Again, another great class. This group of students brings a lot of positive energy and attitudes to the class. The prompt for our Quick Write today was the 190th anniversary of Scotland Yard. We discussed detectives, law enforcement, mysteries, and perspectives about rules. Students could take the topic(s) in any number of directions.
We skipped the Words of the Day this week because I knew that we already would have a full class. We'll resume next week. A new element that I'm adding to the class is the role of a "Class Scribe." I recently purchased a Rocketbook, that is a digital notebook, and I want students to take turns taking handwritten notes, especially of the examples and diagrams that I put on the board. Those notes then get shared to the Google Drive folder for the class and a link to them will be included with the Class Notes.
I handed back rough drafts of their Personal Essays. Whenever I hand back rough drafts, I take a significant amount of time to go over common errors/mistakes so that we can make those mistakes into learning opportunities. The two most common mistakes this week included the following:
- Having the right spelling but it's the wrong word (spell check and auto-correct can be helpful but not always trusted); e.g. costumer/customer, plane/plain, right/write, heard/herd
- Formatting issues.
I took some time to discuss some new guidelines for formatting their papers, moving towards MLA formatted papers. (Here is a video for formatting in Google Docs, and here is one for doing the same in Word.) Going forward, I would like the students to format their papers in the following way: 1 inch margins, 12 pt. font, double spaced, header in the upper right margin with last name and page number, and a heading on the left side with full student's full name, class name, teacher's name, assignment name, and date handed in. This document is a "sample."
With all of our essays, I'm having the students designate a section of the note-taking to those "Watch Out For" points that I've noted in the comments section of my corrections. Along with making revisions for their final drafts, I want students to fill out the little half-sheet titled, "My First 5 Errors." For this worksheet, students should look at the first five marks that I made on their rough drafts and write what the error was and, if they know, what grammar rule is connected with the error. Under the First 5 section is a place for them to write about what area they want to improve in.
Our Grammar topic this week included the Verbs Presentation by Philip. He showed a familiar Schoolhouse Rock video about verbs. We discussed action, linking, and helping verbs for a while. On the Class Scribe notes, you will see the forms of the verb "to be" which we will work on memorizing: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been. Philip had homework for the students that they were able to finish in class. Next week Maggie will share about adjectives
We had another round of a Literature Circle for our discussion about Animal Farm. I do a lot of talking in the class, so I enjoy the circles in which the students are responsible for moving the conversations forward and for making the thoughtful and rigorous. We will be finishing the book, so next week we will also be wrapping up our discussions of the book as a whole. (Note: Next week I will send home a Take Home Quiz and the following week they will get a final exam for Animal Farm, so they should get caught up on their reading if they are behind!)
Assignments for Next Week
-- Read Chapters 9 & 10
-- 3 Reader Responses & 3 Vocabulary Words
-- Personal Essay Final Drafts
-- My First 5 Errors worksheet
-- Verbs Homework (if not finished in class)
Links for This Week
Class Notes
Have a great weekend!
Blessings,
Mrs. Prichard
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