Wr 1 Class Notes--WK 2 (September 3)

 Hello All!

I appreciated the students’ hard working attitudes today as they dove into another great day of learning together. After a quick check-in, we got started.

We had our first edition of Visual Vocabulary (VV).  Today, we learned:  ostentatious and fatalistic.  These words are taken from SAT/ACT vocabulary lists and each week we do VV, students are given the definition, the part of speech, the synonym and antonym.  Then they write a sentence using the word in context. We will be adding to the list throughout the semester–so don’t lose that worksheet–keep it in your 3 Ring Binders. Speaking of that, as we passed in homework, I gave students credit for having their binders assembled and ready.

After that, we switched gears to Literature–Peter Pan.  We talked about some  Victorian vocab and practices. One of those practices is that little boys usually wore what we’d consider “dresses” until they are potty trained and they normally had long hair. When they turned two it was common to have a “breeching ceremony” where they received their first pair of pants or breeches, cut their baby curls and were paraded down the sidewalk because now they are considered a “big boy.” Typically a sad time for all mothers 🥲. It dovetails nicely with what the quote we discussed from the beginning of chapter one:  

FDR in 1890–before his 

“breeching ceremony”

“You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.” 

I gave them time to think about some more questions pertaining to chapters 1 & 2 and to  discuss with their small groups. I was very impressed with some of their insightful comments about J.M. Barrie in relation to this Peter Pan story. They are to keep reading and be prepped for an in-class quiz over the reading next week.

In the Writing portion of the class, I introduced a very important skill: Key Word Outlines. Students will be writing and using these throughout their year, so we spent today laying a good, solid foundation. After reading a biography on our author J.M. Barrie we took a stab at writing a KWO on that information. For each sentence, students are allowed to use 3 words; symbols and numbers don’t count toward this. An outline like this is an excellent way to critically think about what one is reading AND to synthesize the text–thereby making it your own. You do not have to worry about plagiarism when you use this method AND it helps us organize our thoughts for the next step of writing (or speaking.) Today, for the first paragraph students were invited to copy my KWO from the board, the next section we did together. The last section they can finish on their own as homework.

In the last few minutes of class, I introduced the Grammar project students will be working on throughout this semester.  Next week, we’ll talk in more detail.  For now, know that for this project, students will be the teachers–in teams they’ll gather information about an assigned part of speech and present it to the rest of the class.  I introduced them to Mr.  IVAN CAPP and invited them to submit a picture for a contest (optional.) Next week we’ll split into groups to begin work on this project.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Read Chapter 3 & 4  Peter Pan

Be ready for a quiz!

J.M.B. KWO–finish “Barrie’s Writing Career” & “Inspiration & Influences”

Material for This Week:

Visual Vocabulary #1

About Key Word Outlines

Parts of Speech Project

IVAN CAPP Drawing Contest (optional)

CHAT Writing 1--Week 1 (August 27)

 

We've started out our new school year well.  I'm looking forward to working with this group of students.  Below are the Class Notes for this week.  Every week I will send out notes similar to these.  I include the topics of the class and the direction of instruction.  At the bottom of each email I list the homework and links to the blog, to the Google Classroom assignments, and to any other helpful information.

We started with a timed in-class writing assignment. I gave them a prompt, handed out Blue Books and set the timer for 20 minutes. The rationale for this assignment is to simply get their writing juices flowing AND to give them a baseline of their skill level. My hope is that by the end of the year, they will see vast improvement in their ability to write clearly and effectively. I “suffered” along with them by participating myself.  (I hope everyone comes back next week. 🙂) 

During a short break, they enjoyed a “food reward” while filling out a “name tent one-pager” with their names and some information about themselves. Having the names is not only a help for me, but for them as they get to know each other better and we build a supportive class community.

After that, we got right into the nitty-gritty class details: expectations, homework deadlines and the syllabus. I talked about the importance of “budgeting” for about one hour each weekday to Writing class. I suggested they map out their week by designating a chunk of homework to that day.  

For example:  

Fridays=literature 

Mondays=grammar worksheets

Tuesdays & Wednesday=essays & writing

By chunking it down, they will avoid having that work pile up. They have an assignment of having a parent sign the Guidelines–they can bring them in next week or submit on GC. 

Included in our class business was a slide show that presented a sort of “carrot and stick” approach to generative AI. I hoped that this would be a “pep talk” about the importance of learning how to think critically and write clearly. 

The carrot:  Writing is simply thinking–it’s thinking made manifest. To think is a God given gift. The author John Warner said that “To outsource writing and reading is to cease being human.” We took a minute to discuss the validity of that statement. 

The stick: We talked about acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI and I reviewed the consequences of using AI to do your homework or write essays instead. I have also sent a summary of the Academic Integrity Agreement along with a home with students for both students and parents to sign.

On to more delightful topics: our Literature selection for this semester –Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.  Today, we read Peter’s origin story from  chapter 2 Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. This book was written for adults in 1906 and in it we get a glimpse of Peter before he is more fully developed in Barrie’s later work, Peter Pan & Wendy. Definitely different from the Disney version! 

For homework, students should finish that chapter and continue on to chapters 1 & 2 of Peter Pan. Then they should complete the Reader Response.

No Grammar this week -- we'll jump in with both feet next week! 

Assignments for Next Week

Welcome Back #1

Welcome Back #2

Signed Guidelines & Assembled Binders

Finish Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens ch. 2

Read Peter Pan chapters 1 & 2

Audiobooks

Reader Response–new book “Fortune Teller”

Materials for this Week:

Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

Writing 1 Syllabus

Homework and Late Dates

Audiobooks

About the Author J.M. Barrie

Scanning handwritten homework tutorial

How to turn off notifications tutorial

Warner, John. More than Words. Basic Books, 4 Feb. 2025.

Thoughts about Grades

 Dear CHAT Writing 1 Students & Parents,

I've just finished calculating the grades for the Spring semester, and you will be finding them in your inbox in just a few minutes.  As tutors, we give you suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.

Allow me to share my thoughts on grades.  As I homeschool my own children, I don’t give them grades.  I feel that grades are far too subjective, especially coming from their mother.  Instead, I teach my own children for mastery, and we don’t proceed with a topic until they are ready, no matter how long that takes.  In a class setting, knowing where each student is with regards to his/her understanding of a topic is not always possible, so any grade given is not a complete representation of what the student learned or accomplished this year.

Letter grades are a funny thing.  For some students, it becomes the only motivation for doing well.  For some, it becomes a measure of their worth as people or as  academic learners.  I personally don't like these "side effects" of the grading system.  On the other hand, grades can be a valid reflection and reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.

When teaching students to be good writers, I give a lot of consideration for growth and improvement. Each student has a starting place; over time I look for him or her to learn the mechanics of grammar, good writing techniques, and analytical thinking skills.

For this class, I gave points for Quick Writes, short assignments, literature assignments, grammar exercises, and longer essays. The final drafts of the essay assignments were graded using a rubric that divided the papers into the following categories:  focus, content, organization, and mechanics.  

The scores for class work are divided into the following categories:  Quick Writes and Miscellanea, Writing, Literature, and Grammar.  A student may have been strong in one area and not in another, and this will be reflected in these categories.  These scores are also weighted; in other words, not all of the categories have the same importance.  The Quick Write points are 15% of the total grade, the Writing assignments are 30%, the Literature homework is 28%, and the Grammar work is 27%. (You will see that each of these categories has subcategories.  This is  for the purpose of keeping the internal category weighting correct.)

The grade breakdowns for Writing 1 are as follows:

98% - 100% (A+), 93% - 97% (A), 90% - 92% (A-),

87% - 89% (B+), 83% - 86% (B), 80 % - 82% (B-),

77% - 77% (C+), 73% - 76% (C), 70% - 72% (C-),

67% - 69% (D+), 63% - 66% (D), 60% - 62% (D-),

55% - 59% (Pass), 50% - 54% (Fail); 0% - 49% (Incomplete)

Each student (and parents) will receive an e-mail with percentages and a suggested overall grade for this semester. (Note:  You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the document.)   I’ve seen each student improve with each paper and have truly enjoyed my interactions with this class.  Good Work!

Blessings to all,

Mrs. G

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 15 (May 7)

 Greetings everyone!

We had a stupendous final day of Writing 1 at CHAT for the 2024-25 school year.  We have covered so much over the course of the year, that our heads are full; but the weeks go by so quickly that it seems hard to think that we're at the end.  

As the culminating event, students have been working towards staging our class Poetry Event.  They all had a role to play on on a committee and they worked collaboratively to make this event a success.  I am proud of the way they communicated, split up the work and let their talents shine as they organized and then performed their poetic pieces.   Though I  know that some students do not enjoy poetry, I appreciated their good attitudes and risk-taking–even the ones who do not enjoy performing.  I am proud of you all!

The stage was set, the refreshments ready and the decorations were amazing!! Thank you all for working so hard at putting this all together. It really made it special!

After a short class business meeting, then we were ready to begin. In the pre-round, all students performed the poem they have memorized this semester “The Jabberwocky.” Students who could recite it without looking at the poem received extra credit! After that, Using the beautiful student designed program our dynamic Emcee duo of Trace and Zac took charge and explained the judging criteria and the flow of the event.  A panel of judges used a scoring system to evaluate the poem and the delivery style–and though it was difficult, they did come up with the top three performances.  After a tie-breaker for third place, the winners were announced:

  

Congratulations to:

3rd place: Louisa

2nd place:  Lilabeth

1st place:  Lyla

Please watch Google Classroom for a link to the photo album from this event. Thanks to Lyla for putting that together!

Now that it is all over, I want to let you know that I am working on getting all the grading finished.  I have given students until tonight–Friday (May 8)  @ 11:59 PM  to hand any work in.  Final Grades will be out sometime next week.  If for some reason that won't work, please contact me. Look for two emails from me:  one that explains how I grade and then the grades themselves.  In the meantime, you can look at Google Classroom to get a pretty good idea of what work is missing. (Heads up:  your grade may appear higher on GC than it is especially if you are missing a lot of assignments! Remember that Google Classroom doesn't default those missing scores to zeros. That’s what happens in the grading program I use).

This has been a great year with these students.  They're bright and engaging, and they've worked hard this year. I look forward to working with some of them again in Writing 2!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Writing 1 Class Notes--WK 14 (4/30)

 Greetings!

This week was our penultimate class for the year -- the one before the last one!

We had a lightning fast round Visual Vocabulary today in order to get our last two in before we took the Spring Visual Vocabulary Quiz.  Our words today were garrulous and abrogate.  We talked them through and students jotted down the definitions.  This was great, because the vocabulary quiz was “open worksheet.”  It is a well-deserved  reward for taking comprehensive notes all semester!

After that, I gave the students five minutes to review for the Grammar Test and to make sure all was in order for the Visual Vocabulary Quiz.  Since their homework was a Sentence Patterns Review that they finished and corrected, they should have done really well on it!  I had them help me correct it when it was all over and then we were ready to switch gears.

The rest of the class time was dedicated to committee work for the big event next week.  As we discussed, it takes a lot of work to pull off a successful event.  When students have “skin in the game” with planning and organizing an event, I find there’s a high level of ownership and engagement.  After discussing how the committee work should flow,  they were split  into groups and got busy dividing and conquering their committee’s punch list.  I encouraged them to exchange contact information.  

Their final writing assignment, a Reflection Paper, is due next week.   For this paper, they are to write about what they learned this year, what they learned about themselves this year, and what did and didn't work well this year.  At the bottom of this email is a link to an article about the value of reflection as a part of learning.

Next week is the final week, and I will accept homework until Sunday, May 10 at 11:59 PM.  My experience is that once the CHAT classes are done, students really lose momentum for completing late homework.  My plan is to get final grades out within the week.  

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Any old homework

-- Reflection Paper

–Practice your poems!

–Committee work

CHAT Writing 1--WK 13 (4/24)

 Hello There!

Today was another great day with this group.  They are such a blessing as we continue to work and learn together.

Instead of a Quick Write today, we took a few minutes to recite the poem we are attempting to commit to memory:  “The Jabberwocky” by C.S. Lewis. The homework was to memorize it up to stanza four. After reviewing for a few minutes, students stood up and attempted to recite it from memory. It is coming right along! The goal is to recite it at our Poetry Event on the last day of class.

After that, students had another opportunity to try their hands at writing some original poetry.  We watched a video of local poet Rudy Francisco perform a piece called “My Honest Poem” and then read an example based on his performance.  Students had time in class to compose their own “My Poem” based on the examples.  I could tell some really got into “the zone” writing these and my hope is to hear some of these performed at our Poetry Event.  

Writing

Now that students have turned in their FINAL formal essay for me (whoohoo!) they will submit a more informal Reflection Essay.  Reflect on what, you ask? At the beginning of the year, students were given a Blue Book, a simple writing prompt and a 20 minute timer. Today, I passed those same Blue Books back and gave them the same prompt and set the timer once again.  Their Reflection Essay will ask them to compare their writing from the beginning of the year and to evaluate their own writing growth. I hope students will be encouraged to witness their growth this year! I passed out the guidelines for that assignment.  It is due the last day of class (May 7).

Literature

Speaking of the Poetry Event, which will be the last day of class, I spent some time introducing this project.  It takes a lot of work to put on an event like this, and to split up the labor, each student will sign up for a role on a committee.  Their grade on this project will depend on not only their poetry performance techniques, but also how well they worked as a group. 

They are to consider which committee they want to join and as homework, they are to answer two Discussion Questions by Sunday, April 26th!  The questions are about their first and second preferences of which committee they’d like to participate in and the two poems they would like to perform.  The poems can be any combination of “found poems” and original poems. “Found poems” can be from our poetry book, your own poetry collection, from the library or another source.  Each poem should be 4-5 lines long minimum and should be CHAT appropriate!  I mentioned that if the poem is from a source outside of our class poetry book, it must be submitted to me for approval. If it is not approved by me, the poem will not be able to be performed and you will miss out on the points for this project. We will spend the bulk of next class period on committee work.

Grammar

To conclude our Grammar for the year,  I passed out a review sheet that they should complete and then correct. (The Key is on the Google Classroom assignment.)  Correcting their own work will further help them review and will be much more beneficial than waiting a week to see if they got the answers right in preparation for a Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take in class next week. 

We have a couple fun weeks planned to finish out our year, so let's make sure you get caught up on any late work.

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

–Which Committee? Discussion Question—Due Sunday, April 26!!

–Which Poems?  Discussion Question

Choose 2 poems for your contribution to the Poetry Jam (Here is the scoring/committee information); Can be a combination of of “found poetry” and original poetry

–Finish composing “My Poem”( if not finished in class)

–-- Complete the Sentence Patterns Review sheet and correct it. (Bring the corrected version to class)

About the Reflection Essay

-- Reflection Essay (due May 8)

Links for This Week

Rudy Fransisco’s “My Honest Poem” video

“The Jabberwocky”

Class Blog

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 12 (4/16)

 

The weather is really starting to turn Springy now!  

We started out with Visual Vocabulary.  Today’s words are:  fallacious and ardent.  Hopefully these students are never ardently fallacious! We only have one more installment of Visual Vocabulary before the end-of-semester quiz.

The next portion of  class was dedicated to poetry. Some students enjoy poetry and some are not crazy about it.  We talked about how poetry is art made with words.  I told them that it is said that poets are born–but the rest of us can learn how to write verse and enjoy it.  :) 

Writing

We blurred the lines between writing and literature today because we worked with a poem that is assigned for next week.  It’s actually one of my very favorites!  “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams is short and packed with imagery–we read another short one by him last week.  After discussing reading, hearing and discussing, we also read another example of “imagist” poetry by Ezra Pound. Students are assigned to try to imitate one or both poems for homework.

Literature

We had a Poetry Devices Scavenger Hunt.  After discussing different Poetic Devices like onomatopoeia, imagery, and enjambment, we practiced identifying devices together in the large group.  After that, I assigned groups and they were given time to read and “scavenge” their own poems for different devices.  We had time for a few station rotations of this.  They found that there were some favorites among this batch–especially poems by Billy Collins.

Grammar

After that, we had a very brief teaching on Simple and Compound sentences and students had time to work on the two worksheets in class.  We talked about the fact that when a FANBOY is connecting two independent clauses, it is called a compound sentence–and in that case, you must put a comma BEFORE the FANBOY.  If there is a FANBOY, but it is not connecting two independent clauses, it is a simple sentence and there is no comma necessary.

That is all!  Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

Week 13 Poems

Poetry Response Packets

Imagist Poems–write 2

Week 12 Grammar 

–Simple & Compound Sentences

–Writing Compound Sentences 

Compare/Contrast Essay (if not yet finished or would like to reduce checklist)

Links for this week

Visual Vocabulary

WK 12 Poetry Discussion– “The Red Wheelbarrow”