Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 27)

 Greetings!

This week's Quick Write prompts were taken from the list that the students in Writing 1 and Writing 2 contributed to last fall.  Here are the prompts for today’s Quick Write:

• What is a favorite childhood memory?

• What is one of the best days of your life?

• What was a highlight of your week?

• Whatever …..

Our Words of the Day came from Megan, Ike, and Grace:  and Kaylynn:

hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia  -- an extension of sesquipedalian (long words) with monstrum (“monster”) and hippopotamus (intended to exaggerate the length) and phobia -- the fear of long words

defenestration -- fr. Latin de, "down from" and fenestra, "window" -- to throw someone out of the window

kakorrhaphiophobia-- fr. Greek, kakos, "bad and evil," and phobia, "fear" --  a fear of failure

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Narrative Essays.  Most of them enjoyed writing these because they could write about personal experiences.  I look forward to reading them.

We are 4 chapters into our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and most of the students are enjoying the story line.  Some aspects are unfamiliar because it was written for another time and place.  I reminded the students to look up unfamiliar words.  I divided the class into small groups to discuss these 2 questions:  Was Hannay a good or bad spy? and Why does he keep telling his story to people?

For the Grammar portion of class, we worked again on simple and compound sentences.  We reviewed the basic elements of a sentence (subject + verb + complete thought).  Many times students write sentence fragments and run-on sentences and comma splice sentences because they don't have a strong sense for these sentence elements.  We took time to do a few of the sentences on each worksheet.  [Note:  Remember to correct your grammar worksheets and to clearly mark that they've been corrected.]

Assignments for Next Week:

• No writing -- I'm correcting rough drafts this week

• Read Ch. 5 & 6 of The 39 Steps

• Week 4 – 3 Study Guide Questions

• Grammar – Compound Subject

• Grammar – Compound Predicate

• Grammar – Compound Subject & Predicate

 

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 27)

The Thirty Nine Steps audiobooks

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 20)

 Greetings!

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

1. What are some of your pet peeves?
2. What do you do that annoys others, either accidentally or intentionally?
3. What is the grossest thing you've ever eaten?
4. What is the best/worst part of your hous?
5. Whatever????

Our Words of the Day were brought to use by Liam and Grace:  

bork:  obstruct (someone, especially a candidate for public office) by systematically defaming or vilifying them.  (taken from the nomination experience of Robert Bork)

sesquipedalian:  fr. Latin sesquipedalis, a foot and a half --  characterized by long words or long-windedness

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.  

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.  We talked about some points in chapters 1 and 2.  Then I divided the class into 4 groups, and they played the game "Enter the Mystery Mansion."  Students were given cards with pictures, and as a group, they were to compose a mystery and/or spy story.  When they were done, they retold their stories for the Zoom portion of the class.  They were quite creative!

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates.  Students got their worksheets at the end of class.  Remember, they should be corrected before they are turned in!

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week:

Narrative Essay Pre-Write

Narrative Essay Rough Draft

Read Ch. 3 & 4 of The 39 Steps

Quiz:  Ch. 1 – 4 (Google Classroom)

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

Subject/Verb Agreement

Sentences: Finding the Complete Subjects and Complete Predicate

Links for this Week

Class Notes

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on YouTube

The Thirty-Nine Steps audio book on Librivox

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 13)

 Greetings!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's smiling faces.  

For our Quick Write today, students had 3 options:  1) On January 12, it was National Hot Tea Day, and students could write about their experiences with tea; 2) Yesterday, January 13, is National Stickers Day, and students could write about sticker collections or uses for stickers; and 3) Today, January 14, is National Take a Missionary out to Lunch Day, and students could write about a missionary they know.   

We did not have any Words of the Day, but students can bring them to class for us to enjoy.  (And get some extra credit, too.)  For the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  

The first topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Narrative Essay.  I like to call a Narrative Essay a "story with a purpose."  In this type of essay, students re-tell a series of events, but they are not simply telling a story.  They must have a reason for telling these events to their readers.  This reason could include a turning point in life, a traumatic experience that change a life, an achievement that made a significant difference, etc.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due in 2 weeks on January 27.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  This semester we will be reading a British classic that was written in 1915 -- The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.  This is one of the first espionage, man-on-the-run types of books.  I've taught this book to British Literature classes, and I think we'll all enjoy this book.  As part of our discussion, I asked the students to write something as a Pre-Reading assignment for The 39 Steps.  I had them think about what they would do if they were on the run -- either from some bad guys or some good guys (which meant they might be a bad guy.)  They were to think of possible options for hiding and staying safe.  This is a very creative bunch!  I heard some of their ideas and look forward to reading what they wrote.

Last semester in the Grammar portion of the class we covered the Parts of Speech, and the students did amazing presentations.  This semester, we will build on that knowledge and review sentence patterns.  Many times when students are writing, they have comma splice sentences, run-on sentences, and sentence fragments.  It's important to be firmly grounded in the elements of a sentence so that you have the vocabulary and knowledge to fix sentences that aren't quite working.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Background Information & Introduction to The 39 Steps Quiz

-- Read Ch. 1 & 2 of The 39 Steps

-- 3 Study Guide Questions

-- Start on the Narrative Essay

-- Narrative Essay Pre-Write & Rough Draft

-- Grammar – Wk1:  What is a Sentence? 

-- Grammar – Wk1:  Sentence Patterns N-V

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 13)

Zoom Recording for 1/13

Writing 1 Syllabus

Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

Homework & Late Guidelines

The 39 Steps audiobook

About the Narrative Essay

Basic Sentence Patterns

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature