Writing 1 Class Notes--Week 2 (August 31)

 Hello All!

I appreciated the students’ hard working attitudes today as they dove into another great day of learning together.

We started out class with a QuickWrite which was about something we all have experienced:   mistakes and regrets.  We used a mentor sentence and analyzed it for grammar and language and recorded those Craft Moves on a chart they will be compiling throughout the semester. After that, we tried our hands at a five minute QuickWrite.  I challenged students to incorporate a complex compound sentence, a metaphor and or vivid verbs!  In partners, we shared a word, a phrase or a sentence before turning those in.

After that, we switched gears to Literature and focused on our novel, Ender’s Game.  After refreshing each other about the major themes of the novel, we had story time!  I read aloud the first few pages so we could get a feel for the characters, setting and conflict.  It’s a gripping opening and I think students are excited about reading it.  They are to read chapters 1 & 2 and do three study guide questions. 

In the Writing portion of the class, we turned our minds back to thinking about mistakes and regrets. I assigned Essay 1 “My Favorite Mistake”.   It’s a reflective piece of writing where students will need to be able to both recall the event that happened, and also reflect on how the mistake impacted their life–positive or negative.  They read an example essay and, using highlighters, they marked examples of areas of writing that were either expressing (recalling)  and areas that are reflecting on the impact of the event.  I handed out the Pre-write and students had a short time to begin their essay.  Though I didn’t bring paper copies of the essay description, it is posted on Google Classroom, and it can be accessed there. The Rough Draft template is posted and they should begin their essays this week.  Next week we’ll have more time devoted to writing in a Writer’s Workshop, and again in Week 5 for this essay.

In the last few minutes of class, we got acquainted with Mr. IVAN CAPP.  This is a mnemonic device that stands for the 8 parts of speech in English: 

 

Interjections

Verbs

Adjectives

Nouns

Conunctions

Adverbs

Prepositions

Pronouns

For this project, students will be the teachers–in teams they’ll gather information about their assigned part of speech and present it to the rest of the class.  We will divide into groups next week.  As an Extra Credit assignment, they can submit a picture of “IVAN CAPP” to be voted on as a class favorite to be used as a mascot for this unit.  May the best IVAN CAPP win!

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

“Who Am I (As A Writer)? from Week 1

About Essay 1 “My Favorite Mistake”

Work on Essay 1 “My Favorite Mistake”

• Pre-Write

• Rough Draft

Read Chapter 1 & 2 Ender’s Game

3 Responses

LInks for This Week:

Craft Moves Identification Chart

Ender’s Game Audio book

Writing 1 Class Notes--Week 1 (Aug. 24)

 Hello Writing 1 Students and Parents!

We've started out our new school year well.  I'm looking forward to working with this group of students.  Below are the Class Notes for this week.  Every week I will send out notes similar to these.  I include the topics of the class and the direction of instruction.  At the bottom of each email I list the homework and links to the blog, to the Google Classroom assignments,  and to any other helpful information.

We started with a quick Icebreaker before we got into some nitty gritty class details:  Class Policies, homework deadlines and Syllabus.  I went through an example schedule for Writer’s Workshop.  It’s important for students to grasp this in order to get the most out of our time together–understanding these dates will help them to come to class prepared and NOT get surprised on the Final Draft Due Date.

A sample Workshop Schedule looks like this:

Week 1→Introduce Essay 1

Week 2→ Workshop Essay 1A

Week 3 Introduce Essay 2

Week 3 Workshop Essay 2A

Week 4→Workshop 1B OR 2B 

Week 5 Workshop 1B OR 2B 

Week 6→Final Drafts Due Date

As you can see, they will have two essays “simmering” at the same time and have 6-8 weeks to take it from Pre-Write to Final Draft.  “Workshop” means they will be given about 30 minutes in class to WRITE!  Obviously, there  are many stages to writing a piece, and students may be at different stages during the Workshop.  Some will be composing, some will be  working on  Peer Review and some will be Conferring with me.  They will obviously need to work on their writing outside of class in order to not get snowed under onFinal Draft Due date.  

Speaking of due dates, though there is some grace with the Literature and Grammar homework,  the Writing due dates are non-negotiable.  Any late writing work will be deducted 10% each day past the Due Date.  On the Due Date, the Final Draft and ALL process pieces are due.  The “Process Pieces” include:

• Peer Review Sheet

• Conferring Google Form

• Rough Draft

• Final Draft

• End Notes

Checking in this way really helps students to track progress from stage to stage and helps me to know that they are actually engaging with their writing.  With the advent of AI coupled with the fact that we meet just once a week, it can be tempting to skip the messy thinking process that writing entails.  A Workshop model sets the stage for high writing engagement.

After all that, we got to the business of writing with our first Quick Write.  I asked students to reflect on their writing life so far and ask:  Who Am I As A Writer?  They will develop this piece into a longer piece (due Week 3) and will include it in their end of the year Writing Portfolios.

Our Literature selection for this semester is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  We partnered up again and, with Post-It notes in hand, they circulated the room and discussed themes written on posters from the upcoming book.  After discussing whether they agree or disagree with the statement, they left a Post-It behind stating their reasoning.  I heard some insightful comments!  We will be wrestling with big themes throughout this novel so it was a good introduction.  We will start the  novel next week, but for this week, they are to read the introduction on Google Classroom and complete the Quiz.

No Grammar this week -- we'll jump in with both feet next week! 

Assignments for Next Week

(Note:  The links will take you to the Google Classroom post for the particular assignment.  If you plan to do the paper version, you can ignore the link.  If an assignment is labeled "GC," that means that is something that must be done on Google Classroom. These are usually quizzes or questions)

Writing 1 Class Guidelines (signatures needed)

Before school started assignments–Students can still do these:

Welcome Back #1

Welcome Back #2

Links for this Week:

Writing 1 Assignments Checklist

Writing 1 Syllabus

Homework and Late Dates

QuickWrite

Who Am I (As A Writer?) Reflective Piece (due Week 3)

Ender’s Game Introduction Material

Ender’s Game Introduction Quiz

Thoughs & Details About Grades

 Dear CHAT Writing 1 Students & Parents,

I've just finished calculating the grades for the Spring semester, and you will be finding them in your inbox in just a few minutes.  As tutors, we give you suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.

Allow me to share my thoughts on grades.  As I homeschool my own children, I don’t give them grades.  I feel that grades are far too subjective, especially coming from their mother.  Instead, I teach my own children for mastery, and we don’t proceed with a topic until they are ready, no matter how long that takes.  In a class setting, knowing where each student is with regards to his/her understanding of a topic is not always possible, so any grade given is not a complete representation of what the student learned or accomplished this year.

Letter grades are a funny thing.  For some students, it becomes the only motivation for doing well.  For some, it becomes a measure of their worth as people or as  academic learners.  I personally don't like these "side effects" of the grading system.  On the other hand, grades can be a valid reflection and reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.

When teaching students to be good writers, I give a lot of consideration for growth and improvement. Each student has a starting place; over time I look for him or her to learn the mechanics of grammar, good writing techniques, and analytical thinking skills.

For this class, I gave points for Quick Writes, short assignments, literature assignments, grammar exercises, and longer essays. (I tend to be an "easy grader" and like to see my students encouraged to do their best.)  The final drafts of the essay assignments were graded using a rubric that divided the papers into the following categories:  focus, content, organization, and mechanics.  

The scores for class work are divided into the following categories:  Quick Writes and Miscellanea, Writing, Literature, and Grammar.  A student may have been strong in one area and not in another, and this will be reflected in these categories.  These scores are also weighted; in other words, not all of the categories have the same importance.  The Quick Write points are 15% of the total grade, the Writing assignments are 30%, the Literature homework is 28%, and the Grammar work is 27%. (You will see that each of these categories has subcategories.  This is  for the purpose of keeping the internal category weighting correct.)

The grade breakdowns for Writing 2 are as follows:

98% - 100% (A+), 93% - 97% (A), 90% - 92% (A-),

87% - 89% (B+), 83% - 86% (B), 80 % - 82% (B-),

77% - 77% (C+), 73% - 76% (C), 70% - 72% (C-),

67% - 69% (D+), 63% - 66% (D), 60% - 62% (D-),

55% - 59% (Pass), 50% - 54% (Fail); 0% - 49% (Incomplete)

Each student (and parents) will receive an e-mail with percentages and a suggested overall grade for this semester. (Note:  You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the document.)   I’ve seen each student improve with each paper and have truly enjoyed my interactions with this class.  Good Work!

Blessings to all,

Mrs. G

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

Writing 1 Class Notes--Week 14 (April 27)

 Greetings!

Today is our penultimate class–the one before the last one!   We started the class period with a Quick Write, and today's prompt was connected with the fact that it is National Poem in Your Pocket Day.  I gave the students a sheet of paper with an extra large pocket outline. They were to write a poem within the lines of that pocket.  After reading William Carlos William’s famous short poem, “This is Just to Say,” students composed their own “This is Just to Say '' poem.  Perhaps we will get to hear one or two of these for our Poetry Event?

After the Test, they had the opportunity to begin their very last Essay assignment which was a  Reflection Paper. For this paper, they are to write about what they learned this year, what they learned about themselves this year, and what did and didn't work well this year.  If they didn’t finish in class, they can finish it at home and turn it in next week.  (At the bottom of this email is a link to an article about the value of reflection as a part of learning.) As a reminder, the Essay Re-Write was due this.

As they finished their essays, students were invited to compose a “Blackout Poem.”  In this last poetry writing opportunity, students choose a page of text, in this case a page taken from a classic novel, and they skimmed it to find interesting words, phrases, ideas/ themes.  After lightly circling those words with pencil, they attempted to arrange them on a separate piece of paper into a poem.  They could find any filler words like “a”, “the",  "it” from the text page as well as needed.  After that, it was time to get blacking out.  Using their Sharpie, they could draw a few images that represented the poem and then they blacked out everything except their boxed words and images.  Since most of the hard work from our semester is finished, we relaxed a bit during this stage and played some music while they blacked out their poems.  The ones who finished displayed their poems for the class to see. They are due next class period.

The rest of the class time was used to prepare for the Poetry Event to be held next week.  We will be meeting in the Student Lounge downstairs and each student will be performing two pieces of poetry.  The committees are working well together to pull this event off!  

Next week is the final week, and I will accept homework until Saturday, May 6 at 7:00 AM.  Once the CHAT classes are done, students really lose momentum for completing late homework.  My plan is to get final grades out within the week.  

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Any old homework

-- Essay Re-Write

-- The Reflection Paper

–Black Out Poem

-- Poetry Event Preparation!

Links for this Week:

“This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 14 (April 27)

The Value of Reflection Paper

See you next week!

Blessings,

Mrs. G