CHAT Writing 1--Week 10 (3/27)

 Hello Everyone!

Visual Vocabulary

Our words for today were big “feelings words”:  laconic & ebullient.  The former means sparse or few words, while the latter means lively or enthusiastic.  When I feel ebullient, I am seldom laconic–I usually talk a lot!

Writing

Today, the Thank Me narrative essays and Thank You notes were due.  Now that those are in, it is time to introduce the next essay.  This is the LAST “from scratch” essay this year!  

The subject for this essay is a Compare/Contrast essay.  We spent some time today analyzing a sample, brainstorming some ideas for topics and also some strategies for organizing it. This essay requires students to pull all their writing skills together and to write a five paragraph essay with a thesis statement, bibliography and complete style checklist.  The KWO is due next week (April 3) and the final draft is due after break (April 17.)

 For the Literature portion of our class, we finished our O. Henry short stories unit with a Jigsaw style discussion.  Students became “experts” on one aspect of the three last stories:  Plot, Theme, or Setting & Characters.  After they had thoroughly discussed, they were also to come to a consensus on this question:  What was your opinion on “The Ransom of Red Chief”?  It was interesting to discuss because the story was both funny (about a boy so bad and mischievous that his family didn't want him back from the kidnappers) and sad (for the same reason).

After the discussion, I handed out their new books:  Great Short Poems.  This is an anthology of short verse that spans 400 years of English and American literary history.  Students have the books, but I will also post the poems on Google Classroom.  

We talked about how each week from here on out students will read all the assigned poems and respond to two of them.

Here are their options:

1. Fill out a Poetry Worksheet for one or both

2.  Write a paragraph about the poem(s) that analyzes the poem; discuss what you think it means and why you like or don't like it.

3.  Instead of writing a paragraph, record a video commentary about the poem.  Youtube LiveStream or some other app on a device is OK as long as it can be seen by me.

4.  Do a piece of art that connects with the content and meaning of the poem.  

5.  Make a video of your recitation of the poem.  Our poetry unit will culminate in a Poetry Jam (poetry contest.)  More details on that to come.

For the Grammar portion of the class, we had a quick lesson on complements.  Complement is the term used for a word or words that are needed to complete the meaning of an expression.  Last week we studied the use of direct and indirect objects as complements.  This week, we added Predicate Nouns and Predicate Adjectives as complements.  I reminded them of our Venn Diagram of linking verbs–once they have determined if the verb is an action verb (AV) or a linking verb (LV) then they will be able to identify the complement. 

Here’s some Grammar Code:  

 PNs and PAs always follow a LV.  

Since they are experts at nouns and adjectives from the Fall Semester, determining which is a noun and which is an adjective should be relatively simple.  Make sure to correct those worksheets before you turn them in.

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Assignments for Week 11 (April 3)

–Compare/Contrast KWO

-- Read Week 11 Poetry (PDFs on Google Classroom)

–Raleigh (p.1); Donne (p.); Quarels (p. 4); Milton (p. 5); Bradstreet (39)

-- Poetry Response (2 Poems)

Grammar

–Week 10–Complements Worksheets (Updike)

–Week 10–Sentence Patterns (Mr. Jackson)

–Week 10–Sentence Patterns Practice (Four bakers)

Links for this Week: 

About the Compare/Contrast Essay

CHAT Writing 1 Class Notes--Week 9 (3/20)

 Hello!  

We are in the thick of it and the weather is turning warm.  Just as spring should be!  We had another great class together today.  Here’s what we did.

Quick Write

The topic today was designed to get students thinking about success, qualities in others they admire, people they admire and fictional characters they’d love to meet IRL 🙂.  They were given five minutes and they could choose whichever topic piqued their interest.

For the Writing portion of the class, we had a check-in on their Thank Me essays that were assigned last week.  The topic of this essay is to think deeply and write about what specific deeds/personality traits they’d like to be thanked for. We thought a little bit about the importance of gratitude–this time, in the form of writing thank you notes.  I hope my students are no strangers to this dying art!  We watched a few short videos on how to write a proper thank you note.  After that, each student picked out some stationary and they got started.Their finished thank you notes are due along with their essays next week.  While they were writing, I went around and gave them credit if they met the deadline for their KWO.  Their KWOs were due this week and most students look like they are tracking well.  

Two more sentence openers were added to our checklist for this next assignment and today, we learned the [5] adverbial clause opener and the [1] subject opener. The [5] sentence opener is very straightforward if you remember the WWW.ASIA.B  dress-up.  You just start the sentence with that. The only trick is to make sure to use a comma after the adverbial clause.  Remember:

AC, MC  

That stands for adverbial clause COMMA main clause.  (You need to use a comma after the www.asia.b clause when you use it to start the sentence.)   For example:

[5] When you use this adverbial clause, you must put the comma after the clause.

 The subject opener is SUPER SIMPLE!  It's what you write as a default--which is why I leave this one until last.  You simply start the sentence with a subject.  (You may use an adjective or article to precede if necessary.)  Don't overuse this because it can be very tedious to read.  For example:

[1] This sentence opener is very easy.

We didn’t discuss “Piemienta Pancake” or “Retrieved Reformation” from last week in Literature.  Instead, we had a true Pop Quiz!  I wanted to give these students the “authentic pop quiz” experience since I had given them a warning last week. Instead of grading last week’s quiz, I will grade this one.

We will discuss the above two stories plus the“The Ransom of Red Chief” in class next week.  The last story is O. Henry’s arguably most famous–it is a very humorous one that I think they will enjoy.  There is a worksheet, and a Quiz assigned on Google Classroom.  (I forgot to emphasize the quiz in class!)

For our Grammar portion of the class, I gave three worksheets for continued practice in identifying sentence elements for the various sentence patterns that have been covered this semester.  Make sure to correct your own work!

Have a blessed weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

Thank Me Essay

Thank you Note

Read “Ransom of Red Chief”

Short Stories Worksheet

“Ransom of Red Chief” Quiz

Grammar

• Nouns as Direct Objects

• Compound Direct Objects

• Finding Direct Objects

Links for this week

About Thank Me Essay

[1] & [5] Sentence Openers

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 8 (3/13)

 Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were hackneyed (adj) and boon (noun).  Students worked with those words today.

Writing

The “Franken-essays” were due this week.  Now that they have had some practice writing effective introductions and conclusions, they are ready to sink their teeth into some proper essays.  

I introduced the “Thank Me Essay.”  After we watched the Ted Talk on “The Power of Saying Thank You.” In  this short talk, the speaker asks why we don’t simply ask the people we know and love to thank us for specific things.  Why is that so hard to do?  She posits that we don’t do it because if we do dare to do that, we are making ourselves vulnerable. When we ask to be thanked:  what if the person neglects us, abuses that knowledge OR what if they actually do thank us?  How would we react?  What an interesting concept!

For this essay, students will follow the “My Dog Model” (as passed out in class) to write an essay that describes three things you would ask a loved one to thank you for. The Key Word Outline is due next week (either bring it to class OR scan and upload it to GC.  I won’t be accepting submissions after the due date for that one ;It’s worth 20 points!)  

Next week, we will talk Style (dress-ups, sentence openers.  However, if you want to get a jump on drafting your essay, the template is posted right now.  It will be due Week 10 (March 27th.)

Literature

After that, we refreshed ourselves on the two O. Henry stories that were assigned for Literature this week.  They were a study in contrasts!  “The Furnished Room” is a rare melodramatic (and, frankly, depressing story) whereas “Makes the Whole World Kin” is  more in the style we have come to know from O. Henry:  witty, humorous and ironic.  After a short discussion–and because I must keep these students on their toes– we had a quiz over the second story.  Next week they have two more stories and a Short Story Packet as homework.

Grammar

Last, we discussed Direct and Indirect objects.  Using some simple example sentences, we identified the direct object–which is the noun or pronoun that “receives” the action of the verb.  The indirect object is used when the direct object alone doesn’t tell the full story.  Indirect objects “receive” the action of the verb indirectly through the direct object.  (Phew!)  A tip is that you will find it right after the verb. For example:

She threw him a kiss.

S AV     IO                   DO

There are two worksheets that ask students to build sentences using direct and indirect objects.  Mrs. G will correct those.

And I will wave goodbye to you for now.  

Blessings!

Mrs. G

Homework this week

Read “Pimienta Pancake” & “Retrieved Reformation”

PDF’s & Audio versions

Short Story Packet #2

Thank Me KWO (due next week for 20 pts!)

Grammar

N-V-N

N-V-N-N

Links for this week

The Power of Saying Thank You Ted Talk by Laura Trice

About the Thank Me essay

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 7 (3/6)

Hello All!

Good to be back in the saddle at CHAT!  I hope we are all refreshed and raring to go! 

First, we had a Quick Write that was a bit looser than we have had in the past.  Students were given a choice of “March topics” to write about:  Minnesota Day, Teen Mental Health Day, or National Grammar Day.

Writing

Over the break they worked on their Writing from Pictures composition–and that was due today.  After passing those in, it was time for our new writing topic:  The “Franken-Essay.”  In this assignment, students learned (or refreshed themselves) on how to write an effective introduction and conclusion.  Then, after choosing a composition that they have submitted in this past year, the last step is to fuse the new introduction and conclusion.  In the end, you will have a robust five-paragraph essay.

We started by exploring different possibilities for writing a good hook.  After that, students analyzed an introduction and conclusion for an example essay on the subject of cotton balls.  (Yes, I said “cotton balls”:)  

They silently found and underlined the three topics in the introduction/conclusion that were presented in the body paragraphs.  They found the hook and background information in the introduction, observed how the topics were restated in the conclusion, and noticed how the writer states the “most significant” of the topics in the conclusion and presents NO NEW INFORMATION in that conclusion.

Last, they got together in their writing circles to compare their answers and discuss the effectiveness of this method.

After debriefing as a large group, we looked at the checklist and the The “Franken-essay” is due next week–along with the KWO, Rough and Final draft as usual.  NOTE:  You are writing a KWO, RD & FD for the new Intro/Conclusion only.  You have already written the body paragraphs from a previous composition!

Literature

Last, we reflected on the themes and characters of the short stories that were assigned last class period in Literature:  “The Gift of the Magi” & “After Twenty Years.”  After reflecting, they got into small groups to discuss and report their findings back to the class.  We found that even though they are very different stories, we could still find common themes on generosity, honesty, and the struggles of the working class.  They are enjoying these O. Henry stories and have two more for next week along with a Short Story Packet.  I gave the warning to make sure to read carefully for next week as there is a STRONG possibility there might be a “pop” quiz. 😉

Grammar

We sifted gears and took some time to discuss our grammar topic:  Subject complements.  I told the students that linking verbs are so vain:  they always need a “complement”!  We took out the linking verb Venn Diagram that we used during the last class to remind us of linking verbs examples.  

If a complement can either renames the subject, it is called a “predicate noun.”  If the complement describes the subject, it is called a “predicate adjective.”  I wrote a few simple examples on the board and then students had time to work on the worksheets.  They should use the KEY to correct their own work and are due next week.

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework for the Week

“Franken-essay”

Predicate Complements

Predicate Adjectives

Read “Makes the Whole World Kin” & “The Furnished Room”

Short Story Packet #1

Links for this Week

Hooks Slides & In-class Discussion

About the “Franken-essay”

Linking Verb Venn Diagram