Writing about Literature

 Below are some good links for ideas and helps for writing about literature (especially Themes and Characters):

How to Write a Literary Analysis

How to Write a Theme Analysis 5 Paragraph Essay

Literature Essay

Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 27

Greetings!

We had an enjoyable class yesterday.  I really enjoy working with these bright, homeschool students.  I had purchased a magnetic Scrabble Game that we used for our Quick Write.  Each student took a turn to build a word using their 6 tiles.  It wasn't the creative writing opportunity that the Quick Writes often are, but it was a chance to "play" with words -- the building blocks for our writing.

I had asked the Writing 2 class to write some bad paragraphs that Writing 1 could use for editing practice. I paired them up to work on the these together.  They did a great job with spelling and grammar errors.

I had handed back their final copies of their Editorial/Short Persuasive Essays.  Each of the students is improving.  The papers not only have fewer grammatical errors, they are more clearly and thoughtfully written.

We've arrived at the end of our book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  We discussed the ending and the parts of the book that we liked and didn't like.  We reviewed the sequence of events and corrected our take home quizzes.  Their next assigned paper is a "writing about literature" essay.  Using their worksheets for inspiration and as resources, they are to write an essay about either a theme or a character.  I will have an in-class exam for them at our next class.  This exam will be a mixed test.  (True/False, Multiple Choice, and Short Answer)

This next week is CHAT's Spring Break.  It looks like we're going to have some good weather.  Enjoy!

Assignments for April 10:
-- Review ACY for the final exam.
-- Write the rough draft of the Themes or Character essay.
-- Finish the Themes, Characters, and Vocabulary worksheets.  These must be handed in on April 10.
-- Extra Credit:  Bring 6 Baseball Questions for the last 5 chapters.


Have a great Spring Break!
Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 20

Greetings!

We had a good class today.  The students were alert and well-engaged.  For our Quick Write today the students had the following prompt:  "A Spring Mystery."  Some students found it an easy assignment while others drew a blank.  I guess that shows us that inspiration is an important aspect of writing.

The students handed in their final copies of their Editorial/ Short Persuasion Essays.  I also have them hand in their rough drafts along with the final copies so that I can see how they made the corrections.  I enjoy seeing their writing improve as they figure out how to rewrite sentences.  A couple of students are a bit behind because of absences, difficulties with printers, etc.  Any old assignments should be handed in next week.

We also went over an assignment from last week in which the students were to rewrite a poorly  written paragraph.  Three common mistake that the students made in their corrections:
     -- amount vs. number:  you use the word "number" when referring to countable items.
     -- that vs. who:  you use "who" when referring to people and "that" for things, animals, and abstract nouns.  We also discussed collective nouns which are words that represent a number of people or things with a single word.  e.g. audience, congregation, community.  Since these nouns can also be in plural form, they take a singular verb even though they represent an entity that is more than one.
     -- compound sentences & comma splices:  sometimes students try to combine sentences with a comma instead of a semi-colon or with a comma and a conjunction.

At the beginning of our discussion of A Connecticut Yankee, I re-explained the worksheets that I had handed out at the beginning of our study of this book.  The students are to fill out information for 4 themes and 4 characters.  Our next writing assignment is an essay about our literature.  The students are to write an analysis about one of the themes or characters, and these worksheets will help them.  We made a couple of mind maps in order to brainstorm to write an essay like this.

After discussing the next writing assignment, we opened our books and read aloud a couple of portions.  Reading aloud helps us to experience the book together and often helps the students understand it better.  We were able see and appreciate the humor of Twain's writing.

Assignment for Next Week:
-- Read to the end of ACY (including the P.S.)
-- Finish the take home quiz in which you fill in the chapter numbers for the events
-- Continue working on Character, Theme, and Vocabulary worksheets.  They will be due on April 10.
-- Pre-writing for the Theme or Character Essay.


Have a great week!
Mrs. Prichard

Quick Write -- Breaking News!

Below are some of the Quick Writes that they wrote for the prompt:  "Breaking News!  Mrs. Prichard's class has a bad case of ......"

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's class has a bad case of mismatched socks.  After talking about it in class last February, the class met on March 6, and every student wore mismatched socks.  This fashion trend was unplanned but still unanimously displayed by the high schoolers.  This fabulous style is bound to spread throughout all of CHAT.

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's writing class has a bad case of extreme writing skill.  This rare virus causes anyone who catches it to immediately become a wonderful writer.  The skill of the writers in the class who have become infected is becoming renown throughout the class.  The cause of this disease is still unknown, however, top scientists are studying where this originated from and what it means for the future.

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's Writing 1 class has come down with a case of the heebie-jeebies.  As a result, the entire class is shaking and crying under the tables.  They start at loud noises and several have been heard to cry for their mothers.  At this time, co cure is known.

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's writing class has a bad case of mismatched socks!  Ever since Syd Culbertson influenced the rebelling idea of this confusion, there has been no end!  Stripes, polka dots, zebra stripes, leopard spots, and the list goes on.  What's next?  Mismatched gloves, clashing clothes ... two different shoes.  I thought we grew out of this when we were seven.  Well, it is a little catchy I do suppose.  I mean it couldn't hurt to try ...

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's class has a bad case of mismatched socks.  Somehow, everyone decided not to fold their socks so they get lost.  Also, it looks more cool if you have stripes and stars.  Plus, you don't have to buy extra pairs.

Breaking News!
The writing class taught by Mrs. Prichard has a bad case of the munchies.  Yes, folks, the munchies.  The students have been trying to kick the habit of snorting Pixy-Stix in class.  This has become an issue that has spiralled out of control.  One of the students who is the most addicted unfortunately did 32 Pixy-Stix in 1 class!  This madness needs to come to an end.  There is a bounty of $10 for whoever catches or kills Tinker Bell so the evil substance will be no more.  This message is brought to you by the COPWDRC (The Committee of People Who Don't Really Care).
Thank you!

Breaking News!
Mrs. Prichard's class has a bad case of "Swag."  This swag has been traveling around.  Today we have two more victims.  Together with my sidekick, Mr. Winklesnorts, we will finally rid Mrs. Prichard's writing class of Swag.

Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 13

Greetings!

Happy Pi Day!  Besides eating a nice piece of pie, you could learn a song or rap for the day!

Yesterday was a good day for the class.  For the Quick Write, we expanded a short paragraph by adding adjectives and adverbs.  The end results were somewhat overburdened with wordiness, but it was a good exercise.

We spent time going over the rough drafts of their Editorials/Short Persuasive Essays.  As a class, we discussed some of the common problems that came up as I corrected them.  It seems that the same difficulties have come up over the last few papers, so I'm including some links to other web resources that might be helpful:
Parallel constructions:  #1 or #2 or #3
Compound Sentences:  #1 or #2
Agreement of Nouns and Pronouns:  #1 or #2 or #3

After our writing discussion, we looked at our book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.  Sometimes the best way to get a good handle on a book is to simply look at the series of events.  This gives us a framework for exploring characters and themes.  I put a large piece of paper and we taped up the events in order of occurrence.  As part of next week's assignment, I gave them the same list of events for them to figure out what chapter the event occurs.

Assignment for Next Week:
-- Read ACY up through Chapter 37.
-- Write up 6 more Baseball Questions
-- Finish the Take Home Quiz and fill in the chapter numbers for the events.
-- Finish the final copy of the Editorial/Short Persuasive Essay.

Have a great week!  Enjoy this incredible weather!
Mrs. Prichard

Literary Love Letters

On Valentine's Day, I assigned the students to write a "love letter" that had a literary connection.  Some of them were fun and fascinating.  I thought others would enjoy these.  Read and have fun ....





Dear Guide to the Swag Kit,
I love how you teach me the easiest way to look thug in a leather coat.  Your vivid explanation on how to properly lace my new hip hiking boots astounds me.  However I was a little confused about how to set the the time on my Rollex.
Sincerely,
American Consumer

Dear Long Words,
Thank you for helping me confuse people into thinking that my intelligence has sprung from a kindergartener's level to a mensa genius.  You make a boring story sound entertainting.  All my love to you.
Hana

To my favorite punctuation --
My Dearest Period,
     My heart is full with immense love for you.  My life has change because of you.  It is as though the former sentence of my life has ended and a new one has begun.  You have also abbreviated all the pain in my life and filled me with new purpose.  Because of this I felt an urgent need to write and tell you of my affection.
With all my love,
An Anonymous Word

Dear Rhyming,
Thank you for making things so awesome,
Whenever I am using you, my poetry seems to blossom,
You make rap music bounce with every single word
Because without you that music would be absurd.
I love your way of appearing in almost every book
And without your presence in it people wouldn't care to look.
Thank you so much for being in my life
And thanks to you I will never have grammar strife.

Dear Hunger Games,
You are fantastic.  I live in the Capitol, so I never get chosen.  The excitement and glamor surrounding the tributes is unbearable.  This year marks the 74th Hunger Games.  The male tribute from District 12 proclaimed his love for his fellow tribute from 12.   This should be interesting.  Last year was pretty lack-luster, so I'm expecting this year's games to be riveting with pulse-pounding expense.

Dear Period,
I have wanted to get together for a long time now, but you have been away at the university teaching all the "i" dots how to climb up the pole to reach their designated spot.  I hope I may see you again, my love.  Perhaps we can make a semicolon together.
Yours forever,
Comma

My dear, dear pencil,
Oh how I love you.  I could not function without you.  My life without you would be bland.  To think of typing my assignments, oh man!  My homework is too hard to type out.  School might be too easy to flunk out.  My dear pencil with 9 mm lead, I never would choose a pen instead.  I used you to write out this paper.  And my love for you will never waver.

Bad Writing Samples

#1       The amount of grammer and usage error’s today is astounding. Not to mention spelling. If I was a teacher, I’d feel badly that less and less students seem to understand the basic principals of good writing. Neither the oldest high school students nor the youngest kindergartner know proper usage. A student often thinks they can depend on word processing programs to correct they’re errors. Know way!

            Watching TV all the time, its easy to see why their having trouble. TV interferes with them studying and it’s strong affect on children has alot to due with their grades. There’s other factors, too, including the indifference of parents like you and I. A Mom or Dad often doesn’t know grammer themselves. We should tell are children to study hard like we did at they’re age and to watch less TV then their classmates.

#2       The television can be helpful sometimes, especially when people watch the news, but of course we all know that you can’t get everyone to watch the news. Some people watch television to learn about things that go on in our world. And there’s people that watch it cause there’s nothing else to do. People that watch television because there’s nothing else to do are making television harmful because almost all of the shows have something wrong with them like the language, their actions, and some of the things that they show. And most of the kids that watch these shows want to be the same way. Like say that a teenager killed someone, the kids that watch it and think that’s cool and do the same thing when they get older.

            Some shows are learning experienses like a show on saving our economy, if you  watched this you could help save the economy. I think that there are too many people using television in the harmful way such as gaining weight from sitting in front of the television too much. There are also a log of people who stay away from television as often as they can and try to be more active, but still do watch the educational way of shows and that is the education way of doing it. There are also a lot of controversy going on about some of the things they on television. But it you think about it television is very helpful.

#3       As that there are alot of people (weather they are philosophers or not) there are many exceptions to moral rules or laws. One thing I find interesting about Immanuel Kant, are his strong feelings toward not lying at any time ever no matter what and not to deal with the consequences and the considerations of individual situations and circumstances and possible exceptions that need to be accounted for when making a decision of morality and ethics. Immanuel Kant felt strongly that lying was always wrong, he was against it. But whose to say? Wasn’t lying just Kants biggest how shall I say "pet-peeve"? "No lying ever, no exceptions" needs to be addressed more seriously in the future by later philosophers, if you ask me its worth a try. Immanuel Kant was probably one of the most supportive philosiphers of absolute rules in the ethical and moral decision-making systems of thought I have studied.

Writing 1 Class Notes -- March 6

Greetings!

We had an enjoyable class this week.  The first signs of spring often invigorate us and give us fresh energy for the tasks at hand.  (That is, until the change in weather makes us antsy to be done with all school work!)

Our Quick Write for this week was this:  “BREAKING NEWS:  Mrs. Prichard’s writing class has a bad case of ………”  The students must have felt inspired because they took a bit of time to finish their writing.  I also tested to see if they knew a bit of trivial information about this past Sunday.  None of them knew that the day was an “imperative” (“March forth.”) or that it was National Grammar Day.  I suppose those are details that writing teachers are more aware of.

Many of the students wrote clever “literary love letters” for our Valentine’s Day Quick Write.  They’ve given me permission to put them on the blog site.  I’ll let you know when I get those up.

We took some time to discuss our literature, A Connecticut Yankee.  Within the context of looking at some of the particulars of the plot, we discussed Twain’s humor and his use of words.  Regarding word usage, we talked about denotation (the dictionary meaning of words), connotation (the emotional nuances and shades of meaning), vernacular and colloquial speech (common every day language as opposed to formal expressions.)  We discussed how a writer will carefully word portions so that we like or don’t like characters.

As part the students’ end-of-the-book test, we will play a Baseball Game.  Hank, the main character in ACY, “invents” the game of baseball for the knights to play.  The students are to come up with questions ranging in difficulty (singles, doubles, triples, and home runs) that will be “pitched” to their classmates.  For the remainder of the weeks that we’re reading this book, the students will be assigned to write questions to be used in this game.  These questions can be about the characters (names, descriptions, etc) the setting, the plot (events, conflicts, etc.), themes, or vocabulary words.

In our writing portion of the class, we worked on editing a sample of bad writing.  Being able to recognize and correct poor writing is a skill that will help them in editing their own work.  I was impressed not only with the 3 revisions that the students formulated, but their insight into the fine differences in meaning in each of the sentences. 

The students have handed in their editorial (short persuasive essay) rough drafts.  I will correct them and have them ready next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read ACY through Chapter 31

-- Write 6 “Baseball Questions.”

-- Rewrite either #1 or #2 from the Bad Samples worksheet.

-- EXTRA CREDIT – Write a bad paragraph (at least 5 sentences long) that the class can correct.  E-mail this to me before Monday morning.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

This week’s blog entry