Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 5 (February 16)

Greetings!

 I am thankful we have this week off of class and I hope you are hunkered down as we prepare for this “historic blizzard” they are forecasting. Maybe even catch up on some homework for Writing Class?  In case that’s on your to-do list, here is what we covered last week.

Quick Write

The prompts were taken from the suggestions you submitted last semester:

• If you could be married to someone famous from the past who is no longer alive, who would you like it to be? Why?

• If you could trade lives with anyone in the world, who would you choose and why?

• If you could go back to any period of time or place in history what would it be and why?

Words of the Day

We are continuing with our ACT words and they were:

fatalistic: (adj)  believing everything is determined by fate and is inevitable

lackadaisical:  (adj) without spirit, interest or effort

licentious: (adj)  ignoring rules or morals; uncontrolled or immoral

Charlotte submitted this beautiful word:

apricity–noun; The warmth of the sun in winter

The lion’s share of our class was spent on discussing Writing.  I have assigned an Examples or Analogy Essay.  We spent some time sharing topic ideas and brainstorming how to structure this essay.  There were some good ideas!  We will continue sharing on Google Classroom as they answer the discussion question and comment on their classmates’ ideas.  The Rough Draft and PreWrite is due when we get back from break (3/2.)

I had sent an email home to parents to broach the topic of the Artificial Intelligence tool ChatGpt.  We briefly touched on some of this tool’s capabilities and drawbacks.  I told students we will be writing about ChatGpt in the next essay and it will be a topic of deeper discussion in the future.  

One of the things this tool does NOT do well yet is to give credit to its sources and in-text citations.  Since for this essay I am requiring 3 sources and 3 quotes along with a Works Cited page, we took the class time to review MLA documentation.  This is the main way we can maintain academic honesty and avoid the charge of plagiarism.  Students took notes on a presentation and I handed out citation maker sheets for students to keep track of their sources while they do their research.

After that, we had just a bit of time to sum up the 39 Steps because we finished it!  I had some mixed reviews about the ending of this novel.  I assigned a One Pager assignment to help students to organize their thoughts about the novel and to prepare for the test. A one pager is a way to visually share key ideas and information using both visual symbols and important words to clearly and concisely share the most important takeaways with someone else. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.  We will take the test in class after break.  

I handed out the new books and assigned 2 stories, Short Story Worksheets,  and 2 Annotations (in their Notebooks.)

No Grammar this week!  Enjoy the time off!

Homework

Example/Analogy PreWrite

Example/Analogy Rough Draft

Essay Discussion Question

39 Steps One Pager

Read  “The Gift of the Magi” and “After Twenty Years”

Short Story Worksheets & Annotations

Links for this Week

Quick Write

MLA Presentation and Guided Notes.

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 5 ( February 9)

He had a fun class today and it was quite full!

We started with a Quick Write about hair:

•  What is the worst thing you have ever done to your hair? Why did you do it? What is the best thing you’ve done to your hair?

•  If you could change your hair, how would you change it?

• If you could have somebody else's hair for a day, whose would it be? Why? What do you like about that person's hair

• Do you have any regrettable looks from the past?

• What’s the fashion trend you just cannot embrace?

Our Words of the Day were from Megan and the list of ACT/SAT Vocabulary words.  We will continue on with these words (and any that students may contribute) until the end of the year.

• alienate:  to cause to turn away

• elated:  very proud or happy or in high spirits

• epigram:  a short witty saying or quip

• finifugal:  afraid of finishing anything

We are now in Week 5, so students need to check in on their homework. I give students three weeks to get assigned work (actually, they have 4 weeks from the assigned date until I will no longer take it.)  After that extended time, assignments will be given zeros.  According to my late homework policy, any assignments due on Week 2 is now overdue. Grade Reports were sent Week 3 and I will be sending another round in a few more weeks.

Our discussion of The 39 Steps included some close reading brushing up on our Annotating Skills.  After reviewing the skills of (purposeful) underlining/margin notes, and drawing icons (arrows, stars, thought bubbles), students did a close reading of the end of Chapter 8.  The culprit is discovered in this section!   Using their annotations as a guide, students broke into small groups to discuss characterization, description and overall plot.  I overheard some insightful comments.

Students handed in the final drafts of their Narrative Essays.  I'm really looking forward to reading these because their rough drafts were so good!  

When we finish one paper, we start another.  For the next round of essays,  students can choose to write an Examples Essay or an Analogy Essay.  For both of these types of essays, the students should be explaining one thing with one or more other things. We discussed in depth about analogies and the requirements of this essay.  This topic must be “researchable”and will need to have MLA style in-text citations along with a Works Cited page. We will discuss those details next week.  For now,students have the next two weeks to do their brainstorming and research.  The pre-writes and rough drafts should be handed in on March 2.

At the end of class, I assigned the Grammar worksheets, practicing identifying and classifying prepositional phrases.  Prepositional phrases function either as adjective phrases or adverb phrases, and it can be tricky to tell what kind of phrase it is.  They have these as homework.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Examples/Analogy  Pre-Write (due Feb. 16–hand in with RD March 2)

–Discussion Question:  Which Essay?  Which topic? (GC)

-- Examples/Analogy Rough Draft (due March 2)

-- Read and Annotate Ch. 9 & 10 of The 39 Steps

-- Week 6 – 3 Study Guide Questions 

–Ch. 5-8 Quiz (if you didn’t do it already)

-- Classifying Prep Phrases

-- Prepositional Phrases -- Adj or Adv

Links For This Week

–About the Analogy Essay & Examples Essay

Google Slides Presentations

–Annotation Skills 1 & 2

–Analogy Essay/Example Essay

Writing 1 Class Notes--Week 4 (February 2)

Hello!

We had a fun class today -- as usual, we covered a lot of material.  We started with our Quick Write.  Here are the prompts for the day:

• February 2 –  World Read Aloud Day.  Do you have a favorite story that was read aloud to you

when you were young?  Write about it.

• February 4, 2004 –  the day that Facebook was launched.  Do you use Facebook?  What are

your thoughts about social media?

• February 4, 1789 – the day that George Washington was elected our first president by a

unanimous vote of the first electoral college. 

• Do you have any opinions about the electoral college?  Do you have opinions about what makes

for a good elected leader?

No Words of the Day today

We had a “Think, Pair, Share” style discussion about Richard Hannay and The Thirty-Nine StepsWe talked about what we liked and didn't like about the book, and shared an Annotation that stood out to

them and why.

 The students had some profound statements about the plot and the writing style. 

We watched a clip from the 2008 adaption of the book and then discussed if the Hannay in the movie

was like the one we imagined.  In the chapters that they will read for next week, the spy aspect of the

story will evolve, so that by the end, there is a solution to the whole mysterious situation.  For next week,

they will read Chapters 7 & 8 and take a quiz.  

ATTENTION:  I did not mention the quiz in class.  It is posted in Google Classroom.

We are catching up on Grammar this week.  Our topic was a short teaching on Compound Subjects and Compound Predicates along with a prepositional phrases review.  We worked on it for a bit in class, and students should correct their work before handing it in.  There are 4 worksheets due next week.

I graded the rough drafts of the Narrative Essays last week..  These were very enjoyable essays to read.  Many students wrote more than they usually did, and they told interesting stories in the contexts of their essays. I graded them as is my usual practice.  Because I want students to have more agency during their revision process, we tried a new way of editing today: Editing Stations.  I handed each student a copy of their Rough Draft, along with a rubric.  I divided the room into 6 different stations and, in pairs, students rotated through to edit/revise a specific aspect of their essay at each station.  The stations were:  Grammar (comma splices/run-ons and fragments), Dialogue, Sensory Language, Conflict, Peer Review, Teacher Review.  Since we had limited time to work with, students decided to spend longer at two stations, rather than to rush through more.  They are to take what they learned today, combine it with my suggestions and their own thoughts to produce a polished Final Draft.  (Due 2/9.)

Assignments for next week

• Narrative Essay Final Draft

• Read Ch. 7 & 8 of The 39 Steps

• Quiz:  Ch. 5 – 8 (GC) & Annotations (not listed on Syllabus)

• Ch. 7 & 8 Study Guide Questions

• Grammar – Wk4:  Compound Subjects

• Grammar -- Wk4:  Compound Predicates

• Grammar–Wk4:  Simple Sentences Review

• Grammar–Wk4:  Prepositional Phrase Review

Links for This Week

• The 39 Steps Audiobook and Youtube video options

Blessings on your week!

Mrs. G