CHAT Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 10 (November 5)

Hi All! 

We are buzzing along in our semester and these students are learning a lot!

We started the class with our Visual Vocabulary words:  pensive and beleaguered.  

Writing

Speaking of writing, we rolled into a brief review of the process of submitting Final Edits. Students took out their Grammar and Content Codes (for Narrative Essays). Then I handed out an essay paragraph with a few coded errors. Students then followed the process: they numbered each error on the paragraph, and on a separate sheet of binder paper, they copied down the first sentence of the corresponding code/rule and then fixed the error. Last, they stapled their Edits onto the mock essay and turned it in. That is the Final Edits process! They will perform that each time an essay is assigned. They noticed how simple the process would be when they do a careful job before submitting their initial essay. Also, Grammar Codes are simpler to correct than Content Codes.

I reminded them that in my class it is possible to earn a 100% on EVERY ESSAY.  EVERY TIME!  They simply make those same Edits they just hand wrote and incorporate them into their essay on Google Classroom and resolve all the comments. Then RESUBMIT a beautiful, edited and cleaned up essay. Their initial grade will be updated to an A+! If you decide not to do this optional step, your essay’s grade will remain the same as it was after your initial submission.

This essay requires some research and students will be getting practice incorporating MLA style quotes and paraphrases.   To help students include these quotes smoothly, we use the acronym ICE. We had a mini-lesson on this concept today. Next week, there will be a Door Quiz on what the acronym ICE stands for.

I=Introduce C=Cite E=Explain

Since they are required to incorporate at least one quote and one paraphrase, they will need to complete a Works Cited page for this essay. I handed out a sample of what that should look like and  posted a slideshow on details. Since most academic writers use online helps, I encouraged students to consult the MLA Style Center if they have questions about how to format a citation for their Works Cited page. Online citation generators like My Bib or Owl Purdue are also VERY helpful. We took a quick peek at  Google Scholar where there are many reputable sources—many of them peer reviewed (check how many other people have cited that source. The more people who have used that source, the better. We will probably revisit Google Scholar for the next essay.

Next up was our Peer Review day for the Biography essays. Using a checklist, students gave some high quality feedback to their peers. I am hoping that it will be incorporated as they continue to polish their essays. Biography essays are due next week.

Grammar

Today’s topic was A=Adverbs.  However, due to time constraints, the group agreed to postpone their presentations until next week. Then they will present along with the Pronouns group. Here are the next two groups–schedule pushed back by 1 week:👇

Literature

Students have started the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. No time for a discussion on  Stave 1 today, but they are to read Stave 2 as homework and answer questions. I distributed hard copies of the books this week as they have finally arrived!!  

I also handed out the A Christmas Carol Vocabulary worksheet. This is a long range project that they should work on as they read. They should define 4 words per Stave. It is due at the end of the semester.

Have a blessed weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

Read Stave 2

3 Questions–Stave 2

Biography Essay

No grammar this week

Adverbs Group–be ready (Tyler, Penn, Elliot)

Pronouns Group–be ready (Daniel, Maverick, Ean)

CHAT Wr 1 Class Notes--Week 9 (October 29)

 Dear Students,

For “Fun Stuff” today, we said phrases in American English that had us sounding Australian and Scottish! Don’t forget to have your family say:  “rise up lights” and “waddled” at the dinner table tonight!

Quick Write

No Quick Write today! We needed all our time for today’s topics!

Literature

We finished Peter Pan this week which means it was time for the final exam :)  Students took the exam in class.  Students picked up their copy of  A Christmas Carol this week. We read part of the document called “Introduction to A Christmas Carol” in class. There is a quiz assigned on Google Classroom over that material.They should read Stave 1 and answer 3 questions (Reader Response) this week. I also handed out the A Christmas Carol Vocabulary worksheet. This is a long range project that they should work on as they read. They should define 4 words per Stave. It is due at the end of the semester.

Writing

The Biography KWO was due today. Students who met the deadline received points for that. If you didn’t show it to me in class today, you may scan and upload it to Google Classroom by midnight tonight for full credit. After that, I will close the submissions. 

Speaking of Peer Review, next week, students will perform one! Make sure to bring a paper copy of your essay and your completed Style Checklists to class! If you are not prepared, you will,  a.) not be able to benefit from this valuable peer feedback, and b.) you will not receive credit for this assignment.

This essay requires some research and students will be getting practice incorporating MLA style quotes, paraphrases and summaries.   To help students include these smoothly, they are to finish a worksheet at home to practice. Next week we’ll discuss how to seamlessly incorporate these into your writing.

Grammar

Conjunctions group presented this week! They did a great job leading us in a well-produced lesson, an interactive and effective game, and a beautiful worksheet. As per usual, students have two worksheets to complete and correct from me. Next up, is the Adverbs group 👇

Have a great weekend and–try not to eat too much candy!!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Biography Essay--bring it to class for Peer Review!

Read “Introduction to A Christmas Carol” document

Watch video on Charles Dickens

Quiz–Introduction to A Christmas Carol (GC)

ACC 3 Questions

Conjunctions Worksheets (2)--grade and mark them yourself!

Writing 1 Class Notes–October 22 (Week 8)

 It was good to see your smiling faces back from break.  We are officially halfway through the Fall semester now.  Can you believe it?!? I aim to get your grade reports out this week. 🤞

Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were obtrude and licentious.  We talked about how Elsa’s catchy song is essentially about licentiousness. When someone else’s licentious behavior obtrudes on another person, in some cases, it could be considered a crime! Deep conversation while learning vocabulary words!

After that we had a Pop Quiz on adjectives. That was a surprise that they handled well. If they took notes in class last week, this little quiz was a breeze!

Writing

Today was a writing heavy day. I handed back paper copies of their essays. If they were submitted on GC, I printed them out. I find it is helpful to have a hard copy in order to do this next step:  Final Edits. 

Here’s a step by step of that process (slideshow posted in GC):

Step 1:  Number all the marked errors on your paper for both grammar and content issues. (Each student has a copy of the Grammar Codes and the Content Codes for this essay.)

Step 2: On a separate sheet of binder paper, work through each of your errors by (neatly) writing the rule you violated and showing how you would correct the error.

Please note: you do NOT need to rewrite the entire essay

Step 3: Staple these hand-written corrections to a paper copy of your essay and turn in. They are due next week.You may also submit on GC by scanning your marked up essay and your handwritten corrections and posting them to the Edits assignment. (No pictures, please.)

Optional Step 4:  If you are not satisfied with the grade your essay earned, you are invited to resubmit it after you have polished it and applied the suggested corrections. In this case, write “Resubmitted” on the Edits you will turn in. Final Edits are due next week.

Last, I handed out the description of our next essay: the Biography Essay. Students will choose a fascinating person and write about their life and work. Here are the parameters:

• They must be an important historical figure

• They must be no longer living

• No pop stars

They are required to include some Style elements and a Works Cited page for this one. I will do some teaching on that subject next week. The KWO is due next week.

Grammar

We're continuing with the Parts of Speech presentations, and today we had the Nouns group.  After a short lesson, they had an activity for students to play and a word find worksheet. They have homework to practice identifying nouns.   Good job, Sam, Breckston and Eli! I forgot to mention this--now that we are done with IVAN, there is a Review posted on GC for those parts of speech. Please complete those as homework, Next week we'll begin CAPP. Here are the next next two groups on deck:

Literature

This is our last assignment on Peter Pan. They are to finish the book and answer the 3 Questions Reader Response. Have your tissues ready as the Darling kids return home. It is especially poignant when Peter visits years in the future only to find Wendy completely grown up with a daughter of her own.

To review for the in-class test next week, students should look at the Study Guide & KEY that is posted on Google Classroom.

That’s it!  Reach out with any questions.

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Personal Essay Final Edits

Biography Essay KWO

Finish Peter Pan– Chapters 16 & 17–Review for Final Exam

3 Questions–Reader Response

Nouns Homework–1

Nouns Homework–2

Nouns Evaluation

IVAN Review Quizzes (open notes)

Interjections

Verbs

Adjectives

Nouns

Links for this Week

About the Biography Essay

Final Edits slideshow

Peter Pan Study Guide

Writing 1 Class Notes–October 8 (Week 7)

 Hello All!

Quick Write

We got right to it this morning as I taught a mini-lesson on the strong verb Dress-up. I illustrated the concept of strong verbs by banning some weak verbs. From  now on, the verbs go/went, came/come, see/saw, eat/ate and see/look are banned from our formal writing. 🫠 Instead, students should use more vivid and provocative verbs. They were given lists of compelling alternatives to those verbs and they added them as alternatives to their Banned Verbs list and they added strong verb to their Style Sheets. Students will now be required to use one of those per paragraph in their essays and to practice using it today in our Quick Write.

After that, I explained how to do a self “check-in” and identify their most predominant 1 or 2 emotions right now and describe the event that is causing that emotion to emerge. I set the 5 minute timer and students wrote on that topic and used and indicated at least one strong verb.

Grammar

Today,the Adjectives group gave our lesson.  They did a great job teaching, leading an activity and taking the class through a worksheet. I was very impressed with their lesson, and activity. The class will evaluate their teaching as well on GC, and they can finish and hand the group’s worksheet back to that group next class.  They also have two worksheets from me on adjectives which are due next class. Don’t forget to mark and correct them!

Extra Credit Note:

If students took notes over today’s class notes/grammar lesson, they can scan and upload those to Google Classroom by midnight tonight. 

Literature

Due to time constraints, I made the decision to forego today’s quiz and instead the focus was on the class discussion> There were no disappointed students in the room (they won’t need to do a quiz and I won’t need to grade one! It’s a win/win!! 😉)

Today was our Literature Circles discussion. Students came to class prepared having read Peter Pan up to chapter 13 and filled out their role sheets. After reviewing what the roles' duties entailed, they were split into mixed groups and they began their discussion. I heard some very insightful comments. I hope this was both fun and a way for students to understand the themes of our novel more deeply.

Writing

Today there was no instruction on writing, however the Personal Essays were due. Students were instructed to staple their essays, KWO, with the Style Sheet on top and put them in the bin. They were to also Turn In on GC. I will grade them over the break. When we come back, I will give instructions on how to handle the Final Edits and explain the grading procedure.

Enjoy your Fall Break!

Mrs. G

Homework

Literature Circles Evaluation

Read Peter Pan Ch. 14 & 15

Reader Response–Captain Hook’s–or any character’s Obituary

Adjectives Worksheet–1

Adjectives Worksheet–2

Adjectives Evaluation (GC)

Links for this week

Strong Verb

Literature Circles Discussion–Roles and Groups

CHAT Writing 1 Class Notes–October 1--WK6

 Greetings, Everyone!

We’ve finished the first third of this semester and the weather is still gorgeous out there.  Time sure flies with this wonderful group of students!

We started the class with Visual Vocabulary as we discussed the words epigram and edifice.  In today’s world, there seem to be edifices of epigrams wherever we look!  If you want to see a lot of epigrams in one place, go to your local Hobby Lobby!  😀 (See the example on the left.)

Writing

Their KWOs which were due today.Personal essays are due next week! They must be composed on Google Classroom using the template. Staple the Style Checklist to the top of your essay. We spent some time going over the Style checklist. Students are to consult their outlines and use their style checklists as they compose their essays on the template provided.

As per our class discussion, if text is copied and pasted from another source, it will be flagged as possible plagiarism. In that case, a student will receive a notification from me and will need to re-do the assignment or receive a zero. If it happens again, they will need to have a conference with parents, CHAT directors and me to determine if the student will be allowed to continue at CHAT. (Refer to the class guidelines and the CHAT Academic Agreement that we went over and each student and family signed at the start of the semester.)

Grammar

Today marked the beginning of our parts of speech presentations! There was a quick review of  the “I do, We do, You do” teaching technique that I’d like to see in their presentations: 

📚“I do” = the  mini-lesson on interjections where I explained what an interjection is and I projected some example sentences on the doc camera

📚“We do", a fun fill-in-the-bank comic book activity they completed with a partner

📚“You do”= worksheets

After that, the Interjections group presented and were followed by the Verbs group. They both did a splendid job! I will assign each group a grade based on their presentation and how they worked together.The class will also fill out an evaluation form for each group as homework. Performing self and peer evaluations is a very valuable learning tool! Adjectives group–be ready next week!

As promised, I also assigned two worksheets for each part of speech–four total for next week. They got a start on their worksheets in class.  I also passed out the KEYS for the Grammar worksheets for this semester and explained the procedure.  

Students are to complete the worksheets and then (using a different colored pen) correct their own work.  There is a lot of learning that occurs during this process!  They will receive a base score for completed work no matter how many they get wrong.  Please make the corrections very visible to me so that I can see you have completed the assignment or it will be returned to you with a “0.”  The same applies to work completed on Google Classroom.  

Literature

Roles for next week’s Literature Circle discussion were assigned.  You will receive a grade on your preparation and participation and we went over the expectations.  Each student has a part to play in order to make this a fruitful discussion.  They are to keep reading chapters  12 & 13 this week and prepare for an in-class reading quiz next week.  The discussion will follow the quiz and cover Peter Pan up to chapter 13.

Enjoy your weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Interjections

Interjections–Circling

Interjections Practice

Interjections Evaluation

Verbs

Verbs–Where’s the Verb?

Verbs–Identifying Verbs

Verbs Evaluation

Personal Essay–due next week (10/8)!

Read chapters 12 & 13 Peter Pan

Prep your Literature Circles Roles

Literature Circles Roles

Links for this week

Grammar Presentation Groups

Grammar KEYS

Writing 1 Class Guidelines

CHAT Academic Agreement

Writing 1 Class Notes–September 24 (WK 5)

 Greetings and Salutations! 

Our bellringer this morning was a bit of an unusual Quick Write. Today’s prompt was a choice of prompts in honor of National Hobbit Day! As usual, I set the timer, they chose a prompt and  wrote for five minutes.As usual, I set the timer, they chose a prompt and  wrote for five minutes. They were required to include and indicate and -ly adverb dress-up. Bonus points if you include any Visual Vocabulary word we’ve had so far.

Writing

Today I introduced our first formal essay: The Personal Essay. Though we will be using the traditional essay form (Intro, Body, Conclusion, etc) the emphasis in this piece will be on the strong use of descriptive language, figures of speech, and creative thinking as they explore a very early childhood memory. I mentioned that I posted a sample essay, the grading codes and the rubric in the “About the Personal Essay” material on Google Classroom. We will go into more detail on the sample next week. This week, I spent time explaining the grading process. 

The Key Word outline is due next week. They may either show it to me in class OR scan and upload it online. It is due on the due date or it will not receive credit.

Literature

Since we had an in-depth discussion last week, today we kept it short. Students had an in-class quiz over Peter Pan chapters 7 & 8. They should keep reading chapters 9-11 and complete the Reader Response worksheet this week.

Grammar

I announced the winner of our IVAN CAPP mascot! Congratulations, Adalyn! Though all entries win some extra credit points, Adalyn gets that AND bragging rights. 😎Her beautifully rendered, hand-drawn “Swashbuckling IVAN CAPP” will adorn the whiteboard during Grammar time.

The remainder of the class time I gave to students to plan their and prepare for their presentations. Due to some last minute changes, we will have two presentations next week:  Interjections and Verbs!  

There was no Grammar homework from me this week, other than to prepare and coordinate your presentations. Next week we will jump in with both feet and presentations will run through the end of the semester.

That’s It! Blessings on your weekend.

Mrs. G

Homework

Personal Essay KWO

Read Peter Pan Chapters 9-11

Reader Response–Whose Cell Phone?

Work on your Grammar Presentations

Material for this Week

About the Personal Essay

Parts of Speech Groups

Class Blog–Archived class notes

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 4--September 17

 Greetings!

I cannot believe how the time flies with these students!  We covered a lot, but I find myself wishing we had more time.

Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were lackadaisical and paucity.  After studying the words, we took a minute to write the definitions and sentences using them correctly. Bonus points for when I see these words in your writing!

Writing

Last week we learned the Topic-Clincher Rule and students had a “door test” when they came in. Most of them remembered the rule and the actions that go along with it. Good job! Next week I will be introducing our first essay–the Personal Essay. In the meantime, we discussed the importance of childhood memories in our novel Peter Pan. I would like students to do like David in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and press their hands against their temples really, really hard to help them remember their very earliest childhood memory ;) If they can’t remember their first memory, they should brainstorm a few very early memories that they’d like to write about. I’ll go into more detail about this next week.

Literature Discussion

Speaking of  Peter Pan, this week they had a small group discussion using the 4 Square Discussion model to discuss the content. Students were assigned Chapters 7 & 8 and should be prepared to take another in-class quiz next week.

Grammar 

As I mentioned last week,  we are having a class contest for our IVAN CAPP mascot. Students who want a chance to win extra credit points should submit a picture to me by Monday 9/21  I will post a “ballot” on Google Classroom for them to vote for their favorite and the winner will be announced next class! (email pictures to:  amanda.gonsalves@chatclasses.com)

Students have been put in groups of 3, and they are to research and come up with explanations about their assigned parts of speech.  Additionally, they are to come up with an activity/game/video for the class, and also a short worksheet.  Some students use Google Slides, Canva or other types of presentations.  Sometimes videos are helpful.Today, we  had time to explain the presentations and get them in groups long enough for them to set up a way to communicate with each other. Next week, we will use a large portion of our class time to work in groups to prepare these presentations. Students will likely need to connect outside of class to finish their presentations, so they also exchange information.  Our first presentation will be September 21. (See schedule below.)👇

Assignments for Next Week

Brainstorm early childhood memories

Read Chapters 7 & 8

Prep for in-class quiz

Work on Grammar presentations

Grammar Pre-Test–complete it and self-correct

Optional Extra Credit:  IVAN CAPP mascot picture

(email pictures to:  amanda.gonsalves@chatclasses.com by 9/21)

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Blog–Archived Notes