Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 3 (Sept. 17)

 Greetings!

We had a great class yesterday.  This is a good, conscientious group of students.

We started with a Quick Write.  For today's prompt, I offered them 2 options.  September 15 was Agatha Christie's birthday, and she is known as the "queen of mysteries" with over 80 books to her name.  She also wrote the world's longest running play, The Mousetrap.  Students could write their opinions about mysteries, a mysterious event, or an original mystery.  The other option was related to National Apple Dumpling Day (Sept. 17).  Baked apple goods seem to be the quintessential fall food.  Students could write about apples or some other favorite fall food.  (And, as always, they can always choose the third, "Whatever" option and write on something completely different.)

Following our Quick Write, I went over some Google Classroom "Protocols," hopefully clarifying questions that students have had.

• 99.9% of your assignments are on Google Classroom (GC)
• You can hand in work on GC or in class but NOT BOTH
• If you do the assignment on Google Classroom, remember to "Turn In"  (button in the upper right corner of the window.)
• If you have handed in an assignment during class (the paper version), please the Google Classroom assignment alone.  I will assign a grade and return in.
• Some assignments can ONLY be done on Google Classroom. When that is the case, those homework assignments will be designated (GC)
• For the Final Drafts of your essays, follow these steps IN ORDER:
• Open your Rough Draft document, select/highlight all of the content (Ctrl-A) and copy it (Ctrl-C)
• Open the Google Classroom assignment for the Final Draft and then open the document/template.
• Paste the contents of the Rough Draft onto this document.
• Make corrections and revisions. (DO NOT MAKE CORRECTIONS WHILE IT IS STILL IN THE ROUGH DRAFT DOCUMENT!)
• Turn it in!

This week, students were to take notes of class, and these notes are due in class next week.  Sometimes when we are covering a significant amount of content, I will have students take notes and then turn in copies of those notes.  Students can hand in the paper copies of their notes next week OR upload copies to the Google Classroom assignment.  

I handed back their Rough Drafts of their Descriptive Essays.  I believe that students learn grammar best in the context of their own writing, so I like to take a generous amount of time to go over common mistakes and for them to ask questions from their own mistakes.  I had the students write on post it notes either the error most-corrected on their rough drafts or a grammar issue that they didn't understand.  After they brought these up to the white board, I covered those areas that seemed to need the most attention.  This week, those areas included contractions, the use of numbers, capital letters, and commas with compound sentences.

For the Final Drafts of these essays, students should submit them via Google Classroom (see the notes about the protocols.)  They should also bring to class on Sept. 24 their rough drafts with my corrections.

We talked very little about our book, Animal Farm.  For next week, students are to read Chapters 3 & 4 and take the Quiz. (GC)  I had forgotten to add links for audio book versions last week, so those are in the "Links" list at the bottom of the email.

We are preparing for the Parts of Speech projects, and next week we will take a large amount of time for students to connect with their partners.  Before next week, students should take the Parts of Speech Pre-Test.  This test has been posted on Google Classroom, and students can print it and bring the completed test to class, print it and then upload the completed test to the Google Classroom assignment, or complete the test using a tablet or other touch device.  

Below are the student "teachers" and the parts of speech:

Interjections -- Anthony, Annelise

Verbs -- Danica, Lilia 

Adjectives -- Rachael, Nina

Nouns -- Halle, Eden 

Conjunctions -- Julia, Rachel

Adverbs -- Kaylynn, Grace 

Pronouns -- Tate, Rebecca 

Prepositions -- Elijah, Cyprian

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Draft of Descriptive Essay (GC)

-- Remember to bring the rough draft to class on 9/24

-- Read Ch. 3 & 4 of Animal Farm

-- Take Home Quiz (GC)

-- Parts of Speech Pre-Test (GC)

Links for This Week

Fall Writing 1 Google Drive Folder

Class Notes 9/17

Animal Farm Audioversions

     Youtube version

     Youtube version (with a British accent.)

     Audible (paid subscription)

Writing 1A Class Notes -- Week 9 (Oct. 24)

Greetings!

As with every week, we fill every minute of our class period.  We started with a Quick Write, which was inspired by the fact that Oct. 24 is the 158th anniversary of the 1st transcontinental telegraph from Justice Stephen Field in California to President Lincoln in Washington, D. C.  I asked the students to list as many ways of communicating that they could think of, and we filled the board with our responses.

Our Words of the Day were again unusual words.  Some could be decoded because they had familiar word stems, but for the others the students came up with creative definitions:

biblioklept -- fr. Greek, biblio, book; kleptes, thief -- someone who steals books

acnestis -- fr. Greek, knestis, spine -- the part of an animal's skin between the shoulder blades that it usually cannot reach.

octothorpe -- the symbol (#).  Note:  The origin of the word is disputed.  Some say it was a practical joke, and others say that it was named by Bell Laboratories to be used in telephone computing language and was named for the 8 legs of the symbol and for James Thorpe whom the originator admired.  

augend & addend -- fr. Latin augendum. to augment; addendus, to be added -- these numbers refer to numbers in an addition equation.  The first is the augend, and the second is the addend.

Students received their final drafts of the Personal Essays and handed in their pre-writes and rough drafts of their Biography Essays.  I will go over these and hand them back next week for them to revise.

We are starting a new book:  Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  This is a lovely little book and a good introduction to the writings of Charles Dickens.  While not everyone has read or is even familiar with the story, most had heard of Scrooge and his "bah humbug!"  In my opinion, this book has one of the best opening lines in all of literature:  "Marley was dead, to begin with."  The students already had their books, and this week I gave them a paper copy of the introduction, study guide questions, and vocabulary words.  Unlike our reading of the Animal Farm, I do not have ala carte reader responses, and I have chosen a list of words from the book from which they can choose their vocabulary words.  We also discussed Dickens's use of the words Stave instead of chapter.  Stave is a musical term, and since he uses "carol" in the title, it makes sense.  (See here for more information.)

We closed out the class with the Conjunctions presentation from Gabi, Alison, and Maria.  They had made a video with explanations that included a cartoon video.  They had a game for the students (that included candy!) and homework.  Next week -- Adverbs from Maddy, Ashley, and Faith.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read Stave One of A Christmas Carol

-- Answer 3 Study Guide Questions

-- Define and give the word origins for 4 Vocabulary Words

-- Conjunctions Homework

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Week 9 Student Notes

A Christmas Carol Study Guide

A Christmas Carol Vocabulary Words

A Christmas Carol -- audio version on Librivox

A Christmas Carol -- audio book on YouTube

Staves in A Christmas Carol
Conjunctions Video

Have a great weekend!  Enjoy the outdoors before the snow flies!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Links for Gift of the Magi and After Twenty Years

Greetings Class!

Below are some helpful links for our new book of short stories by O. Henry.  The website with information is from Wikipedia.  (Information about O. Henry)

The links below are videos from Youtube.  Some are recordings are readings of the stories.  A couple of them are dramatizations of the stories.

After Twenty Years
Librivox Recording
Legos & the Story
Dramatization by High School Class


The Gift of the Magi
Librivox Recording
Video
Video with story text

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 10 (November 3)

Greetings!

We had a good class time.  Last year, my students noticed that many Thursdays were overcast, sometimes making our room a bit dreary.  This year, so far, we've had bright sunshine coming through the windows.  I'm loving it!

Our Quick Write assignment this week was to write something about role models.  November 1 was All Saints Day, and I think it's good to take time to think about those people who are valuable examples to us.  

Our Words of the Day were from A Christmas Carol:  

misanthropic -- fr. Greek, misanthropos, hating humankind -- a characteristic marked by a hatred of manking

legatee -- fr. Latin, legatus, deputy -- a person to whom a legacy is given

congeal -- fr. Latin congelare, to freeze -- to change from a soft, fluid form to a more stable form

caustic -- fr. Greek, kaustikos; burning -- capable of burning or corroding

trifle -- fr. Middle English, treoflen, to mock -- a matter of trivial importance

garret -- fr. French garite, watchtower -- a small, attic space

I gave the students back their rough drafts of the Examples/Illustrations Essays.  I mentioned some common mechanics/grammar errors (contractions, noun/pronoun agreement, commas, etc.), but I took most of the time to talk about building good introductions and conclusions.  The three elements that every introduction should have are a strong thesis statement, an attention grabber/common ground establisher, and a "road map."  In other words, the introduction should tell the readers the subject and opinion (thesis statement), answer the question, "Why should I care?" and tell the readers where the essay is headed (road map.)  The conclusion should mirror the introduction:  restate the thesis, tell the readers "where you've been" (a summary) and leave the reader with something to think about.  For the Final Drafts of these essays, I want students to underline the thesis statement in their introduction.  If they can't find that one sentence that tells their subject and opinion, it may be that they don't have a clear thesis.  Also, using the rubric that I handed out to them, I want them to do a self-evaluation of their essay.  They should look at the categories and think about where their own essays would be graded.

Our Verbs group gave a good presentation this week.  They had clear explanations with some examples on the white board.  They lead the students in a game and had a prepared worksheet for them to do in class.  In some ways, verbs might seem to be simple and straightforward -- they're the words that show action.  When you throw in state of being verbs, helping verbs, linking verbs, changing tenses, and verbal phrases, it can get more complicated.  Many times students don't know that they don't know enough about verbs until they start writing.  That's why their own essays are better teachers of grammar than worksheets.

We began our discussion about A Christmas Carol.  I love this little book not only for its story and long-standing tradition but for the language.  Dickens's vocabulary and style are delightful.  In this first Stave, we meet Ebeneezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, nephew Fred, and a dead Jacob Marley.  

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Final Draft of Examples/Illustrations Essay

-- Underline thesis statement in Final Draft

-- Complete self-evaluation using rubric

-- Read Stave Two

-- Answer 3 Study Guide questions

-- Define 4 Vocabulary words

-- No Grammar homework -- finished in class\

Links for this week:

Class Notes

What not to do in an Introduction Video

Introduction Paragraph

A Christmas Carol, read by Jim Dale, Part 1

A Christmas Carol, read by Jim Dale, Part 2

A Christmas Carol, read by Jim Dale, Part 3

A Christmas Carol, read by Jim Dale, Part 4

A Christmas Carol, read by Jim Dale, Part 5

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Animal Farm Audio Version

Some students are stronger auditory learners, and hearing the book is really helpful.  I've included on the class blog a post a link to an audio version:

The Strange Adventure of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde -- Audio versions

While our book for the Spring Semester is not very long or overly challenging, students who are strong auditory learners my benefit from an audio version of the story.  If students choose to listen to these, I encourage them to read along with their hard copies of the book.

Below are some options:

Audiobook Treasury selection

Learn Out Loud selection

Animal Farm Audio Versions

Some students are stronger auditory learners, and hearing the book is really helpful.  I've included on the class blog a post a link to an audio version:

Links to Videos for Week 6

Greetings Class!

Below are some helpful links for our new book of short stories by O. Henry.  The website with information is from Wikipedia.  (Information about O. Henry)

The links below are videos from Youtube.  Some are recordings are readings of the stories.  A couple of them are dramatizations of the stories.

After Twenty Years
Librivox Recording
Legos & the Story
Dramatization by High School Class


The Gift of the Magi
Librivox Recording
Video
Video with story text