Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 8 (10/23)

We are officially halfway through the Fall semester now.  Can you believe it?!? Things are heating up homeworkwise in Writing 1. You will definitely need to work a a little each day to keep up this week. Be encouraged, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were obtrude and licentious.  We talked about how Elsa’s catchy song is essentially about licentiousness. When someone else’s licentious behavior obtrudes on another person, in some cases, it could be considered a crime! Deep conversation while learning vocabulary words!

Writing

Today was a writing heavy day. I handed back paper copies of their essays. If they were submitted on GC, I printed them out. I find it is helpful to have a hard copy in order to do this next step:  Final Edits. 

Here’s a step by step of that process:

Step 1:  Number all the marked errors on your paper for both grammar and content issues. (Each student has a copy of the Grammar Codes and the Content Codes for this essay.)

Step 2: On a separate sheet of binder paper, work through each of your errors by (neatly) writing the rule you violated and showing how you would correct the error.

Please note: you do NOT need to rewrite the entire essay

Step 3: Staple these hand-written corrections to a paper copy of your essay and turn in. They are due next week.You may also submit on GC by scanning your marked up essay and your handwritten corrections and posting them to the Edits assignment. (No pictures, please.)

Optional Step 4:  If you are not satisfied with the grade your essay earned, you are invited to resubmit it after you have polished it and applied the suggested corrections. In this case, write “Resubmitted” on the Edits you will turn in

After practicing this skill together on a sample paragraph, students got a start on those edits in class.

Last, I handed out the description of our next essay: the Biography Essay. Students will choose a fascinating person and write about their life and work. Here are the parameters:

• They must be an important historical figure

• They must be no longer living

• No pop stars

They are required to include some Style elements and a Works Cited page for this one. I will do some teaching on that subject next week. The KWO is due next week along with a list of possible sources. 

Grammar

We're continuing with the Parts of Speech presentations, and today we had the Nouns group.  After a short teaching, they had a Mad Libs style activity for students to play and a worksheet. They have homework to practice identifying nouns.   Here are the next next two groups on deck:

Literature

This is our last assignment on Peter Pan. They are to finish the book and answer the 3 Questions Reader Response. Have your tissues ready as the Darling kids return home. It is especially poignant when Peter visits years in the future only to find Wendy completely grown up with a daughter of her own.

To review for the in-class test next week, students should look at the Study Guide & KEY that is posted on Google Classroom.

That’s it!  Reach out with any questions.

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Personal Essay Final Edits

Biography Essay KWO

Finish Peter Pan– Chapters 16 & 17–Review for Final Exam

3 Questions–Reader Response

Nouns Homework–1

Nouns Homework–2

Nouns Evaluation

IVAN Review Quizzes (open notes)

Interjections

Verbs

Adjectives

Nouns

Links for this Week

Visual Vocabulary

About the Biography Essay

Peter Pan Study Guide

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 7 (10/9)

 Hello All!

Quick Write

We got right to it this morning as I taught a mini-lesson on the -ing Sentence Opener. After learning the rule: “the thing after the comma must be the thing doing the inging,” we added that sentence opener to our Style sheet. Students will now be required to use one of those per paragraph in their essays and to practice using it today in our Quick Write–along with an -ly adverb. They will need to indicate those by underlining. As usual, bonus points will be given for each Visual Vocabulary word they use. Today’s topic choices were: 

NATIONAL HERO DAY

NATIONAL MOLDY CHEESE DAY

NATIONAL PRO-LIFE CUPCAKE DAY 

Grammar

Today was the Grammar presentation kick-off with the Adjectives group.  They did a great job teaching, leading an activity and taking the class through a worksheet. I was very impressed with their acting job on the video they made that helped to teach about adjectives–the “foreign exchange student” and family dog helped as well ;) The class will evaluate their teaching as well on GC.  They have two worksheets from me on adjectives which are due next week. Don’t forget to mark and correct them!

Literature

Before we got to the discussion, we had a quiz over today’s reading assignment. As usual there were six questions.

Today was our Literature Circles discussion. Students came to class prepared having read Peter Pan up to chapter 13 and filled out their role sheets. After reviewing what the roles' duties entailed, they were split into mixed groups and they began their discussion. I heard some very insightful comments. I hope this was both fun and a way for students to understand the themes of our novel more deeply.

Writing

Today there was no instruction on writing, however the Personal Essays were due. Most students submitted them on GC. I will grade them over the break. Please note: the Final Edits will be due Oct. 30 NOT Oct. 23. Changes are updated on the syllabus/homework checklist.

Homework

Quick Write #3 & who/which clause 

Literature Circles Evaluation

Read Peter Pan Ch. 14 & 15

Reader Response–Captain Hook’s–or any character’s Obituary

Adjectives Worksheet–1

Adjectives Worksheet–2

Adjectives Evaluation

Links for this week

Literature Circles Discussion–Roles and Groups

CHAT Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 6 (10/2)

 Greetings, Everyone!

We’ve finished the first third of this semester and the weather is still gorgeous out there.  Time sure flies with this wonderful group of students!

We started the class with Visual Vocabulary as we discussed the words epigram and edifice.  In today’s world, there seem to be edifices of epigrams wherever we look!  If you want to see a lot of epigrams in one place, go to your local Hobby Lobby!  😀 (See the example on the left.)

Grammar

Today marked the beginning of learning the parts of speech.   Since we don’t have an Interjections group to present, I did the honors of teaching a mini-lesson.  I modeled the “I do, We do, You do” teaching technique that I’d like to see in their presentations. 

📚“I do” = the  mini-lesson on interjections where I explained what an interjection is and I projected some example sentences on the doc camera

📚“We do", a fun fill-in-the-bank comic book activity they completed with a partner

📚“You do”= worksheets

They got a start on their worksheets in class.  I also passed out the KEYS for the Grammar worksheets for this semester and explained the procedure.  Students are to complete the worksheets and then (using a different colored pen) correct their own work.  There is a lot of learning that occurs during this process!  They will receive a base score for completed work no matter how many they get wrong.  Please make the corrections very visible to me so that I can see you have completed the assignment or it will be returned to you with a “0.”  The same applies to work completed on Google Classroom.  After each student presentation, the class will evaluate the presentation and I will take their evaluations into account for their grade. This evaluation is a five question Google Classroom assignment. To complete this “pilot presentation”, and give them a taste of what they will be doing for each group that presents, students will fill that out for my presentation today.

Last, the Verbs group was scheduled to present today. However, due to a scheduling challenge, we had to pivot. Therefore, I gave a very brief presentation on verbs and assigned worksheets. Those are due next week.

Literature

Roles for next week’s Literature Circle discussion were assigned.  You will receive a grade on your preparation and participation and we went over the expectations.  Each student has a part to play in order to make this a fruitful discussion.  They are to keep reading chapters  12 & 13 this week and prepare for an in-class reading quiz next week.  The discussion will follow the quiz and cover Peter Pan up to chapter 13.

Writing

Since the focus of this first essay is narrative and strong use of language, we quickly discussed talked figures of speech–aka “decorations.” I posted a slideshow on  similes, personification, metaphor, alliteration, the VSS and 3SSS and duals/triples. We will work with these more next week and play a game.

Their KWOs which were due today. If they didn’t have them in class, they have until 11:59pm tonight to post it on GC. Personal essays are due next week! They must be composed on Google Classroom using the template–use some decorations :)

Enjoy this gorgeous, summer-like weather!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Interjections

Interjections–Circling

Interjections Practice

Interjections Evaluation–Evaluate my “presentation”

Verbs

Where is the Verb–Worksheet–Homework 1

Identify the Verb in the Sentence–Homework 2

Personal Essay–due next week (10/9)!

Read chapters 12 & 13 Peter Pan

Prep your Literature Circles Roles

Literature Circles Roles

Links for this week

Visual Vocabulary #3

Decorations slides 

Grammar Presentation Groups

Grammar KEYS

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 5 (9/26)

 Greetings and Salutations! Seems like summer is doing its swan song for us–and I love it!

Our bellringer this morning was a bit of an unusual Quick Write. Along with the regular prompts of choice of writing about National Days: World Dream Day, European Languages Day or Tourism Day, I played the first 3 minutes of the Charlie Kirk podcast. It was a moving tribute about his powerful Christian witness. Since his memorial service was held since the last time we met for class, perhaps many had watched all or part of it. I thought it was a powerful Jesus moment and felt I would be remiss if I didn’t give students a chance to process a bit in writing if they choose to do so. As usual, I set the timer, they chose a prompt and  wrote for five minutes. They were required to include and indicate and -ly adverb dress-up. Bonus points if you include any Visual Vocabulary word we’ve had so far.

Literature

Since we had an in-depth discussion last week, today we kept it short. Students had an in-class quiz over Peter Pan chapters 7 & 8. They should keep reading chapters 9-11 and complete the Reader Response worksheet this week.

Writing

Today I introduced our first formal essay: The Personal Essay. Though we will be using the traditional essay form (Intro, Body, Conclusion, etc) the emphasis in this piece will be on the strong use of descriptive language, figures of speech, and creative thinking as they explore a very early childhood memory. I mentioned that I posted a sample essay, the grading codes and the rubric in the “About the Personal Essay” material on Google Classroom. We will go into more detail on the sample next week. This week, I spent time explaining the grading process. 

The Key Word outline is due next week. They may either show it to me in class OR scan and upload it online. It is due on the due date or it will not receive credit.

The Grading Process

This year I will be using Grammar and Content codes to give students feedback on their writing. We went over these codes together and looked at the rubric. This semester, here’s how the grading will go: students will turn in their essays on the due date and then I will encode them by marking each issue with the number/letter of the rule that they’ve violated. I will also use the rubric to give them their grade. 

Once a student gets their graded essay back from me, they will work through it by numbering each issue that I marked with a code number/letter. On a separate sheet of binder paper, they will copy down the rule that was violated and then rewrite or reword their work to show me how they would fix the issue. Since they now have everything they need to polish their work, they will NOT need to rewrite their entire essay–that may change next semester depending on their feedback.

Final Edits will be due the week after their essays are due. They need to submit their handwritten edits stapled to their coded and numbered original essay. They can hand it in on paper in class on the due date OR on GC by scanning their edits AND resubmitting their original encoded/numbered essays. 

Grammar

I announced the winner of our IVAN CAPP mascot! Congratulations, Louisa! You will win some extra credit points AND bragging rights. Your “Cool Ducky” will adorn the whiteboard during Grammar time.

The remainder of the class time I gave to students to plan their and prepare for their presentations. Due to some last minute changes, our first group will be the Verbs group on Oct. 9–so be ready! You will likely need some out of class time to prepare.😀  

There was no Grammar homework from me this week. Next week we will jump in with both feet.

That’s It! Blessings on your weekend.

Mrs. G

Homework

Personal Essay KWO

Read Peter Pan Chapters 9-11

Reader Response–Whose Cell Phone?

Work on your Grammar Presentations

Links for this Week

Quick Write

Charlie Kirk show–(first 3 minutes)

About the Personal Essay

Parts of Speech Groups

Parts of Speech Projects:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 4 (Sept. 18)

 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.)

Assignments for Next Week

Brainstorm early childhood memories

Read Chapters 7 & 8

Prep for in-class quiz

Work on Grammar presentations

Grammar Pre-Test

Links for This Week

Visual Vocab. #2

Vote for the best IVAN CAPP