Writing 1: Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 19)

Greetings!

It's great to be back at CHAT again. Students were lively and alert, and I have good material planned for this semester that I'm excited to teach. We also have two new students in the class. The more the merrier, I always say!

We began the day, as usual, with a Quick Write. Government and politics seemed to be on the minds of many, so I intentionally chose a different topic. In 1898, the first intercollegiate hockey game was played between Brown and Harvard. In 1905, a new bike race was announced, the Tour de France. And finally, in 1939 Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin set a record of 4.4 seconds for chicken plucking. With these events in mind, I asked the students to write about their favorite athletic (or unusual) competition.

Last semester, I tested the students on our Words of the Day. We won't be having a test for Words of the Day this semester, but we will continue to deliberately work on building our vocabularies. We're starting with Latin roots, and our words this week were:

amo -- fr. Latin, amare; to love -- English derivatives: amicable, amorous, amateur, enamored
aqua -- fr. Latin, aqua, aquae; water -- English derivatives: aquifer, aqueous, aquarium, aquatic, aquamarine

audi -- fr. Latin audire; to hear -- English derivatives: audio, audiophile, auditory, auditorium, audition

The next item on my agenda for class was "New Stuff." I handed out the Syllabus for the semester and gave a concise overview of our Writing, Grammar, and Literature units. We begin the semester reading The Strange Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This book by Robert Louis Stevenson is a classic tale that unpacks the ideas of good vs. evil, among other themes. I gave the students some background information and a study guide.

One of our writing assignments later in the term will be either a Character or a Theme essay. We discussed them a bit, and will revisit them as we work our way through the book. They also have a vocabulary worksheet that has spaces for 30 entries. They can pull these from anywhere in the book.

The first writing assignment for this term is a Narrative Essay. We read through the handout and discussed how this essay "narrates" and event that is significant. In other words, it's a story with a purpose.

Last semester, we focused on the 8 parts of speech for our Grammar. This semester, we will focus on commas. My hopes are that they will be "Masters of the Comma" by the end of the semester. This week, we went over using commas with compound sentences.

Be on the alert for another email with information about online resources.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read Ch. 1 & 2 of Jekyll/Hyde

-- Answer 4 Study Guide questions

-- Narrative Essay Pre-Write

-- 2 Grammar Worksheets

-- Sentences & Commas Worksheet

-- Compound Sentences worksheet

Links for This Week

Class Notes
Spring Syllabus

Intro to Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde

Study Guide for Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde

Character Worksheet