Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

 Greetings!

We started today with a Quick Write using prompt options that they had written:

1. Does water have flavor?
2. Do you have any family traditions or quirky things that only your family does?
3. What is your favorite room in your house?

Our Word of the Day was brought to us by Nina:

geloscopy -- fr. Greek gelos, "laughter" and scopein, "to examine" -- fortune telling by examining laughter.

[Note:  I reminded the students that they can bring 1 word each week for extra credit as long as they have the etymology and definition.]

The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order:  Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.  My plan is to give the last 10 - 15 minutes of every class to working on Grammar assignments so that if students have questions, they can ask them right in class. 

For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Narrative Essays.  The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week.  Students were reminded that a Narrative Essay is kind of like a "story with a purpose."  

The class has read the first 2 chapters of our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps.  I divided the class into 3 groups to discuss the overall plot development so far, points of confusion, and top traits or our main character, Richard Hannay.  As a class we agreed that some points were confusing simply because we skimmed rather than read carefully some sections.  Another challenge in reading this book is  that students are unfamiliar with the historical places and names, with some of the expressions, and with some of the vocabulary.  For example, Richard Hannay mentions the "veld" quite often.   Knowing the definition of the word would make a world of difference in their understanding of the book.  So here's some advice -- look up words that you don't know!

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates.  Then the students had time to work on the worksheets and ask questions.  Some of them got a lot of work done during that time.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Narrative Essay Rough Draft & Pre-Write
Read Ch. 3 & 4 of The 39 Steps
Quiz:  Ch. 1 – 4 (Google Classroom)

Ch. 3 & 4 Study Guide Questions (Extra Credit)

Simple Sentences (Compound Subjects)

Simple Sentences (Compound Predicates)

Sentences: Finding the Complete Subjects and Complete Predicate

Links for this Week

Class Notes

Track My Grades

Spring Writing 1 Syllabus

Spring Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on YouTube

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on Librivox