Writing 2 Class Notes–October 22 (Week 8)

 It was good to see your smiling faces back from break.  We are officially halfway through the Fall semester now.  Can you believe it?!?  I aim to get your grade reports out this week. 🤞

After that, we had our Visual Vocabulary words of the day:  rancor and denizen.  

Writing

Personal essays were due before break. I have graded them and they were handed back today. Before they can move forward with editing their work, I gave the class a tutorial on how that should be done because I am doing the revision process a bit differently this year.

In order for students to improve their writing, they must learn to fix the mistakes they make so that they will not continue to commit the same errors.  On your graded essays, you will see  numbers/letters on the physical copy (and on GC copy) that correspond to the explanation of the errors. These explanations are the “Grammar & Content Codes”.)

Directions: 

Here’s a step by step of that process (slideshow posted in GC):

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

Students practiced this skill together on a sample paragraph in class and turned them in when they were finished. Final Edits are due next week.

Last, I introduced the next essay which is a Process Essay. We kicked around some possible topic ideas and read about the parameters of this essay. Next week we will go into more detail on MLA citations and Works Cited pages.

Your KWO is due next week. Please note that the template for this one may not be that helpful depending on how many steps your process has. You may need to divide it differently than the template allows for. It actually may be super helpful to categorize your process into three stages. The template also has a place to record your sources and the visual.

Grammar

We’re continuing with a unit on phrases in sentences.  Students have reviewed preposition phrases and we covered gerund phrases last week.  For this week, students will be doing two worksheets dealing with infinitives.  

Infinitive phrases combine the word “to” with a verb.  (For example, to sing, to jump, to swim, etc.)  Infinitive phrases can function as nouns, adjectives or adverbs.  These phrases can also have adjectives or direct objects.  One example from the worksheet had an infinitive phrase that was functioning as a noun, and in the sentence it was the direct object.  No one said grammar was easy!! 

Literature

Keep reading your books and complete the Quiz over chapters 15-17 on Google Classroom.  Next week we’ll have another book discussion.

Since quite a few students were absent today, the Peace Like A River project will be introduced next week. 

That’s it!  Reach out with any questions.

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Process Essay KWO

Personal Essay Final Edits

Infinitives Homework–1

Infinitives Homework–2

Read PLAR Chapters 18-19

Be ready for an in-class quiz!

PLAR Project Overview Quiz

What Is Your Podcast Theme–question

Links for this Week

About the Process Essay

How to Cite a visual MLA Style

Writing 2 Class Notes–October 8 (WK 7)

 Hello All!

Quick Write

We got right to it this morning as I taught a mini-lesson on the [4] -ing ending Sentence Opener. We analyzed the clause, then added it to our Style Sheets.  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.

After that, I explained how to do a self “check-in” in order to identify their most predominant 1 or 2 emotions right now. After they identified their emotion, they were to describe the event that caused that emotion to emerge. I set the 5 minute timer and students wrote on that topic and used and indicated at least one [4]  –ing ending sentence opener.

Literature

Today was our Literature Circles discussion.  This is usually highlight because students prepare for and lead their own small group discussions!  Each one has been assigned a role which they prepared for last week as homework.  First, they were put into their role groups to confer on their questions, quotes and illustrations. After that, they got into their assigned mixed groups, and I set the timer–the room was abuzz with insightful comments!  They will receive a grade on their preparation, participation and input from the other group members.  As homework, they are to read Peace Like A River Chs. 15-17 and take the Take Home Quiz #2. 

Grammar

So far, the Grammar worksheets have been a fairly simple review.  We are moving on to a unit on phrases in sentences.  This week there are two worksheets that have to do with the Gerund Phrase.  We flew through the teaching, so please note that the slideshow is posted as well as two additional videos in case you need more help.

Writing

Today there was no instruction on writing, however the Personal Essays were due. Most students submitted them on GC. Students were instructed to staple their essays with the Style Sheet on top and put them in the bin. They were to also Turn In on GC. I will grade them over the break. When we come back, I will give instructions on how to handle the Final Edits and explain the grading procedure.

Extra Credit Note:

If students took notes over today’s class notes/grammar lesson, they can scan and upload those to Google Classroom by midnight tonight. 

Enjoy your Fall Break!

Mrs. G

Homework

Quick Write #3 and [4] -ing sentence opener

Gerunds–1

Gerunds–2

Literature Circles Evaluation

Read PLAR Ch. 15 & 17

Take Home Quiz #2

Materials for this week

Phrases Intro + Gerunds Slides

Literature Circles Discussion–Roles & Groups

CHAT Writing 2 Class Notes–October 1--WK 6

 Greetings, Everyone!

We’ve turned the corner into Fall and the weather is still gorgeous.  I hope you can take a minute to enjoy it!

After checking in about homework, we started the class  with Visual Vocabulary. Today we bandied about the definitions for bandy and entity.  Students are really catching on to these vocab words!  (See the hint for bandy on the left.)

Writing

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. Scan and attach (no pics from phone!) Personal essays are due next week! They must be composed on Google Classroom using the template. Staple the Style Checklist to the top of your essay.

As per our class discussion, if text is copied and pasted from another source, it will be flagged as possible plagiarism. In that case, a student will receive a notification from me and will need to re-do the assignment or receive a zero. If it happens again, they will need to have a conference with parents, CHAT directors and me to determine if the student will be allowed to continue at CHAT. (Refer to the class guidelines and the CHAT Academic Agreement that we went over and each student and family signed at the start of the semester.)

Literature

After a recap over the major events that occurred in chapters 11 & 12, students took a quiz then we listened to a few minutes of the Peace Like A River audio book. Chapter 13 is a turning point because we meet a pivotal character! Their homework is to keep reading the next two chapters and complete the 3 Reader Responses Worksheet over the chapters listed  below👇

Chapter 13:  “Something Warm” Chapter 14:  “The Skin Bag”

After that, I assigned roles for our big Literature Circle discussion next week. 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  13 & 14 this week and complete a 3 Responses worksheet.  Any material up to chapter 14 is fair game for the discussion

I assigned roles for our big Literature Circle discussion next week (see below.)  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  13 & 14 this week and complete a 3 Responses worksheet.  Any material up to chapter 14 is fair game for the discussion.  Roles are listed below 👇.

Grammar

Today’s grammar concept was on misplaced and dangling modifiers.  A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word or clause it modifies or describes. Because of this separation, the meaning of the sentence is often  awkward, ridiculous, illogical, or confusing.  A dangling modifier is a phrase or clause that is not clearly and logically related to the word or words it  modifies or describes.  These mistakes can often be amusing:

The waiter served a dinner roll to the woman that was well-buttered. 😂

I didn’t have time to teach this live, but I sent home a hangout and there is a Google Slideshow posted. They have two worksheets on this concept that are due next week.

Homework

Personal Essay due next week (10/9)

Read chapters 13 & 14

3 Responses

Prep. Literature Circles Role

About Misplaced Modifiers

Misplaced Modifiers #1

Misplaced Modifiers #2

Links for this week

Decorations Slides & Game

Literature Circles Roles

Writing 2 Guidelines

CHAT Academic Agreement

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 5--September 24

 

Hi everyone!

Quick Write

Our bellringer this morning was a Quick Write. They had a mini-lesson on the [3] adverb sentence opener. Now they have another sentence pattern to include in their writing. Today’s prompt was a choice of prompts in honor of National Hobbit Day! As usual, I set the timer, they chose a prompt and  wrote for five minutes. They were required to include and indicate the [3]adverbial sentence opener. Bonus points if you include any Visual Vocabulary word we’ve had so far.

Writing

Today I introduced our first formal essay: The Personal Essay. Though there is no research required for this piece, students will need to use creative thinking as they explore a piece of media or art that has inspired them. 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 depth on the grading process next week. This week, we analyzed an example of this type of essay.

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.

Literature

Since we had an in-depth discussion last week, today we kept it short. Students had an in-class quiz over Peace Like A River  chapters 9 & 10. 

They should keep reading chapters 11 & 12 and prepare for another in-class quiz next week. 

Grammar

Today's topic was prepositional phrases as we wrapped up our parts of speech review.  I FORGOT to mention the Parts of Speech Quiz!–please complete that on Google Classroom this week. Though there was no time for a  mini-lesson, I posted some notes on Google Classroom in case it is needed. Do not forget to correct your own work! 

That’s it!

Go enjoy your weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Reach Chs. 11 & 12 Peace Like A River

PLAR Ch. 9 & 10 Quiz

Personal Essay KWO

Identifying Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional Phrases

Parts of Speech Quiz (GC)

Material for this Week

About the Personal Essay

Class Blog–Archived Class Notes

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 4--September 17

 Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 4 (Sept. 17)

Greetings!

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

Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were dastardly and sophomoric.  After studying the words, we took a minute to write sentences using them correctly.

Writing

Today we practiced the TRIAC paragraph again. We reviewed the role of each sentence in this type of paragraph. Then I handed out a worksheet with two paragraphs that were about a character from our novel–one paragraph defends Davy’s choice to take the law into his own hands and one opposes Davy’s choice.  After reading the two paragraphs, students got in small groups and with markers color coded each sentence according to its function, identified a [2] prepositional opener, and the repeating & reflecting words from the topic and clincher sentences. I posed a question to which position they agree with–Was Davy justified to take matters into his own hands or not? I also asked them to think about what genre of writing the character Swede was inspired by. Of course it is Westerns! I asked the class to begin to think about which kind of art, genre of book, or type of media inspires them most. Our first essay of the year will be on the topic of media/art that inspires, so they should brainstorm over the week.

Literature Discussion

The writing exercise led nicely into our discussion. We're reading Peace Like A River, and this week we took a deep dive into our novels.  After laying out a timeline of events on the whiteboard, we broke into groups and used the 4 Square Discussion model to discuss the content. I heard some very intelligent insights!  Students were assigned Chapters 9 & 10 and they should be ready for an in-class quiz next week.

Grammar 

Today’s topic covered a review of interjections and conjunctions.  After a mini-lesson, students were assigned two worksheets. They should use the KEYS I that were handed out last week to correct their own work.

Assignments for Next Week

Read Chapters 6-8

Be ready for an in-class quiz!

Grammar

Interjections

Conjunctions–check your work!

Links for This Week

Class Blog–Archived Class Notes

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 3 --September 10

 Hi All!

We got right to it today with our very first Quick Write. Every other week students are given a topic, five minutes and a few parameters. Then I play some music and our goal is to write continuously during that time. Before putting pen to paper, we talked about our first stylistic technique– the [2] prepositional phrase sentence opener. For some, this was a review and to some it was brand new. The purpose of using different sentence openers is to help students vary the sentence patterns they use in  their writing. We’ll add more gradually as the year progresses. We did a quick review of -ly adverb dress-ups today as well.

They had a creative prompt today and I think they enjoyed it!They are required to use at least one[2] sentence opener and they can earn extra credit for using an -ly adverb.

Writing

We started today with a fun exercise of “testing” their notes. I paired students up to retell them using their stick and branch style notes. Some students  chose to take notes on a Youtube video, a Prager U video, a sermon–lots of different and interesting ideas! If they could recall the details of their video using their notes, they reflected that they did a pretty good job. We practiced looking at the notes, thinking then looking at their partner and speaking. I think they enjoyed it–this is a life skill that will hopefully take them far as we learn to be clear and efficient communicators.

Today’s topic was two different styles of paragraphing. Writing a paragraph is a bit of an art and I want to equip students with some tools to master it. We contrasted the basic paragraph with the TRIAC paragraph. As we learned last year, to write a good basic paragraph, you write from a well-crafted, KWO and choose ONE topic as a focus and  5-7 facts from the KWO. We also learned the Topic-Clincher rule:  

The topic sentence and the clincher sentence

 MUST 

repeat or reflect 2-3 key words

(There will be a door quiz on that next week!) After that, I gave them the “Swiss knife” of all paragraphs: the TRIAC paragraph. The beauty of a TRIAC paragraph is that it practically writes itself! We talked through the 5 parts:

We practiced these models using an article about AI. As a class,we wrote a KWO on the first paragraph. Their homework is to write both a basic paragraph and a TRIAC paragraph using their KWOs. Follow the instructions on the homework sheet. You may turn in the paper sheet OR submit it on Google Classroom.

Literature

Because we took more time for writing, we had a shorter time for literature today. However, yhe plot thickens for the Land family of Roofing, MN. In our novel, the turning point has happened that will be the central driver for the action from here on out. The tone is getting darker and it seems Swede has lost all her sympathy for the bandit king Valdez. 

We had no time for our in-class Quiz today over Peace Like A River chapters 4 & 5, so I simply assigned that as extra credit.  For homework, they will read chapters 6-8 and complete the take-home quiz (open book) on GC.  We will have a more in-depth discussion next week, we didn’t take time to discuss the novel today.  Instead, we will have a more in-depth discussion next week for a Literature Discussion. 

Writing

Today’s topic was two different styles of paragraphing. Writing a paragraph is a bit of an art and I want to equip students with some tools to master it. We contrasted the basic paragraph with the TRIAC paragraph. As we learned last year, to write a good basic paragraph, you write from a well-crafted, KWO and choose ONE topic as a focus and  5-7 facts from the KWO. We also learned the Topic-Clincher rule:  

The topic sentence and the clincher sentence

 MUST 

repeat or reflect 2-3 key words

(There will be a door quiz on that next week!) After that, I gave them the “Swiss knife” of all paragraphs: the TRIAC paragraph. The beauty of a TRIAC paragraph is that it practically writes itself! We talked through the 5 parts:

We practiced these models using an article about AI. As a class,we wrote a KWO on the first paragraph. Their homework is to write both a basic paragraph and a TRIAC paragraph using their KWOs–they can use the one we wrote together or they can write one on their own and use that. 

Grammar –Lightning Round

Students were given the KEY to all the grammar worksheets for this semester.  I explained that as we work through our grammar–parts of speech and phrases–they will need to correct their own work.  There is a lot of learning that happens in that process! The KEY is also posted on Google Classroom–I won’t be handing out another one.  For the most part, I will teach grammar mini-lesson and they will have some in class time to complete their worksheets.  This works well so I can answer any questions they might have while we are all together.  Today, we reviewed nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs.  They have four worksheets.

Homework

Read Peace Like A River Ch. 6-8

Take-Home Quiz #1 (GC)

AI Basic & TRIAC Paragraphs

Nouns & Pronouns Review

Adjectives or Adverb Review

Action Verbs Review

Verb Tenses Review

Links for This Week

Grammar Worksheets KEY

CHAT Writing 2 Class Notes--WK 2 (September 3)

 Hello All!

This is such a fun group of students–I think we are really going to enjoy learning together this year!

We had our first edition of Visual Vocabulary (VV).  Today, we learned:  poignant and blight.  These words are taken from SAT/ACT vocabulary lists and each week we do VV, students are given the definition, the part of speech, the synonym and antonym.  Then they write a sentence using the word in context. We will be adding to the list throughout the semester–so don’t lose that worksheet–keep it the Class Notes tab! 

After reminding ourselves about some major themes of the novel and discussing miracles we started our Literature portion of the class to discuss–Peace Like A River.  We discussed the timeline of the book so far. It was mentioned how the narrative tends to jump around with lots of flashbacks and things told “out of order.” I posted a few questions and gave them time to discuss the high points and help them get those in their minds. The next chapter is the BIG action, so I want them to be ready! Instead of a worksheet over the reading, I will be giving them an in-class quiz to check their understanding.

We dove right into writing with two notetaking techniques: the Key Word Outline and the Stick and Branch method. Both of these useful techniques are skills I hope students will practice and make a lifelong skill. Both have their strengths and are useful in different ways. We discussed that a KWO is helpful when taking notes from a linear or narrative piece of writing. The Stick and Branch method is like a KWO “on steroids” and is much freer form. It is great for taking notes when the source text/talk jumps around or feels a bit disorganized. You can connect ideas easily in this geographic and intuitive form of notetaking. 

We practiced these two techniques on a familiar fable:  “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Using a clip from Andrew Pudewa’s University-Ready Writing, students listened to the fable being read two times through. The first time they created a KWO; the second time through they created the stick and branch style notes. 

After that, we took another run at the method and listened to a 4 minute minute clip from the Sean McDowell podcast. I told them that this length of time is about one quarter of a lecture. As we listened, I took notes live on the whiteboard. Students copied mine or wrote their own and used mine as a reference. Their homework is to do it again with another 10 minute talk of their own choosing:  a sermon, a podcast, a Tedtalk, etc.

Last, we just had time for a brief Grammar Discussion today.  In small groups, we discussed why the study of grammar is important and we talked about some positives and some pain points (diagramming sentences!) We won’t be doing that this year, however we will be addressing some areas of grammar in our study that are typically tricky for students to learn. In my humble opinion, the best way to learn good grammar is to READ a lot–but does come a time for a well-placed worksheet too;) 

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Homework

Notetaking–choose a 10 min. Talk to do “stick and branch” style notes

Read Chapter 4 & 5 Peace Like A River

Quiz next week (in class!)

Material for This Week:

Visual Vocabulary #1

Writing 2 Class Blog (Class Notes Archive)