Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (September 30)

 Greetings!

We had a full day in class today.  I'm sure enjoying this group of students!

Quick Write

Today's prompt was inspired by the fact that is was on this day, September 30, in 1890 that Yosemite was named a national park.  I'm afraid I gave some incorrect information.  Yellowstone was the first national park, not Yosemite.  For the prompt, students were to write about some "great out of doors" adventure.  For responses, I heard about some close calls and some good times in nature.

Words of the Day

Vernacular -- fr. Latin verna (home-born slave) & vernaculus (domestic; native) -- "home-style language;" common language

Colloquial -- fr. Latin com (with) & loqui (to talk) -- language of a conversational style

Dialect -- fr. Greek dialektos (talk, conversation, speech) and fr. PIE -leg (to collect, gather, or pick out words) -- language specific to a particular region

Idiom -- fr. Latin idiomas (peculiarity in language) -- a figure of speech; words that have meanings other than their literal meaning

Homework Check

Usually after the beginning of class activities, I check in with the students about any homework questions.  We discussed assignments on Google Classroom.  I want to clarify an issue relating Google Classroom and the Grades Report that is emailed.  If students are missing an assignment, it will say "missing" on Google Classroom.  When I import the scores onto a Google Sheets spreadsheet using a grade book app, the missing scores are changed to zeros.  

Another note about homework.  I don't have a specific day that I correct homework, but the plan is to have it done and returned for the following class period.  When I'm done correcting work, I will update Google Classroom to reflect both the paper homework that was handed in during class and the assignments finished on Google Classroom.  

Writing Discussion

Students handed in the rough drafts of their Personal Essays.  We also discussed the final drafts of their Descriptive Essays that were returned.  These were graded using a rubric that takes a holistic view of the writing process. It considers the following categories:  Focus, Content, Organization, Sentence Structures, and Mechanics. (For this essay, I did not grade the Focus area because I did not require an introduction, conclusion, or thesis statement.)

Next Week we will meet in small groups for Writing Circles.  I've posted on Google Classroom a handout that they can fill out beforehand -- we will also have time in class.  It's a short 4 question survey.

Literature Discussion

We talked again about Animal Farm and the characters of Napoleon, Boxer, Squealer, Clover, and the dogs.  We covered ideas about leadership, manipulation, and propaganda.  In that discussion were comments about some similarities between this book that was written in 1944 and today's culture.  For next week, the students are to read chapters 9 & 10 and to take a quiz on Google Classroom.

Grammar Discussion

In class this week we had our first student presentation.  We heard about Interjections from Noah, Sarah, and Peytan.  They had a video that categorized interjections and an activity that had the students write sentences using words from a list of interjections.  They have a worksheet that requires them to identify interjections.  Remember, these worksheets must be corrected before they are handed in; students must indicate on the worksheet that it has been corrected.

As a part of the Parts of Speech project I would like students to evaluate the presentations.  There is a link to the evaluation below.

Assignments for Next Week

Discussion Question -- Personal Essay (Google Classroom only)

Writing Circle Preparation

Read Chapters 9 & 10 of Animal Farm

Take Home Quiz #2 (Google Classroom only)

** No extra credit option for Chapters 9 & 10

Interjections Homework

Interjections Evaluation

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (September 30)

Interjections Video

Yosemite National Park

Have a great Fall weekend!

Blessings, 

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 6 (October 8)

 Greetings!

We had a good day in class yesterday.  We started with a Quick Write.  The two prompts for today were inspired by two October 8 events.  In the year 876, Charles the Bald was defeated in the Battle of Andernach.  I was struck by the unusual nickname, so nicknames were the topic of one option.  Also on October 8, 1871, was the Great Chicago Fire.  I asked students to write about fires, especially if they had a fun fire-related story.

Following our Quick Write, we looked over the rough drafts of the Personal Essays that I had handed back.  As is my custom, I use their own writing to explore grammar issues with which they are struggling.  For this round of essays, we discussed introductions and conclusions, comma splice sentences, the Oxford comma, and parallel structure.  I also gave a brief explanation of my editing marks.  (Here's an old blog post with explanations and pictures pertaining to the marks that I make.)  Their Final Drafts of the Personal Essay is due next week.

We had our second parts of speech presentation today.  Lilia and Danica gave a great teaching on verbs that included writing sentences with action verbs and state of being verbs.  For the students' Grammar homework, they should do both sides of the Verbs worksheet and fill out the evaluation on Google Classroom.  (If they have completed the paper worksheet, they do not need to do the worksheet on Classroom, but they DO need to do the evaluation on Google Classroom.  Here's the link to this assignment.)  Note:  Even though I've asked students to NOT turn in an assignment on Google Classroom if they have done the paper version, for this assignment that also

Next week for our Animal Farm discussion, I will divide the students into small groups to discuss Animal Farm.

A note about Google Classroom:  I've reminded students that they should NOT turn in an assignment on Google Classroom if they have already turned in the paper copy.  Doing so causes some confusion for me when I'm grading assignments.  In the future, I will deduct points from their assignments if they unnecessarily turn in their assignments to Google Classroom. 

Have a wonderful weekend.  The weather should be perfect for enjoying the fall colors!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Drafts of the Personal Essay

-- Read Chapters 9 & 10 of Animal Farm

-- Take Home Quiz #2

-- Verbs Worksheets 

-- Verbs presentation evaluation (GC)

-- Adjectives presentation (Rachel & Nina)

Links for This Week

Class Notes 10/8

A quick note about the blog post:  The blog post includes the same information that is in this email, but I do not include links to either assignments or documents specific to this class due to security concerns.  If you're looking at the blog for assignments and need a link, use the date of the blog post to find the email with the links.  

Student Notes 10/8

Fall Writing 1 folder

Quick Write 10/8

Sample Editing Marks

Charles the Bald

Great Chicago Fire

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 1B Class Notes -- Week 6 (Sept. 26)

Greetings!

Again, another great class.  This group of students brings a lot of positive energy and attitudes to the class.  The prompt for our Quick Write today was the  190th anniversary of Scotland Yard.  We discussed detectives, law enforcement, mysteries, and perspectives about rules.  Students could take the topic(s) in any number of directions.

We skipped the Words of the Day this week because I knew that we already would have a full class.  We'll resume next week.  A new element that I'm adding to the class is the role of a "Class Scribe."  I recently purchased a Rocketbook, that is a digital notebook, and I want students to take turns taking handwritten notes, especially of the examples and diagrams that I put on the board.  Those notes then get shared to the Google Drive folder for the class and a link to them will be included with the Class Notes.

I handed back rough drafts of their Personal Essays.  Whenever I hand back rough drafts, I take a significant amount of time to go over common errors/mistakes so that we can make those mistakes into learning opportunities.  The two most common mistakes this week included the following: 

1. Having the right spelling but it's the wrong word (spell check and auto-correct can be helpful but not always trusted); e.g. costumer/customer, plane/plain, right/write, heard/herd
2. Formatting issues.

I took some time to discuss some new guidelines for formatting their papers, moving towards MLA formatted papers.  (Here is a video for formatting in Google Docs, and here is one for doing the same in Word.) Going forward, I would like the students to format their papers in the following way:  1 inch margins, 12 pt. font, double spaced, header in the upper right margin with last name and page number, and a heading on the left side with full student's full name, class name, teacher's name, assignment name, and date handed in. This document is a "sample."  

With all of our essays, I'm having the students designate a section of the note-taking to those "Watch Out For" points that I've noted in the comments section of my corrections.  Along with making revisions for their final drafts, I want students to fill out the little half-sheet titled, "My First 5 Errors."  For this worksheet, students should look at the first five marks that I made on their rough drafts and write what the error was and, if they know, what grammar rule is connected with the error.  Under the First 5 section is a place for them to write about what area they want to improve in.

Our Grammar topic this week included the Verbs Presentation by Philip.  He showed a familiar Schoolhouse Rock video about verbs.  We discussed action, linking, and helping verbs for a while.  On the Class Scribe notes, you will see the forms of the verb "to be" which we will work on memorizing:  am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been. Philip had homework for the students that they were able to finish in class.  Next week Maggie will share about adjectives

We had another round of a Literature Circle for our discussion about Animal Farm.  I do a lot of talking in the class, so I enjoy the circles in which the students are responsible for moving the conversations forward and for making the thoughtful and rigorous.  We will be finishing the book, so next week we will also be wrapping up our discussions of the book as a whole.  (Note: Next week I will send home a Take Home Quiz and the following week they will get a final exam for Animal Farm, so they should get caught up on their reading if they are behind!)

Assignments for Next Week

-- Read Chapters 9 & 10

-- 3 Reader Responses & 3 Vocabulary Words

-- Personal Essay Final Drafts

-- My First 5 Errors worksheet

-- Verbs Homework (if not finished in class)

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Class Scribe Notes

Sample Google Doc with Formatting

School House Rock Verbs Video

How to Format a Google Doc in MLA

How to Format a Word document in MLA

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard