Once again, it was a jam-packed class. We are accomplishing a lot in our short time together! Students are really getting into a good groove.
Words of the Day
We have been starting with this portion of our class, and I did warn students that there will be a quiz on these words by the end of the semester. It would be a good idea to review these words periodically. These two words are Fall-related. Can you see how these words are related to the season?
quietus (noun)--death that is a relief/eterna rest; death of an argument.From Latin “quietus est”=he is quiet; his debt is paid.
Students were asked to write about their own personal quietus–the welcome end of something in their lives.
deciduous (adj)–falling off or shed seasonally or at a certain stage of development in the life cycle. Latin→de=down; off +caedere→to fall. Related to the words decay and decadence→to fall from a condition of health or perfection.
Quick Write
Students viewed and responded to the painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Clouds by romantic German painter Caspar David Friedrich.
Homework Check
I touched on the fact that I had sent out detailed grade reports during the past week. Students should note that each assignment is very important. If something is not turned in, it says “Missing” on Google classroom. Those marked “Missing” will automatically be transposed into a“0” when imported to the grade book. After three weeks, I will no longer grade work.
Another noteworthy item is that the gradebook is broken up into weighted categories. You can now easily see your progress in each category and how that impacts your overall grade. Since grades are weighted, figuring out your own grade would be a very complicated math problem! If you calculate your total points and it doesn’t reflect the grade you are receiving, it might be due to the weighting.
Writing
Students submitted their Personal Essay Finals today. As usual, once we hand in one essay, we start the next one. For the next round, students will have the opportunity to choose which essay they’d like to write: Classification Essay, or Extended Definition Essay.
We are also transitioning from a two-step writing process, to a three step process. Students will not be required to perform a Pre-Write, Rough Draft and Final draft. Pre-Write is due Oct. 27.
In that vein, we briefly discussed the pre-write strategy of Mind Mapping. We explored some online tools and there is an Extra Credit assignment where students will have the opportunity to play with these tools to create a mind map on any topic of their choosing and submit it for extra credit.
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 viewed a YouTube video and there is an additional video linked in with the homework.
Literature
We are still chugging along in My Antonia. Students have noticed that Wlla Cather has changed scenes from the Nebraska countryside to the more urban setting of Black Hawk and Lincoln. This setting change also signals a change in the characters–from the halcyon days of childhood the more practical reality of adulthood.
Students will be discussing three events from the book (up to page 140) in our Literature Circle #2 Discussion next week. They were assigned groups and they chose the roles they will prepare as homework for next week. This week the 3 Response Study Questions are Extra Credit.
Finally, students have been assigned a culminating project for this book. They will need to submit a project proposal next week.
Homework
Classification Essay/Extended Definition
Online Mind Map (Extra Credit)
Identifying Gerunds (with Videos)
3 Responses (EXTRA CREDIT)
Links for this Week
No comments:
Post a Comment