Knowing the definition of the word would make a world of difference in their understanding of the book.  So here's some advice -- look up words that you don't know!

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates.  Then the students had time to work on the worksheets and ask questions.  Some of them got a lot of work done during that time.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Narrative Essay Rough Draft & Pre-Write
Read Ch. 3 & 4 of The 39 Steps
Quiz:  Ch. 1 – 4 (Google Classroom)

Ch. 3 & 4 Study Guide Questions (Extra Credit)

Simple Sentences (Compound Subjects)

Simple Sentences (Compound Predicates)

Sentences: Finding the Complete Subjects and Complete Predicate

Links for this Week

Class Notes

Track My Grades

Spring Writing 1 Syllabus

Spring Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on YouTube

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on Librivox

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)

 Greetings!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's faces (at least I'm sure there were faces behind the masks.)

For our Quick Write today, I asked the students to write something that connected with their Pre-Reading assignment for The 39 Steps.  I had think about what they would do if they were on the run -- either from some bad guys or some good guys (which meant they might be a bad guy.)  They were to think of possible options for hiding and staying safe.  This is a very creative bunch!  I heard some of their ideas and look forward to reading what they wrote.

For our Words of the Day, I had for them some words for those small "thingamajigs" or "whatchamacallits."  

meme -- fr. Greek mimeme; to imitate -- a digital image combined with text to express a cultural comment.
pintle -- the pin or bolt that is used in hinge.
ferrule -- the metal cap on the end of an umbrella
aglet -- the cover of the end of a shoe lace

For the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  Here's how it will go:  Students can bring in 1 word a week written on a note card, Post-it note, or small piece of paper; we'll put them in the Homework Bin and randomly pull a few out.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  Students will get extra credit for bringing a word in, whether or not we use it that day.

Before we dug into our new topics for the semester, I quickly reviewed some of the basics, including Google Classroom and Track My Grades.  As last semester, all assignments will be posted in Google Classroom.  With the exception of our essays and a few online quizzes, students can hand in their homework when they come to class.  However, last semester some students preferred to do them on Google Classroom.  Either way will work, but students MUST remember to only hand in their homework in one place -- EITHER during class OR via Google Classroom.  Not both.  Note:  For those who have been trying to get onto Google Classroom, the site had been down for a couple days.  It's up and running and at its regular speed. 

Last semester I used a set of grade sheets that I built out of Google Sheets, but it didn't quite do everything I wanted it to do, so this semester I'm using Trackmygrades.com.  You should have received an invitation (and I will send another following this email).  To log in, you will need your chatclasses.com email and the 4-digit password that they have assigned you.  The best way to differentiate Google Classroom and Track My Grades is this:  Google Classroom will give you the specifics of an assignment and will tell you if you are missing any work; Track My Grades will tell you the scores for the work that has been handed in.  

The first topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Narrative Essay.  I like to call a Narrative Essay a "story with a purpose."  In this type of essay, students re-tell a series of events, but they are not simply telling a story.  They must have a reason for telling these events to their readers.  This reason could include a turning point in life, a traumatic experience that change a life, an achievement that made a significant difference, etc.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due February 4.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  For years I've been teaching The Strange Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and this year I wanted a change.  Instead, we will be reading another British classic that was written in 1915 -- The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.  This is one of the first espionage, man-on-the-run types of books.  I've taught this book to British Literature classes, and I think we'll all enjoy this book.

Last semester in the Grammar portion of the class we covered the Parts of Speech, and the students did amazing presentations.  This semester, we will build on that knowledge and review sentence patterns.  Many times when students are writing, they have comma splice sentences, run-on sentences, and sentence fragments.  It's important to be firmly grounded in the elements of a sentence so that you have the vocabulary and knowledge to fix sentences that aren't quite working.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

Narrative Essay Pre-Write

Intro to The 39 Steps Quiz (GC)
Read Ch. 1 & 2 of The 39 Steps
Week 2 – 3 Study Guide Questions
Grammar – Wk1:  What is a Sentence? 

Grammar – Wk1:  Sentence Patterns N-V

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

Writing 1 Spring Syllabus

Spring Writing 1 Students Google Drive folder

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)