Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 15 (May 4)

 Greetings everyone!

We had a marvelous final day of Writing 1 at CHAT for the 2021-22 school year.  This was my very first year teaching Writing 1 and I can’t think of a better group of students with which to take this journey. 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 as they shared poetry with their classmates.  I was especially touched by the surprising number of original poems!

After the Ambiance Committee got the chairs in place and the lighting on point, the Emcee/Judging/Awards Committee took charge and explained their judging system:  There were three categories–Best Humorous poem, Best Profound Poem, Best Category-that-I-Can't-Remember (!) and Best Overall Poem.  The scores from both rounds were combined to find the winners:

Best All-around:  Grace 

Most profound:  Zach

Most Humorous:  Celia

Jack:  He won this–but I don’t remember the category–if you remember, please let me know and I will update these notes!

Thanks to all our guest judges too.

Now that it is all over, I want to let you know that I am working on getting all the grading finished.  I had given students until Saturday May 6 @ 8am to hand any work in.  On a personal note, I will be traveling for two weeks to celebrate my oldest daughter’s graduation.  Because of that, Final Grades will be out the last week of May. Look for 2 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 your grade.

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