Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 9 (October 29)

Greetings!

We had a full class today, covering all of our topics:  Writing, Literature, and Grammar

We started the class with our Quick Write, For today's prompts, they had 3 options:  They could write about National Chocolate Day (10/28), about National  Cat Day, or about something that refreshes them.  The best advice I got when I first started homeschooling was to figure out what was refreshing and to do it often.   I talked a bit about the fact that because these days are challenging, we all need to figure out how to keep balanced and at peace.  As an addendum to this topic, I referenced an article about the benefits of science. 

Our Words of the Day

biblioklept -- fr. Greek biblio, "book" and klept, "thief" -- someone who steals books

psephology -- fr. Greek I, "small stone" -- the study of elections, taken from the ancient practice of dropping pebbles or small stones in order to cast a vote.

sophomoric -- fr. Greek sophos, "wise" and moros, "foolish" -- conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature

After our beginning of the class activities, we had a quick check in regarding homework.  I handed back homework and fielded questions about homework.  The pre-writes and rough drafts of their Biography Essays were due today.  For students who have not finished their essays, they should finish them by the end of the weekend.  If their rough drafts are much later than that, they might not get them back next Thursday.  I will be sending out Midterm grades before next week's class.

As I said, the Rough Drafts of the Biography Essays were due today.  Students don't have a writing assignment for next week, but next week in class we'll be going through the introductions in writing circles.  Note: I'll make copies of their introductions to bring to class.

We have finished Animal Farm, and are on to the next book, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  I gave a short introduction to the book; students should read the printed introduction and take the short quiz.  They were given their books at the beginning of the semester and should read Stave One and answer 3 Study Guide Questions.  For your information, Charles Dickens named his chapters "Staves," the plural of staff, to tie in with the music theme of "carol."

We had a presentation about Conjunctions today from our 2 Zoom students, Rachel and Julia.  They did a good job planning and executing a presentation all as distance learning students.  They had a video, a game, and homework.  

By next week, I will have midterm grades for students.  If they have any missing work, they should get it in.  

Have a good weekend.  Who knows, the snow might be gone fairly soon, and we'll have fall again.

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Finish Pre-Write & Rough Draft if it has not been handed in on 10/29

-- Read the Introduction to A Christmas Carol

-- Introduction to A Christmas Carol Quiz

-- 3 Study Guide Questions

-- Conjunctions Homework (from Rachel & Julia)

-- Conjunctions Homework (GC)

-- Conjunctions Evaluation (GC)

-- IVAN Review (if not done)

Links for This Week

Class Notes (10/29)

Quick Write (10/29)

The Hidden Benefits of Silence

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 8 (October 22)

 Greetings!

We had a good time in class this week.  This is a good group of students, and I always enjoy the time I have with them in class.

As many of you know, the church has expressed that students must wear masks in the hallways, common areas, and classrooms.  If students are exempt, parents must communicate with Laura Johnson, who will communicate with tutors.  Some teachers allow students to snack and/or drink in their classrooms, but the church doesn't allow food in the clubhouse, which is the room where my writing classes take place. (They can have water.)  This week a few students were snacking, and I let it go.  Next week, only water.    I know that some students are not happy with having to wear masks in class, but they all had great attitudes and seemed willing to bless the church and its leadership.  

Our Quick Write today had 3 options.  First, October is German-American Heritage Month, so I gave students the option to write about their family heritages.  Secondly, on October 22, 1938, Chester Carlson invented the first photocopier.  He presented it to IBM, RCA, and Kodak, but they rejected it because they didn't see the value in a machine that only made copies.  I asked the students to write about their favorite gadget/inventions or about something that they felt needed inventing.  And, as always, students could write about anything else that was on their minds.

We had 2 Words of the Day:  

preposition -- fr. Latin, prae, "before" and positus, "put or placed" -- the word placed before a noun or pronoun to establish a connection to another noun or a verb.

conjunction -- fr. Latin con, "with," and juncto, "to join together" -- the word used to join other words, phrases, or clauses.

For our Writing portion of the class, we discussed various ways that they might put together a pre-write for their Biography Essay.  We discussed mind maps and outlines.  Students can do one or the other, or even both.  Here are 2 documents that might be helpful:  Prewriting Strategies and Pre-Write Tools.  Another important aspect of the Biography Essay that I mentioned last week is that it should not simply be a retelling of details, but the students should have an opinion or take a stand on their topics.  The whole of their essays should be in support of this stand.

For our Literature section, we partially closed out our book, Animal Farm. Their assignment for this week was to write a character sketch about one of the characters from the book.  Using this information that they had compiled, the students were grouped together to come up with a "campaign speech" for their characters.  We heard 3 good speeches promoting Boxer, Mollie, and Squealer for president of Animal Farm.  Their final assignment for the book is to finish a final exam for the book.

Next week we will be starting our next book:  A Christmas Carol.  Please bring it to class.

We had another good presentation by students for our Parts of Speech unit.  Halle and Eden had a good presentation that explained the types of Nouns.  They followed their explanation with a game that included writing sentences on the white board.  The homework is in their packets or on Google Classroom.  Also on Google classroom is the evaluation for the presentation.

Have a great weekend.  Peace to your homes!

Mrs Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Animal Farm Final (GC)

-- Biography Pre-Write

-- Biography Rough Draft

-- Nouns Homework

-- Nouns Evaluation

-- IVAN Review

-- Discussion Question for Biog. Essay

Links for This Week

Class Notes

About the Biography Essay

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 7 (October 15)

 Greetings!

This would have been our fall break, so I feel that we should all get a merit badge for having a good class this week.  For our Quick Write, I asked students to write about a strong opinion that they have.  Then, they were to give three specific points about that opinion.  Following that, they were to think about what the other side might think.  The goal of this Quick Write was to encourage the students to think about how others think about the same topics.  As I told them, being able to actively listen to others while trying to understand their perspectives is a sign of maturity.  In this day and age, God needs us to value those around us, whether we agree with their strong opinions or not.  (By the way, one of the most controversial topics for all classes today was "Does pineapple belong on pizza?")

We had a short Words of the Day portion of class.  Here are our words:

comma -- fr. Latin, comma, and Greek komma, which means a "piece which is cut off." --   The comma is that little bit of punctuation that separates parts of a sentence.

noun -- fr. Latin nomen, "name" -- The noun is the part of speech that names a person, place, things, or ideas.

veb -- fr. Latin verbum, "word" -- The verb is the part of speech that communicates action or state of being.

Students handed in their Final Drafts of their Personal Essays.  Now, it's time for the next essay, which is a Biography Essay.  For the rest of the year, students will be doing a 3-step process that includes a pre-write, a rough draft, and a final draft.  The pre-write is any kind of composing that shows brainstorming of ideas and organization.  This can include a formal or informal outline, a mind map, or a digital brainstorming file.  (I have a document in the links below that further expounds on pre-write tools and gives links to some interesting web platforms for making a digital outline or mind map.)  I don't require the students to hand in their pre-writes until they hand in their rough drafts.  Note: Students should work on the gathering and organizing of their information during this next week (in other words, prepare the pre-write) so that the following week they are ready to write the rough draft.

I have 3 short writing-related assignments:  Writing Goals (in preparation for a future writing circle), Discussion Question for the Personal Essay, and a Discussion Question for the Biography Essay.  The Discussion Question for the Biography Question includes instructions to respond to a classmate's comment.

We have finished Animal Farm, and many of the students were surprised at the ending and even a little disappointed.  We will talk more about the book and the characters next week.  To prepare for next week, students are to complete a Character Sketch for one of the characters in the book.  This writing should include 3 strengths, 3 weaknesses, and a one sentence summary of the chosen character.

For the Grammar portion of the class, Rachel and Nina gave a great presentation on Adjectives.  Their activity was "Adjectives Battleship" that played like a 20 questions game, and students could only use adjectives.  For homework, students have a 2-sided sheet in their packets, OR they can do the worksheets on Google Classroom.  I also have for them an Adjectives Evaluation.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Take some time to do something that refreshes and rejuvenates you!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

PS.  I will be away from my computer until Sunday night, so if you have any questions, I will not get to them until Monday.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Quick Write 10/15

-- Biography Pre-Write

-- Writing Circle:  Writing Goals

-- Discussion Question for the Personal Essay  (GC)

-- Discussion Question for the Biography Essay  (GC)

-- Animal Farm Character Sketch

-- Adjectives Evaluation

-- Adjectives Homework

Links for This Week

Class Notes

About the Biography Essay

Pre-Write Tools

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (October 8)

 Greetings!

We had a good day in class yesterday.  We started with a Quick Write.  The two prompts for today were inspired by two October 8 events.  In the year 876, Charles the Bald was defeated in the Battle of Andernach.  I was struck by the unusual nickname, so nicknames were the topic of one option.  Also on October 8, 1871, was the Great Chicago Fire.  I asked students to write about fires, especially if they had a fun fire-related story.

Following our Quick Write, we looked over the rough drafts of the Personal Essays that I had handed back.  As is my custom, I use their own writing to explore grammar issues with which they are struggling.  For this round of essays, we discussed introductions and conclusions, comma splice sentences, the Oxford comma, and parallel structure.  I also gave a brief explanation of my editing marks.  (Here's an old blog post with explanations and pictures pertaining to the marks that I make.)  Their Final Drafts of the Personal Essay is due next week.

We had our second parts of speech presentation today.  Lilia and Danica gave a great teaching on verbs that included writing sentences with action verbs and state of being verbs.  For the students' Grammar homework, they should do both sides of the Verbs worksheet and fill out the evaluation on Google Classroom.  (If they have completed the paper worksheet, they do not need to do the worksheet on Classroom, but they DO need to do the evaluation on Google Classroom.  Here's the link to this assignment.)  Note:  Even though I've asked students to NOT turn in an assignment on Google Classroom if they have done the paper version, for this assignment that also

Next week for our Animal Farm discussion, I will divide the students into small groups to discuss Animal Farm.

A note about Google Classroom:  I've reminded students that they should NOT turn in an assignment on Google Classroom if they have already turned in the paper copy.  Doing so causes some confusion for me when I'm grading assignments.  In the future, I will deduct points from their assignments if they unnecessarily turn in their assignments to Google Classroom. 

Have a wonderful weekend.  The weather should be perfect for enjoying the fall colors!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Drafts of the Personal Essay

-- Read Chapters 9 & 10 of Animal Farm

-- Take Home Quiz #2

-- Verbs Worksheets 

-- Verbs presentation evaluation (GC)

-- Adjectives presentation (Rachel & Nina)

Links for This Week

Class Notes 10/8

A quick note about the blog post:  The blog post includes the same information that is in this email, but I do not include links to either assignments or documents specific to this class due to security concerns.  If you're looking at the blog for assignments and need a link, use the date of the blog post to find the email with the links.  

Student Notes 10/8

Fall Writing 1 folder

Quick Write 10/8

Sample Editing Marks

Charles the Bald

Great Chicago Fire

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 5 (October 1)

 Greetings!

We had a good, productive day yesterday.  We started with a Quick Write.  For today's prompts, I used the facts that October 1, 1908  was the day that Ford manufacturing rolled the Model T off its production line and that October 2, 1950 was the day that the first Peanuts comic was published.  Some students also mentioned that Tuesday was National Coffee Day.  Many students wrote about car-related stories.  Some haven't seen any of the Charlie Brown specials, so here's a link to the Christmas Special.

Following our Quick Write, I usually do a Homework Check (I use the time while they're doing the Quick Write to pass back work.)  Today I took time to go over the Final Drafts of their essays. The rubric that I use for evaluating their essays consider 5 categories:  Focus, Content, Organization,  Sentence Structures, and Mechanics.  This allows me to give more holistic grades for the papers they write.  As I noted with the students, the Focus section that includes the thesis statement, introduction, and conclusion is often the category that has the lowest scores.  I'm especially "picky" on that section because the quality of the introduction and conclusion can determine the overall quality of a paper.  

Students have handed in the rough drafts of their Personal Essays, and I will hand them back next week. These papers can be turned in via the Google Classroom assignment.

We spent more time talking about some of the characters we've met in Animal Farm.  The students seem to have formed some specific opinions about Napoleon, Snowball, Boxer, etc., which means 2 things:  George Orwell has done some good writing and the students have done some careful reading.  As discussion progressed, we used some Accountable Talk practices in which students responded to comments made by their classmates with such comments as "I agree, and ..." or "I agree, but ..." or I disagree because ..."  Learning to have good, academic discussions is an important part of academic growth.

Finally, we spent the last third of the class in our Grammar unit and the Parts of Speech.  Anthony and Annalise did a great job of explaining Interjections.  They had a PowerPoint, activities, homework, and even some candy.  As I told the students, the homework that Anthony and Annalise is required, and the homework that is in the packet I gave them is Extra Credit.  Listed on the same assignment as the now extra credit worksheets is a short form to evaluate the Interjections Evaluation.  Students will fill out a form for each pair of presenters.  This evaluation has more to do with how much the students learned than with the quality of the presentation.  

Have a great weekend. Enjoy the beautiful fall colors (before that all need to be raked up!)

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read Ch. 7 & 8

-- 3 Reader Responses

-- Interjections Homework from Anthony & Annalise

-- Extra Credit Interjections Worksheets

-- Interjections Presentation Evaluation (GC)

Links for this Week

Class Notes

October 1, 1908   & October 2, 1950  Days in history

Charlie Brown Christmas Special

Writing 1 Google Drive folder

Personal Essay Rough Draft assignment

Interjections Slide Presentation