Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18)

 

Greetings!

We had a good day in class and covered a lot of ground.

Quick Write

For today's Quick Writes, we had the following prompts:

1 -- Contribute to the list of Quick Write ideas to be used for my classes for the rest of the year.

2 -- Write about a sports mis-hap that happened to you or that you know about.

3 -- November 18 is National Princess Day and November 16, 1553, was the day that Queen Elizabeth I became the queen of England following the death of her sister, Mary.  Write about any royalty that you are especially interested in.

Homework Check

A reminder to students:  make sure you correct your grammar worksheets and show on the worksheet or the Google Classroom assignment that you're corrected it.  Also, make sure you turn in assignments that you've done on Google Classroom.  A number of assignments have been finished, but students have forgotten to turn the work in .  

Writing Discussion

Students have been assigned another essay -- a History Essay.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due the week after Thanksgiving break.  We did some brainstorming about topics and then some more for possible thesis statements.  Coming up with thesis statements is one of the hard parts of writing a paper.  The thesis statement is more than a topic sentence; it is a sentence that tells the reader what the topic is and what the writer's stand or opinion is.  When students are thinking about their topics, they should also be thinking about that topic's importance or significance.  I often call this the "Why should I care?" element.

Literature Discussion

We are three chapters (Staves) into A Christmas Carol.  We've read about Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the Ghost of Christmas Present.  Most of my questions concerned details about the story and not as many analysis questions.  A number of students didn't bring their books to class.  Remember to bring them next week.

Grammar

We had our last presentation for our parts of speech unit.  Today we heard from the Prepositions trio.  They had a slide presentation, a video, and a game.  Students have Prepositions worksheets and evaluation to do for homework.  They also have a review of the last 4 parts of speech before the final test.  (CAPP Review)

Assignments for December 2

Quick Write (11/18)

History Pre-Write

History Rough Draft

Prepositions Homework

Prepositions Evaluation (Google Classroom)

CAPP Review -- Conjunctions (Google Classroom)

CAPP Review -- Adverbs (Google Classroom)

CAPP Review -- Pronouns (Google Classroom)

CAPP Review -- Prepositions (Google Classroom)

Read Stave 4 of A Christmas Carol

Stave 4 Study Guide Questions

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18)

Week 12 (11/18) Zoom Recording

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Blessings!

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 5 (September 23)

 Greetings!

We had a good class this week and covered a lot of information.  

Quick Write

For our Quick Write, students had 2 options:  1) For what are you willing to pay "top dollar,"  and for what items would you be willing to go the cheap route? and 2) Do you or someone you know have a notable collection.  As always, they could always take the "Whatever" option.

Words of the Day

This week our words were "cheap" and "extravagant."  Rather than discuss their etymologies, we explored 2 online resources:  Visual Thesaurus and Thesaurus.com.  Both of these sites are great tools for writing.

Writing Discussion

Students handed in their final drafts of their Descriptive Essays; I always want them to hand in the rough drafts so that I can compare them to see what revisions have been made.  As soon as we're done with one paper, we move right along to the next one.  Their next essay is a Personal Essay.  For this essay they should choose a personal experience or a topic that is of strong personal interest to them.  As a part of the discussion, we went over introductions, thesis statements, and essay structure.  The rough draft is due next week.

Literature Discussion

We did not take time to talk/discuss our book Animal Farm because I wanted to give students more time to work together on their parts of speech presentations.  We'll spend more time with the book next week.

Grammar

This week students spent about 30 minutes in their Parts of Speech groups planning what they will do for their chosen parts of speech.  I roamed through the room and heard good comments, and I also shared some ideas of activities other students have done.  In the list of links below are 3 samples of videos that students have done to explain their parts of speech.   I'm looking forward to our first presentation, which is the Interjections group, next week.  

A Quick Comment about Homework & Scores

As I mentioned in the email before sending out the Grade Reports, if a student wants to know if he/she is missing work, then Google Classroom is the place to look.  If a student wants to know scores and percentages, then the weekly email is what you should look at.

Assignments for Next Week

(No Writing Circles Preparation mentioned on the Checklist.)

Personal Essay Rough Draft

Read Ch. 7 & 8 of Animal Farm

3 Reader Responses

Interjections group preparation

All other groups, keep preparing

Links & Resources for this Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 5 (September 23)

About the Personal Essay

Adjectives Videos 

Adverbs Video from 2016

Verbs Video

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

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 2 (Sept. 10)

 Greetings!

We had a great class yesterday.  These students are coming in with a readiness to learn and are encouraging a positive perspective for one another.

Our Quick Write today was from the National Days Calendar.  Yesterday was National Swap Ideas Day, in which people are encouraged to share their ideas and creativity with one another.  I asked them to write about any big, outside-the-box ideas they've done or had.  They could also write about whether or not they are creative.  I've just finished reading their Quick Writes, and this class has a wonderful variety of creative and practical students!

This week students handed in their first paper assignment of the year, their Descriptive Essay Rough Drafts.  I'm looking forward to reading them.  My procedure with student papers is to go through and correct them after they're handed in and then hand them back the next week.  Students are to take that following week to make revisions.  

Last week for the Literature portion of the class, we started Animal Farm with an  introduction and a quiz on Google Classroom.  Before they start reading the book, I would like them to write a short response to the question, "What makes a good leader?"  (This assignment is attached to this email  and on Google Classroom.)  For next week, they also need to give a short response to a discussion question and 3 Reader Responses.  We talked in class about the study guide questions that are listed per chapter and also the ala carte options if students would like more creative opportunities to respond to their reading.  NOTE:  These reader responses can be done on paper and handed in during next week's class time OR they can be done on the Google Classroom assignment.  Students DO NOT need to do it both ways.

For the final third of the class time, we talked about the Grammar projects that we will be doing this semester.  During the Fall semester, we study the 8 Parts of Speech, and the students themselves do the teaching on these topics.  As the teachers, students will need to do some research so that they have a firm grasp of their chosen part of speech; they will then prepare a teaching/presentation about this part of speech that also includes some kind of activity that helps the students further understand and remember what was taught.  In the past I've also required that students assign homework, but this year I put together homework because I didn't know if we would be face to face or online.  As they start their research, they should use the Checklist and the Planning sheet (we'll talk more about those resources next week.)

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 great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

This Week's Homework

-- Read Chapters 1 & 2 of Animal Farm

-- Write a response to "What makes a good leader?"

-- Take the Intro to Animal Farm Quiz (if you haven't)

-- Give your top 3 leader characteristics on the Discussion Board

-- Week 3 Reader Responses

-- Start researching your part of speech 

This Week's Links

Class Notes -- Week 2 (Sept. 10)

National Days Calendar.  

National Swap Ideas Day

Parts of Speech Worksheets

Interjections Practice 

Underline the interjections in the following sentences: 

1. Aww, look at the cute kitten. 
2. I missed the bus.  Oh well. 
3. Oops!  She dropped that expensive dish. 
4. Whoa, you need to slow down. 
5. No, there is no homework tonight. 

Verbs Practice 

Underline the verbs in the following sentences. 

1. Our work has become harder this year. 
2. Elizabeth looked everywhere for her homework. 
3. This plant looks dead. 
4. Mrs. Jones called the doctor. 
5. Her son is sick. 

Fill in a verb for each of the following sentences: 

1. Jane __________________ the cake yesterday. 
2. My muscles __________________ after gardening. 
3. The police man  _____________________ the speeding driver. 
4. The little boy ___________________ in the river. 
5. Northfield __________________ my home. 

Adjectives Practice 

Underline the adjectives in the following sentences. 

1. My ancient grandfather wrote an insightful book about his long time as a cattle rancher. 
2. The woman’s new wool coat sold for fifty dollars at the neighborhood discount store. 
3. The tangy red ketchup on the grilled hamburger dripped on the clean picnic table cloth. 
4. This smelly garbage in my uncle’s car is gross and disgusting. 
5. My amazing essay was read by some appreciative students. 

  Fill in adjectives for each of the blanks in the sentences below. 

1. My _____________________ book is both ______________  and  ___________________. 
2. The _________________, ____________________ kitten slept on the _______________ blanket. 
3. The ___________________________ weather ruined my ________________________ trip. 
4. My __________________________ sailboat on the _______________________ lake was   _________________. 
5. The __________________________ student in the _______________________ class studied for the  _______________________ test. 

 Conjunctions Practice 

Circle the coordinating conjunctions in the sentences below. 

1.  I bought four books, for I love to read. 
2.  I have many bookshelves, and I love to fill them with new and used books. 
3.  My sister doesn’t read many books, nor does she own as many as I do. 
4.  I offered to give her some books, but she didn’t want any. 
5.  I will give my extra books to the library, or I might donate them to the school. 

  

Circle the subordinating conjunctions in the following sentences. 

1.  Because we bought too many books, our bookshelves are full. 
2.  I will give some to you if you ask nicely. 
3.  Whenever I get rid of books, I usually feel a little sad. 
4.  My house will be cleaner after I get rid of these 20 boxes of books. 
5.  Although I try to stay away from book stores, I can’t help it. 

Adverbs Practice 

Underline the adverbs in the following sentences. 

1. The horse raced speedily around the very crowded racecourse. 
2. The man next to her coughed annoyingly all through the performance today. 
3. Katherine accidentally deleted her files. 
4. We silently watched the amazingly beautiful sunset. We will all take that infuriatingly difficult test tomorrow. 

Fill in adjectives for each of the blanks in the sentences below. 

1. The boy ran ______________________________   
2. Jackson  ______________________________  finished his homework. 
3. I  ______________________________  drove to the store. 
4. Corey ______________________________  handed in his essay. 
5. The team  ______________________________   played the game. 

 Prepositions Practice 

Put the prepositional phrases in parentheses and underline the prepositions in the following sentences. 

1. The book of pictures on the shelves is my favorite. 
2. Before lunch I had a meeting of student writers. 
3. The man in the yard threw the ball over the fence. 
4. I ate the cookie with chocolate chips. 
5. She was humming during the lecture about physics. 

Fill in prepositions for each of the blanks in the sentences below. 

1. The muffin _____________ the table is mine. 
2. I put the box ___________________ the chair.
3. The horse ran ___________________________  the road. 
4. My papers fell ____________________  my desk. 
5. She sat ______________________ the fireplace. 

 Pronouns Practice 

Underline the pronouns in the following sentences. 

1. Sally, your mother needs you to call her. 
2. Steve brought his own lunch because he is allergic to most foods. 
3. I have strong opinions, but my sister doesn’t agree with them. 
4. The amazing performance brought the crowd to its feet. 
5. You can tell her because she will keep it a secret.