Writing 1 Class Notes Week 3 (January 26)

Greetings!

Today’s QuickWrite prompts are taken from the list that the students in Writing 1 and Writing 2 contributed to last fall.  Here are the prompts for today’s Quick Write

• Where do you see yourself in five years

• Write one story you can’t stop yourself from laughing about everytime you think of it.

• A time of awkwardness/embarrassment

• If you dropped out of school and started a business what would it be 

• If you could only have three Apps on your phone, what would they be?  Why?

• Whatever …..

Today we had 3 Words of the Day:

Tenacious:  Definition: Qualtiy that does not stop holding something or give up something easily; determined

Etymology:  early 17th cent.: from Latin tenax, tenac- (from tenere ‘to hold’) + -ious.

Example:  She's a tenacious student. She never gives up.

charisma

Definition: the powerful personal quality that some people have to attract and impress other people

adj=charismatic

Etymology:  from Greek kharisma, from kharis ‘favour, grace’.

Example:  She relaxed and her natural charisma started to shine through.

benevolent

Definition:  (especially of people in authority) kind, helpful and generous

Opposite:  malevolent

Etymology:   Latin bene volent- ‘well wishing’, from bene ‘well’ + velle ‘to wish’.

Example:  The colonel was benevolent, but not stupid.

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Narrative Essays.  Most of them enjoyed writing these because they could write about personal experiences.  I look forward to reading them.  Because they may be including dialogue in these essays, we had another mini-lesson on dialogue.  This time, we focused on using alternate words to the more common “said,” and “asked.”   I asked students to partner up and write a dialogue between our main character Hannay and another character using the alternate words.

Speaking of our main character, we are now 4 chapters into our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and most of the students are enjoying the story line.  Some aspects are unfamiliar because it was written for another time and place.  Doing close reading with Annotations should help with this–asking questions and noting down unfamiliar vocabulary as they go.   I divided the class into small groups for a “Silent Discussion.”  Each group was given a prompt, a poster sized Post-It note and a Sharpie.  They were to discuss the prompt and to reply to other students’ comments.  We discussed these 4 prompts:  Was Hannay a good or bad spy?  The theme “Escape”; Connect the Characters to the Storyline; The themes conspiracy + Good vs. Evil.  We watched this 2 minute video about the real life cause of WWI and then broke into groups to silently discuss.  

For the Grammar portion of class, we worked again on simple and compound sentences.  The worksheets are a review of the basic elements of a sentence (subject + verb + complete thought).  Many times students write sentence fragments and run-on sentences and comma splice sentences because they don't have a strong sense for these sentence elements.  [Note:  Remember to correct your grammar worksheets and to clearly mark that they've been corrected.]

Assignments for Next Week:

• “Said” Dialogue Activity

• Read Ch. 5 & 6 of The 39 Steps

• Week 4 – 3 Study Guide Questions & 3 Annotations

• Grammar – Subject/Verb Agreement

• Grammar – Complete Subject/Predicate & Inverted Sentences

 

Links for This Week

The Thirty Nine Steps audiobooks

What Caused WW1?

Blessings on your week!

Mrs. G

 

Class Notes–Week 2 (January 19)

We made it to class despite the snowy weather, and it was good to see everyone’s smiling faces.

As usual, we started with our Quick Write using a combinations prompt options that both the class and I have written:

• I wouldn't be me without…

• Write about a scar that tells a cool story.

• What five adjectives describe your personality?

• How would you like to “show up” to others?  What five adjectives would you like other people to describe you with?  How do you desire others to experience your personality?

• Remember your prompt from last week?  Take the same character you invented and answer questions 1-3 from their point of view.

• Whatever???

Our Words of the Day were a combination of the ones I brought and one that Grace brought.  I asked students to submit their Words of the Day to me in advance, provide the definition, etymology and an example sentence and they can have some extra credit.  Though today’s submission was a bit obscure, the Word of the Day should be a word that is interesting, but not too strange.  In other words, it should be a word that could be used in conversation, or perhaps our writing.

Students recorded these Words in their Writing 2 Notebooks.

abscond (v)

Definition:  To depart quickly and in secret, especially to avoid criminal charges.

Etymology:  Latin–ab=off or away from; -condere=put together; store

Example:  The bank robbers immediately absconded to Mexico with the money.

Nefarious (adj)

Definition:  Evil, reprehensible

Etymology:  Latin-ne-not and fas=right; first used in 1609

Example:  Because of the nefarious nature of this crime, I am forced to pass a stern sentence.

Arachibutyrophobia (n)

Definition:  fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

The usual Agenda for the class time is to do these beginning of class activities and then most of the time we cover these topics in this order:  Writing assignments/instruction, Literature discussion, and Grammar instruction/work.  

For our Writing discussion, I checked in with them about the progress of their Narrative Essays.  The Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts are due next week.  Students were reminded that a Narrative Essay is kind of like a "story with a purpose."  

To that end, there may be some characters using dialogue.  We had a mini-lesson on using quotation marks.  They worked in pairs on a worksheet.  There is a Dialogue Quiz posted on Google Classroom–watch the video, then answer the questions.

The class has read and annotated the first 2 chapters of our book, The Thirty-Nine Steps.  We didn’t talk about chapters 1 and 2 this week, but will circle back next week.  Instead, I divided the class into 4 groups, and they played the game "Enter the Mystery Mansion."  Students were given cards with pictures, and as a group, they were to compose a mystery and/or spy story.  When they were done, a story was shared to the whole group..  They were quite creative!

The last part of class was for Grammar instruction.  Today, I did a short lesson on simple and compound subjects and predicates.  Students got their worksheets at the end of class.  Remember, they should be corrected before they are turned in!

Homework

Narrative PreWrite

Narrative Rough Draft

Dialogue Mini Lesson

Dialogue Quiz

Read Chap. 3-4 39 Steps

3 Annotations (in NB)

3 Study Guide Questions

39 Steps Quiz Ch. 1-4

Grammar:  What is a Sentence?

Grammar: Sentence Patterns

Links for the Week

QuickWrite

About the Narrative Essay

Class Summary Video (if absent)

Blessings on you week!

Mrs. G

 

Class Notes–Week 1 (January 12)

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's smiling faces.  

Today is  National Stick to your Resolutions Day. For our Quick Write today, we talked about the word “resolve”--which means to reach a firm decision about something.  We watched a short section from a Studio C clip where the main character shared his New Year’s resolutions:  he is a thief–and therein lies the humor!   I challenged the class to make up a character and write a New Year’s Resolution list for them.  They could also opt for sharing their resolutions or sharing an opinion on Resolutions.

We did not have any Words of the Day, but students can bring them to class for us to enjoy.  (The only extra credit that will be offered this semester.)  For the rest of the semester, students can bring in interesting words for our weekly Words of the Day part of our discussion.  For these words, they also need to include the etymology and a definition.  

Our first order of business was organizational.  I have tweaked a few things since last semester and we talked about those: 

• We previewed this semester Syllabus and Homework Checklist.  Students saw what Literature we would be reading and also how many and the types of Essays that will be assigned.  This gives us a map for moving forward.

• In Semester 2, I will be much stricter on Deadlines.  We reviewed my Late Homework policy.

• Also, in Semester 2, I will be much stricter about phones in the classroom.  For most students this hasn’t been a problem, but I want to be upfront.  My desire is to keep this class as distraction-free as possible.  As per CHAT policy, if I see a phone out, it will be turned into me until the end of the class.  If it’s a problem after that, I will take it for the entire day.  It can be picked up at the end of the day.  In both cases, parents will be contacted.

•  Because of the nature of my Gradebook set up, I have chosen to forego most Extra Credit assignments from here on out.  As stated above, Words of the Day will be our only Extra Credit opportunity this semester.  

• I distributed blank notebooks for students to use for the class from now on.  We divided it into 3 parts:  Notes, Annotations and Words of the Day (no more index cards!)  Each section has its own tabs.

• When we take notes, they will go in there; when handouts are given, they can be attached there (use tape or glue.).  Annotations, which we will be using for close reading and class discussions will also “live” there.

Speaking of Annotations, after that, we had a mini-lesson on Annotating.  I explained that making annotations is “reading with a pencil.”  This practice promotes thoughtful reading, gives us fodder for class discussions and is something that I hope will become a lifelong habit.  When we annotate a text, we write directly in the book (if we own it!).  Annotations are simply notes in the margins with predictions, questions, opinions and thoughts.  These notations help students “interact” with the text and hopefully the days of reading a paragraph over and over without understanding it are over. 

 I gave the class laminated  Annotation Guides that they can use as a bookmark they can refer to while reading.  They will be required to annotate each time I assign a reading.  We practiced annotating “The Lion and the Mouse”--a short fable by Aesop. They will record 2 annotations per selection in the corresponding section of their Writing 1 Notebooks.  

The next topic we covered was our first Writing assignment -- a Narrative Essay.  I like to call a Narrative Essay a "story with a purpose."  In this type of essay, students re-tell a series of events, but they are not simply telling a story.  They must have a reason for telling these events to their readers.  This reason could include a turning point in life, a traumatic experience that changed a life, an achievement that made a significant difference, etc.  The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due in 2 weeks on January 27.

Next on the agenda was our first book for the semester.  This semester we will be reading a British classic that was written in 1915 -- The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.  This is one of the first espionage, man-on-the-run types of books.  I've taught this book to British Literature classes, and I think we'll all enjoy this book.  As part of our discussion, I asked the students to write something as a Pre-Reading assignment for The 39 Steps.  I had them think about what they would do if they were on the run -- either from some bad guys or some good guys (which meant they might be a bad guy.)  They were to think of possible options for hiding and staying safe.  This is a very creative bunch!  I heard some of their ideas and look forward to reading what they wrote.

We did not have time to get to the Grammar portion of the class.  We will begin next week.  Our focus will be reviewing sentence patterns.

Homework

Read the 39 Steps Ch. 1-2

Read 39 Steps Intro Material

Quiz on Intro Material (GC)

Record 3  Annotations in Writing 1 Notebook

Answer 3 Study Guide questions

39 Steps Pre-Reading Writing Activity

Start the Narrative Essay

-Pre-Write/RD due 1/26

-Final due 2/9

Links for this week

New Year’s Resolution Youtube clip

39 Steps Audiobook

Spring Syllabus

Homework Checklist

Homework Late Guidelines

About the Narrative Essay

Annotation Guide