Writing 1: Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 11 (April 2)

Greetings!

We've finished the second week of online classes. I hope all is going well at your homes with the adjustment to a virtual classroom. I know that some students are having technology challenges. Please let me know if there are any difficulties that I might be able to help with.

Beginning of Class Activities

Whether we're in a building or on Zoom, we start our class with a Quick Write. This week's prompts included the following: 1) What is an April Fool's prank that you've experienced or heard of; 2) What is a memorable childhood movie, either loved or hated; and 3) What was a favorite childhood read-aloud book. Students were to type their Quick Writes into an email to me, or they could hand-write the Quick Write and take a picture and send it to me. This week, when the students were done writing, I put them into Breakout Rooms to share what they wrote. They seemed to enjoy these connections, so I will continue to do this in future weeks.

I've decided to forgo the Words of the Day section of our beginning of class activities, but that doesn't mean the we will not have a test on our words. Students can start reviewing using the blog entry for the Writing 1 Spring Words of the Day.

Usually after the beginning of class activities we have a Homework Check-in. It seemed so odd to me to have a pile of homework that had been corrected but that I couldn't hand back. My hope is to be more paperless and to have more online options for the students to do work and to show their learning. Until then we will still have some worksheets as part of our homework. Students are to either take a photo or scan their work in. (Remember to have sufficient light and resolution so that I can see and correct the homework.) Before our next class I will have a scanned package of corrected homework.

Writing

For the Writing portion of the class, I reminded students that Rough Drafts of the News Story were due. To turn them in, they can attach a Word or PDF document, share a Google Doc, or, if none of those is an option, copy and paste the essay into the body of an email. Please, do not send documents from Pages or Open Office.

Literature

We then jumped into our Poetry Unit. I started this section with two short videos: Taylor Mali's Authority visual & spoken poem and the scene, "What will your verse be?" from the Dead Poet's Society. (Unfortunately, this sound from the second video was not good.) My hope was to inspire them a little bit about the wonder of poetry, especially when spoken aloud. Much like dramatic literature, poetry is meant to be heard as much as to be read. I again divided the students into Breakout Rooms -- I'm loving this feature in Zoom -- to discuss these four questions: 1) What makes a poem a poem? 2) Why do you think poetry is important? 3) Why do people like/love/hate poetry? 4) What was your favorite poem for this week? Why? We used the Square Model for group discussion for this, and students took turns asking the question, then answering, then agreeing/disagreeing, and finally adding to the already spoken comments. We've used this model before, and it helps to give everyone a chance to talk.

Below you will find the poems assigned for our next class period. Students must read all of the poems and then choose 2 poems to respond to. As we did for this week, students have options for how they can respond:

Fill out the Poetry analysis worksheet,
write a one-paragraph analysis,
make a video of yourself explaining the poem,
rewrite the poem,
write a poem about the poem,
illustrate the poem,
perform the poem,
interview someone about what they think about the poem, etc.

You get the idea -- students can be creative about how they choose to respond to the poem, but they can also go the straightforward path and fill out the worksheet.

Grammar

Finally, for the grammar unit, I checked in to see how the Edpuzzle assignments were working. Most of the students were able to access the videos, watch them, and answer the questions, but for some reason that I can't explain, some students couldn't. For next week, I have 2 more review videos; students can either watch them on Edpuzzle or complete a Google Forms assignment. (Both links will be listed below.)

Note: We will not have class next week because of the Easter break.

Again, the students were great with our new learning experience.

Have a wonderful weekend and a blessed Easter!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for April 16

-- Read the following poems

Wordsworth (p. 12) I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and My Heart Leaps Up

Browning (p. 19) How do I love Thee

Bronte (p. 24) The Old Stoic

Carroll (p. 29) How Doth the Little Crocodile

Hopkins (p. 31) God's Grandeur and Pied Beauty