Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 24)

Greetings!  

On Thursday when I drove up to CHAT, the back roads were ice-covered and a little treacherous.  By the time classes were done, the snow had almost all melted.  That's Spring in Minnesota for you!

I used two dates and two men as the prompts for this week's Quick Write.  The first was March 23, 1776 when Patrick Henry proclaimed to the citizens of Richmond, Virginia, "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty of give me death!"  The second date was March 25, 2228, the supposed birth date of Captain James T. Kirk, born somewhere in Iowa.  This man's mission was "to boldly go where no man has gone before."  I asked the students to write either about passions they would give their all to or about a life's adventure or dream.

For our Words of the Day, we had words that contained all of the vowels (a, e, i, o, and u):

armigerous -- entitled to bear heraldic arms; an armour-bearer

epuration -- purification; removing officials or politicians considered to be disloyal

inquorate -- unable to proceed due to an insufficient number of members

ossuaries -- a container or room in which the bones of dead people are placed

uvarovite -- an emerald green variety of a garnet

sequioia -- a redwood tree

Students handed in the Final Drafts of their Themes/Character Essays. They worked hard on these and should pat themselves on the backs.  Writing about literature is an important skill to learn.

I introduced our next writing assignment: a News Story.  Students have a wide range of topic choices for this assignment.  They can choose a current event or one from the past.  They could also write about an imaginary event if they are feeling creative.  A current issue, a personal interest, or an ongoing controversy would make a good topic.  We discussed that the organization of a news article is different from that of an essay.  In an essay, you write a clear introduction that expresses the topic and your opinion (i. e. thesis statement); the points of your paper are ordered so that the least important are first and the most important are last.  In a news story, the opinion of the writer is hidden and embedded in your writing; also, the most important points are given first, and the minor details are at the end of the story.  (The reasoning is that in a newspaper, your readers may lose interest fairly quickly, so you want to get the most important information first.)  The Pre-write for the News Story is due when we get back from break.

In the Grammar section of class we reviewed direct objects and indirect objects.  Students gave some sample sentences, and we dissected the sentences, labeling the parts of speech.  Since we are on the topic of Sentence Patterns, we proceeded on to Predicate Nouns and Predicate Adjectives.  The four patterns we've discussed so far are:

N - V - DO (noun - verb - direct object)

N - V - IO - DO (noun - verb - indirect object - direct object)

N - LV - N (noun - linking verb - noun)

N - LV - Adj (noun - linking verb - adjective)

We took a little longer with the Writing and Grammar portion of the class; we'll discuss this week's short stories and the newly assigned on when we come back from break.

Assignments for April 7:

-- News Story Pre-Write

-- Predicate Nominative and Predicate Adjective Worksheets

-- Read "The Ransom of Red Chief"

-- Writ e 3 Discussion Questions for the short story

Links for This Week:

Class Notes

News Story

"The Ransom of Red Chief" audiobook

Direct Objects & Indirect Objects PowerPoint

Predicate Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives Video

We do not have class next week!  Enjoy the break, and be blessed this Easter!

Mrs. Prichard

News Story

News Story

Definition

            In a News Story, you learn as much as you can about a subject and present your findings in a way that makes sense and holds your reader attention.  Your story can be a report of an event, an interview, or a compiled report on an issue.

Gathering Information

You can consult a variety of sources about a timely, interesting topic.  Your sources may include books, articles, internet sources, interviews, etc.  Your goal is to bring together this information into a unified report that informs and/or entertains your readers.

Two steps:

• Collecting – Consult a number of sources, taking careful notes about your subject.  Be careful to be accurate with facts, figures, and quotations.
• Assessing – Come to some conclusion about the significance of the information you collected.  Let that conclusions be the thesis of your paper.  Then plan your report, selecting and arranging the facts to support this focus.     

Thesis Development

            Your thesis will be the ideas you’ve formed after collecting material.  The thesis may be about the value of the subject, the impact it has on society, the causes and effects related to it, the significance to others, etc. 

Organization

            A News Story can be organized in a number of ways.  If it is of an event, a chronological format can be used.  If this plan is used, the writer should continue to draw the reader’s attention not only to the progression of events, but also to the manner in which they support the thesis.  Sometimes a News Story is about various people, and separate paragraphs can be devoted to each person.  If an issue is discussed, the writer will need to break it into its primary components.         

Essay Guidelines

– Due dates:  Pre-Write due April 7; Rough Draft due April 14;  Final Draft due April 28

– Essay length:  500 – 700 words (between 2 and 4 pages)

– Rough drafts can be typed or hand-written, but must be double-spaced.

– Final draft format:

– Typed (if this is not possible, please let me know)

– 1 inch margins

– Name and date on the upper right hand corner

– Number the pages on the lower right hand corner

– Title centered above the text of the essay

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 8 (March 17)

Greetings!

This week in class we started with a Quick Write that asked about family heritage since it was St. Patrick's Day.  While my kids are "mutts," a blend of 8 or 9 nationalities, we have incorporated some Scandinavian traditions into our family celebrations.  As I write this, I'm thinking that it would be fun to incorporate some those British, German, and Scotch-Irish elements into our family, too.

The Words of the Day were short words or words for very small items:

aglet -- fr. OF aiguillette, a small needle -- the plastic or metal end of a shoelace

chad -- origin unknown -- a small round or square bit of paper formed when a hole is punched

grommet -- fr, OF gromette, curb of a bridle -- a metal or plastic ring encasing and reinforcing a hole

vim -- fr. an Americanism; fr. Latin vis, energy, force -- a lively and enthusiastic spirit

mauw -- fr. German, maul, muzzle -- the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal

I handed back the Rough Drafts of the Themes/Character Essays.  The class did a wonderful job with this assignment.  When I hand back rough drafts, I like to use that as an opportunity to go over common errors.  Students can learn points of grammar with worksheets, but it makes the most sense in the context of their own writing.  I had the students come up and list on the board errors that were on their own essays, and then I added a few others.  We also talked briefly about plagiarism, which is taking the data, information, or comments of another and writing them as if they are your own.  It's good to add insights from others, but it's important to give credit where credit is due.  (We will cover this more in Writing 2)

The class had read 2 O. Henry short stories for this week:  "Makes the Whole World Kin" and "The Furnished Room."  We read aloud portions of first one and discussed it.

For the past few weeks, during the Grammar portion of class we've been learning about various types of phrases.  Now, we're moving on to types of sentences and elements in a a sentence.

Assignments for this Week:

Read "Retrieved Reformation" and "Pimienta Pancakes"

Fill out one Short Story worksheet for each story (both sides)

Final Drafts of Themes/Character Essays

Grammar Worksheets -- 9.2 and 9.3

Links for this Week:

Class Notes

Retrieved Reformation (audiobook)

Retrieved Reformation (Listen & Read)

Pimienta Pancakes (audiobook)

Direct and Indirect Objects video

Have a beautiful week!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 7 (March 10)

Greetings!

My apologies for the lateness of this e-mail.  We had a busy weekend with a conference and out of town guests.

Our Quick Write was an interesting one.  I told the students that they could ask me three questions, and I would answer one of them.  The questions have been fun to answer:  what's my favorite Bible verse? what's my favorite food to cook? where my favorite vacation spot? and finally, who is my favorite student?  (I weaseled out of that one!)

Our Words of the Day:

New words:

nutriceutical -- foods used for healing

retail therapy -- shopping for comfort

webliography -- a list of electronic documents

Old words

humble pie -- forced humility; to be forced to apologize

wiseacre -- a person who pretends to be smart but is obnoxious

kickshaw -- a delicacy or trinket

The Rough Drafts of the Themes or Character Essays were handed in this week.  This is probably the hardest essay they will write all year.  For all of the other essay they can choose their own topics.  For these, they not only don't have a choice, but they have to read the book while keeping track of good details from the book to use for support in their essays.  I will go over these this week and have them back for them next Thursday.

We have started into our next book, The Gift of the Magi, and Other Short Stories by O. Henry.  Our stories for this last week were "The Gift of the Magi" and "After Twenty Years."  We used the discussion questions that they wrote for our class discussion.  Next week, students are to fill out short story worksheets instead of  writing discussion questions.

We are continuing to work on phrases for the Grammar section of the class.  We did a quick review of Prepositional, Participle, Gerund, and Infinitive Phrases.  For their homework, instead of a worksheet, I want the students to write their own sentences.  They are to write 4 sentences for each type of phrase; put the prepositional phrase between parentheses and underline the other sentences.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read "Makes the Whole World Kin" and "A Furnished Room"

-- One worksheet for each story (front and back)

-- 16 sentences (4 for each type of phrase)

Links for this week:

Class Notes

Audio & video links for "Gift of the Magi" and "After Twenty Years"

"A Furnished Room" audio book from Youtube

"Makes the Whole World Kin" -- a Russian student film

Have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (March 3)

Greetings!

A week off from class was a nice break, but it is also good to be back to our CHAT classes.  

Before our Quick Write, I told the students about a opera performance in Berlin by Luciano Pavarotti.  Following the performance, Pavarotti had a record 165 curtain calls and a 67 minute standing ovation.  I asked the students to write about either a memorable concert experience or a singer/group they would like to hear in concert.  While most students like concerts, a few were not as interested in attending any special performances.

Our Words of the Day:

philophaster -- a pseudo-philosopher  (the suffix "aster" implies an incomplete resemblence or counterfeit)

autocrat -- from Greek, auto (self) and crat (rule/power) -- a ruler who has absolute power; 

satrap -- a governor in ancient Persia

epizootic -- a disease spreading through an animal population

trilemna -- a difficult choice involving 3 options

We had a quick check in on our Essays.  This writing assignment is probably the hardest one that they will do all year.  In order to write about a theme or character from The Strange Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the students need to give the book a thorough reading and to analyze the book.  They should use the charts they they filled out as they read the book to help gather supporting details.

We've reached the final chapters of our book and took time to discuss its ending.  We read aloud the section that described the transformation of Hyde's body to Jekyll's.  As a final activity, we made a list of really good, moral people and a list of immoral, unsavory people and pondered a modern version of the Jekyll/Hyde story.  

Our next Literature unit is a book of O. Henry short stories.  O. Henry was a prolific short story writer whose collections entertained Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.  We will read two stories for next week.  Students are to bring to class 3 discussion questions for each story.  These discussion questions should be Why and How questions rather than Who, What, When or Where questions.

Finally, we forayed into a Grammar discussion that involved phrases.  Today, our specific topic was infinitive phrases.  These are verbal phrases that begin with "to" and include the simple form of the verb.  For example, "to walk" and "to see" and "to love."  These phrases can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.  As we've discussed in class, sometimes one part of speech can be used in another.  In the homework section, I have two videos that will help explain both Infinitive Phrases and Appositive Phrases.  I would like the students to watch them before the next class.

Assignments for Next Week:

EDpuzzle Infinitive Video 

EDpuzzle Appositive Video

Themes/Character Rough Draft

Themes Worksheet

Character Worksheet

Vocabulary Worksheet

Read "The Gift of the Magi" and "After Twenty Years"

Write 3 Discussion questions for each story

Phrases, Part 2 Worksheet (front side only)

Links for This Week:

Class Notes

Videos for Infinitives and Appositives

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard