Thursday, March 16, 2023

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 9 (3/16)

 Greetings!

Another full, productive day today with these students.  We are sure learning a lot together!


QuickWrite

If people knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all. -Michelangelo

We got a little highbrow culture today as we pondered this quote and a sculpture by Michelangelo.  After we listened to a short podcast of art critics discussing The Pieta, we responded to one of the following:  


  • What does this quote mean to you? 


  • After watching the video, what thoughts do you have about this sculpture,mastery, art, hard work, or learning as a “vehicle”?


  •  Is there something that you are trying to gain mastery of in your life that takes a lot of hard work?  Write about it.


  • Have you ever experienced a piece of art that caused you to pause and think?  Describe.


  • What do you know about Michelangelo;  his life; his work?



Words of the Day

DALLY: to waste time idly

DEMENTED: crazy, mentally ill, insane

FELONIOUS: involving criminal activity

GORGE: to stuff with food (v.); a small canyon with steep walls (n.)


After a quick homework check, I reminded students how to properly cite online articles in MLA style as well as how to do hanging indents for their Works Cited pages.  They should be up to date on those because their Analogy/Examples Final drafts are due today.  (If they need some time to clean up their Works Cited pages, they can do that over the weekend and turn them in ASAP.) 


I told the class we will be changing our syllabus a little:  instead of the next essay being a News Story Essay, we will be writing an essay that focuses on Artificial Intelligence.  I will assign that essay next week so that there would be time for a class discussion and activity around this.  

I have been communicating with parents about the topic of Artificial Intelligence and specifically ChatGPT.  Today was the day we unpacked that as a class.  


To start out, we watched a short Youtube Video on the tool and students had the opportunity to read and analyze three pieces of writing.  Their job was to decide who composed the piece:  a teacher, a student or a robot.  Much to their surprise (SPOILER ALERT!) all three were computer generated!  This led to a lively discussion.  Their assignment is to open an account on ChatGPT (if they don’t have one already) and to interact with it.  They are to write about their experiences and do some fact finding.  Next week, as I mentioned, I will assign an essay on this topic.


We did not take time to discuss O. Henry's stories, "Retrieved Reformation" and "The Pimienta Pancake."  Next week we will read "The Ransom of Red Chief" and discuss all three stories.  The worksheet and Annotations (2) are due next week.  In the links section below are some videos and an audio version of the story. 


We continue to work on sentence patterns and sentence elements for our Grammar instruction.  Last week and this week we practiced identifying direct objects and indirect objects. Their worksheets for this week are again on direct and indirect objects.  There is an Edpuzzle video to help them deepen their understanding.


Homework

Playing Around with ChatGPT wksheet

Read “Ransom of Red Chief”

2 Annotations

Short Story Worksheet

Wk 9 Grammar

EdPuzzle Video

Nouns as Direct Objects

Compound Direct Objects

Finding Direct Objects

Links for This Week

Audio and Video of “Ransom…”

Youtube on Michaelangelo’s The Pieta

ChatGPT video


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