End of Year Wrap-Up!

 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. 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 1 & 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 2023-24 school year.  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. I was especially touched by the quality and the authenticity  of original poems that were shared.  What a talented bunch!

After the Committees met to put the finishing touches together and we had a short class business meeting, we were ready to begin.  Using the beautiful program (designed by Abigail Bach) our Emcee duo of Grant and Broden took charge and explained the judging criteria and the flow of the event.  The judges (Hannah, Lydia & Evangeline) did a great job of evaluating the poem and the delivery style–and though it was difficult, they did come up with a winner!  

The top 5 were given a small prize and first prize won a T-Shirt.  

Congratulations to first prize winner Niles Benson!

Please watch Google Classroom for a link to the photo album from this event (thanks to the documentation committee for putting that together!)

Now that it is all over, I want to let you know that I am working on getting all the grading finished.  I have given students until Friday @ 11:59 PM  to hand any work in.  Final Grades will be out sometime next week.  If for some reason that won't work, please contact me. 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 25)

Greetings!

This week was our penultimate class for the year -- 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 coming up in April.  In fact, all of this month is National Poetry Month!  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.   

This week, they took the Sentence Patterns Final Test.  After having done the and corrected the Review from last week, they should have done really well on it!  

Their final writing assignment, a Reflection Paper, is due next week.   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.  At the bottom of this email is a link to an article about the value of reflection as a part of learning.

After all that business, we watched a few poetry performances and rated their poems and delivery style.  There were some insightful comments about how poets use their voice, style, gestures and facial expressions.  The point of this is to gather inspiration on how to effectively deliver their own poetry next week for our Poetry Event.  

The rest of the class time was dedicated to committee work for the big event next week.  As we discussed, it takes a lot of work to pull off a successful event.  When students have “skin in the game” with planning and organizing an event, I find there’s a high level of ownership and engagement.  After discussing how the committee work should flow,  they were split  into groups and got busy dividing and conquering their committee’s punch list.  As a requirement, they were to exchange contact information and fill out an Exit Ticket to hand in at the end of class.

Next week is the final week, and I will accept homework until Saturday, May 4 at 7:00 AM.  My experience is that 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.  

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Any old homework

-- Reflection Paper

–Practice your poems!

–Committee work

--Poetry Event Slide Show (Canva)

Links for this Week:

Taylor Malli “Like, You Know”

Isabella Callery “Thoughtless Cruelty” by Charles Lamb

The Value of Reflection Papers

 

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 13 (April 18)

 Hello There!

Today was another great day with this group.  They are such a blessing as we continue to work and learn together.

As usual, we started the day with a Quick Write–since we are working our way through poetry, the prompt today was to try their hands at Haiku.  I think we realized how challenging this seemingly simple art form is!

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. They are to answer a Discussion Question about their first and second preferences of which committee they’d like to participate in.  They should also begin to narrow down the poems they would like to perform. **A conversation regarding Poetry Event Dress Code came up in class.  I posted Poll in the form of a  Discussion Question asking students to give their opinion. 

To conclude our Grammar for the year, we finished our study of Simple and Compound sentences by completing two worksheets which they had time to work on in class.  I also passed out 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 in preparation for a  Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take in class next week. 

We didn’t touch on Writing in class today, because students are still working on their Essay ReWrite which is due next week.

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:

–Which Committee? Discussion Question

--Dress Code Question

--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 Rewrite

–Simple or Compound Sentences

–Writing Compound Sentences

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

Links for This Week

Rudy Fransisco’s “My Honest Poem” video

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 12 (4/11)

The weather is really starting to turn Springy now!  The buds are budding and the sun is shining–our spirits are lifted!  We had another great class with this group!

We started out with a great Quick Write today focused on rhyme schemes.  We discussed different styles of rhyming scheme–even Limericks!  After reading a few examples, they got to try their hands at crafting their own Limerick or lines of nature-based rhyme.

After that, I assigned our last Essay, 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 Week 14–April 25, and students should hand in the original along with the rewrite.  (Note:  This isn't our regular pre-write to rough draft to final draft process.)

For the Literature part of the class, we had a Poetry Devices Scavenger Hunt.  After discussing different Poetic Devices like onomatopoeia, imagery, and enjambment, we took a poem by Walt Whtiman called “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”.  It was very timely given the recent eclipse!  After identifying devices together in the large group, we broke into small groups to “scavenge” their own poems for different devices.  We had time for a few rotations of this.

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.  We talked about the fact that when a FANBOY is connecting two independent clauses, it is called a compound sentence–and in that case, you must put a comma BEFORE the FANBOY.  If there is a FANBOY, but it is not connecting two independent clauses, it is a simple sentence and there is no comma necessary.

That is all!  Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

Week 13 Poems

Poetry Response Packets

Week 12 Grammar 

–Compound FANBOYS

–Compound Sentences & Commas

About the Essay Re-Write

Analogy Re-Write

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 11 (3/38)

 As is typical the week before Spring Break, we had a few absent from our class today.  One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we can take trips with the family as is needed and necessary with very few  repercussions!  We missed those who were gone, but had a fun class anyway.  If you were absent, be sure to check these notes very well ;)

For our Quick Write, students are continuing their efforts to write some original poetry.  Last week, we wrote list poetry.  This week, they generated questions of all kinds and then attempted to arrange them into a poetic form.  

  

For Writing, I reminded the class that their Analogy Essay Final Drafts and End Notes will be due when we get back from break.  Make sure you bring a copy to class for Peer Review.  Grade Reports will be issued over the break, so now is a great time to make up any work that might be outstanding.

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 another Jigsaw Style discussion.  They were given a Poetry Menu with discussion prompts and were assigned a poem.  After thoroughly discussing their insights, they got into mixed groups and related their top takaways.

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.

  

That’s all, folks.  Happy Easter!  He is Risen!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Analogy Essay Final Draft

Analogy Essay Endnotes

Read Poetry:  

• 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

• Week 10–Complements Worksheets (Updike)

• Week 10–Sentence Patterns (Mr. Jackson)

• Week 10–Sentence Patterns Practice (Four bakers)

Writing 1 Class Notes 3/21

 Time flies when you are having fun–and it sure flew once again today in Writing 1.  You students are such a joy to teach!  Here’s a recap of all we accomplished in class today:

We are kicking off one of my favorite parts of the year in CHAT Writing:  Poetry!  For our Quick Write today, we talked about the genre of poetry called “List Poetry.”  Normally such a poem contains a few lines of explanation, followed by a list and ending with a few more lines of explanation.  It can be musical, funny, rhyming or whatever tickles your fancy.  After listening to “18 Flavors” and “Hector the Collector” by childhood favorite Shel Silverstein, students tried their hands at writing their own “list poetry.”  

Today was our Peer Review day in Writing for the Analogy Essay.  As usual, students chose a partner, traded papers and reviewed each other’s work.  The completed Peer Review paper is due with the Final draft on 4/11.

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 re-grouped and shared their information.  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 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

Assignments for Week 11 (March 28)

-- Analogy Essay Peer Review

-- Read Week 11 Poetry

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

-- Poetry Response (2 Poems)

Nouns as Direct Objects

Compound Direct Objects

Finding Direct Objects

Links for this Week: 

“18 Flavors”

“Hector the Collector”