Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 13 (April 20)

 Hello There!

We had a fast-paced class today as we approach the end of the year.  

As usual, we started the day with a Quick Write, and here are the prompts:

• If your life had a theme song, what song would it be and why?

• If your life was a movie, what would the title be and what genre would it be?  Why? 

• Skittles or M & Ms?  Why?

• If you could design a “National Day” what would it be and why?

The Final Drafts of the A.I Prediction Essays were due today, and I introduced the next writing assignment, which is an Essay Re-Write.  For this essay, students can choose any essay they have written this year for Writing 1, or they can choose an essay that they've written for another class.  They should take one of their final drafts and look for ways to improve it.  I often suggest that students choose the essay that they got the worst grade on or that they want to spend some more time on. This writing assignment is due next week, and students should hand in the original along with the re-write.  (Note:  This isn't our regular pre-write to rough draft to final draft process.)

To conclude our Grammar for the year, I have a Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take next week.  For this week, they have a review sheet that they should complete and then correct. (The Key is on the Google Classroom assignment.)  Correcting their own work will further help them review and will be much more beneficial than waiting a week to see if they got the answers right.  

For our Literature portion of the class, we spent some of our time talking about the poems from last week’s reading assignment.  I broke the class into groups, and each group focused on a group of assigned poems.They discussed the highlights (and lowlights) and then each group shared their insights. 

After that, students had the opportunity to try their hands at writing some original poetry.  We watched a video of local poet Rudy Francisco perform a piece called “My Honest Poem” and then read an example based on his performance.  Students had time in  class to compose their own “My Poem” based on the examples.  I could tell some really got into “the zone” writing these and my hope is to hear some of these performed at our Poetry Event.  

Speaking of the  Poetry Event, which will be the last day of class , we spent the rest of the class getting into more details about this project.  It takes a lot of work to put on an event like this, and to split up the labor,  each student signed up for a role on a committee.  Their grade on this project will depend on not only their poetry performance techniques, but also how well they worked as a group.  

We have a couple fun weeks planned to finish out our year, so let's make sure you get caught up on any late work.

Assignments for Next Week:

--Choose 2 poems for your contribution to the Poetry Jam (Here is the scoring/committee information)

–Finish composing “My Poem”( if not finished in class)

-- Complete the Essay Re-Write

-- Complete the Sentence Patterns Review sheet and correct it. (Bring the corrected version to class)

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 12 (April 20)

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 12 (April 13)

 Greetings!  

The weather is turning for sure now.  No Spring for us Minnesotans–just straight to Summer.  I saw many more wearing lighter clothes and not a Winter jacket to be found!  (Now, as I prepare to send this out, it looks more like Winter, again!)

We delved more into our Poetry Unit by watching three poets perform their work for our QuickWrite.  Students were to see if they could identify a theme as well as observing performance techniques and style.  We are compiling ideas for their own Poetry Event to be held the last week of class.  Below are the links to the poetry clips.

For the Literature part of the class, we did Jigsaw groups.  The students were first in groups that discussed one of the assignment poems.  Then I remixed the groups so that a group had a representative for each of the poems.  From both groups I heard some thoughtful comments about both the surface and deeper meanings of the poetry.  Well done, class!  As homework, they are to read Week 13 poems and respond to two.

After that, we had a very brief Grammar teaching on Simple and Compound sentences and students had time to work on the two worksheets in class.  

Lastly, we discussed the Poetry Event that will be held the last week of class. Not only will students be performing two pieces of poetry, but they will be organizing and running the event themselves.  I find that when students are given ownership, there is more motivation to do their best.   We talked about the three committees and the duties they will need to perform in order for the event to be successful.  They are to think about which committee they would like to be a part of and be ready to report back next week.

As a reminder, the A.I. Prediction Final drafts are due next week. For those who got their rough drafts in late, I will go over them by this weekend and will let students know when they are ready to revise.

Blessings on your week!  

Mrs. G

Homework 

Week 13 Poems

Poetry Response Packets

Week 12 Grammar 

–Compound Sentences & Commas

–Writing Compound Sentences

A.I. Prediction Rough Draft

A.I. Prediction Final Draft

Links for This Week

Poetry Clips for QuickWrite

Poetry Event Committees & Grades Information

Writing 1 Class Notes–3/30 (Week 11)

We had a lovely class this week.  One aspect that I especially enjoy with this Writing 1 class is that they all get along well and participate in a harmonious way.  We have good, productive conversations.

We tried our hands at poetry in our Quick Write today.  I asked students to think of three questions–(serious, funny, or mundane) and to write them in a list.  We took a few minutes to arrange them into a poem while we listened to music.  I am looking forward to reading them!

We had two Words of the Day today:

HONE: to make sharper or more effective

OPIATE: a narcotic drug that causes sleep and relieves pain

Their A.I. Prediction Rough Drafts are due today.  Some students said it was challenging to find information on A.I. because it is very new.  I reminded them they are to make “an educated guess” based on what they already know and whatever research they can find.  Like a pundit, it’s OK if they are wrong–but communicate it confidently!  They should tailor their predictions to what their target audience would want to know.

In order to avoid having Grammar due over Spring Break, we took a few minutes to talk about Compound Sentences and FANBOYS to practice putting in commas.  Students had the opportunity to complete these in class.

The Literature portion of  class was dedicated to poetry. Some students enjoy poetry and some are not crazy about it.  We talked about how poetry is art made with words.  I told them that it is said that poets are born–but the rest of us can learn how to write verse and enjoy it.  :) 

After refreshing ourselves on last week’s poetry selections, we had a short discussion on themes and what stuck out to us.  It was interesting to hear their insights.  After that, we watched three poets perform their poetry and evaluated their style of delivery and whether or not we liked the poem itself.  My hope is that observing other poets will serve as inspiration for our own Class Poetry Slam at the end of the semester.  Their homework is to read the poems for next week and respond to two.  

Have a Wonderful Spring Break!

He is risen!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

• A.I./Prediction Pre-Write

• A.I. Prediction Rough Draft

• Poetry:  Wordsworth (p. 12); Browning (p. 19); Bronte (24); Carroll (p. 29); Hopkins (p. 31); Burgess (39)

• Week 12 Poetry (pdfs on Google Classroom)

• 2 Poetry Responses

• Grammar – Wk11:  Compound FANBOYS

• Grammar – Wk11:  Compound Sentences & Commas

Links for this Week:

QuickWrite

Writing 1 Class Notes 3/23

 Today’s Quick Write was about:  Optimism!  

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the horizon of the spirit.

-Helen Keller

Write what the quote means to you and why. 

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?  What do you think about that?

Tell about an experience you’ve had with optimism or pessimism.

Optimistic Question:  What is going well for you this week?

After a poll, it was decided that our class has a lot of optimists!  Maybe that is why teaching this group is so fun.

We had no Words of the Day today.  Instead, we reviewed the last O. Henry short Story:  “Ransom of Red Chief.”  They had a brief, small group review time where it was agreed that the story was both funny (a boy so bad and mischievous that his family didn't want him back from the kidnappers) and sad (for the same reason).  After that we had a short Quiz.

Students then received their new Poetry books.  It is my hope they will read some poems that will become favorites.  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 our Grammar portion of the class, I gave some worksheets for continued practice in identifying sentence elements for the various sentence patterns that have been covered this semester.  

We spent the bulk of the class time discussing the upcoming essay–the final "from scratch" essay.  (Following this essay, students will complete a re-write of an earlier written essay and a short reflection paper.)  This is a Prediction Essay.  In this case, students will be making a prediction on how A.I. like ChatGPT will change things in the future.  

As a Writing teacher, I struggle between wanting to prepare my students for the terrain out there while at the same time providing them opportunity to learn and hone writing skills.  There are just no shortcuts in that area.  The only way forward is for students (and teachers) to learn how to work with this “new normal.”  In that vein, students will choose a target audience and make a prediction.  In the course of their research, they will need to generate questions their target audience might have as well as give why they think their predictions might be right (and wrong) based on their research.  They will need to have a personal real-world example and support their predictions using correct MLA citation and a Works Cited page.

After that, they split up into small groups and created a poster-sized One-Pager with the criteria for this paper.  I was encouraged to hear some very astute conversations and work.  The goal is to help them Pre-Write this paper and get their juices flowing.  As an exit ticket, students jotted down their takeaways from our “Gallery Walk” of the different posters.  

The Pre-Write and Rough Draft are due next week (3/30.)

Assignments for Week 11 (March 30)

-- Prediction Essay Pre-Write

-- Prediction Essay Rough Draft

-- Read Week 11 Poetry 

-- Poetry Response (2 Poems)

-- Complements Worksheet (John Updike)

-- Sentence Patterns (Mr. Jackson)

-- Sentence Patterns Practice (Four bakers)

Links for this Week: 

About the Prediction Essay 

A.I. Prediction One Pager

Week 11 Poetry Readings