Writing 1: Writing 1 Class Notes

Greetings!

I cannot believe how the time flies with these students! We covered a lot, but I find myself wishing we had more time.

Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were lackadaisical and paucity. After studying the words, we took a minute to write the definitions and sentences using them correctly. Bonus points for when I see these words in your writing!

Writing

Last week we learned the Topic-Clincher Rule and students had a “door test” when they came in. Most of them remembered the rule and the actions that go along with it. Good job! Next week I will be introducing our first essay–the Personal Essay. In the meantime, we discussed the importance of childhood memories in our novel Peter Pan. I would like students to do like David in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and press their hands against their temples really, really hard to help them remember their very earliest childhood memory ;) If they can’t remember their first memory, they should brainstorm a few very early memories that they’d like to write about. I’ll go into more detail about this next week.

Literature Discussion

Speaking of Peter Pan, this week they had a small group discussion using the 4 Square Discussion model to discuss the content. Students were assigned Chapters 7 & 8 and should be prepared to take another in-class quiz next week.

Grammar

As I mentioned last week, we are having a class contest for our IVAN CAPP mascot. Students who wanted a chance to win extra credit points,have submitted a picture to me and I posted a voting “ballot” on Google Classroom last week. Today I reminded them to vote on their favorite. The winner will be announced next week.

Students have been put in groups of 3, and they are to research and come up with explanations about their assigned parts of speech. Additionally, they are to come up with an activity/game/video for the class, and also a short worksheet. Some students use Google Slides, Canva or other types of presentations. Sometimes videos are helpful.Today, Today, we had time to explain the presentations and get them in groups long enough for them to set up a way to communicate with each other. Next week, we will use a large portion of our class time to work in groups to prepare these presentations. Students will likely need to connect outside of class to finish their presentations, so they also exchange information. Our first presentation will be Oct. 2. (See schedule below.)