Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 11 (March 31)

  Greetings!

We had a lovely class this week.  One aspect that I especially enjoy with this Writing 1 class is that they all get along well and participate in a harmonious way.  We have good, productive conversations.

For our Quick Writes, here were their options:

• Wednesday (3/30) was National I am in Control Day.  What areas of your life do you feel like you are in control of?  What would you like to be more in control of?  What would you like to NOT be in control of?

• Thursday (3/31) is National Taters Day.  What is your favorite way to eat potatoes?  Or you could list all of the ways that you can think of to fix potatoes.

• Friday (4/1) is April Fool’s Day.  What is the best prank that you have ever done or heard of?  Or what prank would you like to pull?

• Sunday (4/3) is World Party Day.  If you didn’t have to worry about the expense, what kind of party would you like to throw?  Describe it in detail.

We had some unusual Words of the Day:

jentacular -- fr. Latin ientaculum "breakfast" -- of or pertaining to breakfast

everywhen -- always and at all times

They have handed in the rough drafts of their News Stories.  I'm looking forward to reading them; a number of students said that that they had added more creative and imaginative elements to their writing, and some chose to write about some "fantastical" events.  As table groups, I asked students to talk with one another about their topics and why they chose them.  

We are now reading poetry for our Literature portion of the class. Some students like poetry, but many aren't that crazy about it.  For our first poetry discussion, I did Jigsaw groups again.  The students were first in groups that discussed one of the assignment poems.  Then I remixed the groups so that a group had a representative for each of the poems.  From both groups I heard some thoughtful comments about both the surface and deeper meanings of the poetry.  Well done, class!

The class has their new poetry books, and they should read the poems of the poets listed below.  For their homework, they need to respond to 2 poems, and the have some options:  

1.  Fill out a Poetry Worksheet for one or both

2.  Write a paragraph about the poem(s) that analyzes the poem; discuss what you think it means and why you like or don't like it.

3.  Instead of writing a paragraph, record a video commentary about the poem.  Youtube LiveStream or some other app on a device is OK as long as it can be seen by me.

4.  Do a piece of art that connects with the content and meaning of the poem.  

5.  Make a video of your recitation of the poem.

6.  Do some kind of movement (creative dance or acting out) that relates to the poem.

For our Grammar section of the class, we had a special lesson on the semicolon.  Most people (students and adults alike) are confused about the bit of punctuation; they use it as a comma or as a colon.  I use the Reese's peanut butter cups as an object lesson.  Ask your students about how the semicolon is like this candy.

we worked on 2 worksheets for the students to practice putting commas in compound sentences.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week:

• News Story Pre-Write

• News Story Rough Draft

• Why this News Topic?

• Poetry:  Wordsworth (p. 12); Keats (p. 17), Browning (p. 19); Carroll (p. 29); Hopkins (p. 31), Henley (p. 33)

• Week 12 Poetry (pdfs on Google Classroom)

• 2 Poetry Responses

• Grammar – Wk11:  Compound FANBOYS

• Grammar – Wk11:  Compound Sentences & Commas

• Note:  Students were not given the KEY in class (I had printer problems), so the KEY is attached to this assignment.  If they finished the work in class, I will correct it.  If not, they are to use the KEY on Google Classroom.

Links for this Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 11 (March 31)