Thursday, February 9, 2023

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 5 (February 9)

We had a fun class today and it was quite full!


We started with a Quick Write about hair:


  •  What is the worst thing you have ever done to your hair? Why did you do it? What is the best thing you’ve done to your hair?

  •  If you could change your hair, how would you change it?

  • If you could have somebody else's hair for a day, whose would it be? Why? What do you like about that person's hair

  • Do you have any regrettable looks from the past?

  • What’s the fashion trend you just cannot embrace?


Our Words of the Day were from Megan and the list of ACT/SAT Vocabulary words.  We will continue on with these words (and any that students may contribute) until the end of the year.


  • alienate:  to cause to turn away

  • elated:  very proud or happy or in high spirits

  • epigram:  a short witty saying or quip

  • fatalistic:  believing that everything is determined from fate and is inevitable

  • finifugal:  afraid of finishing anything


We’re finished with our Mystery Unit and the assailant from our class Mystery Game from the last two weeks was unveiled. Thank you  Nick, for playing the part so well!  I hope we learned about  enjoying a good mystery through reading, writing and experience!


We are now in Week 5, so students need to check in on their homework. I give students three weeks to get assigned work (actually, they have 4 weeks from the assigned date until I will no longer take it.)  After that extended time, assignments will be given zeros.  According to my late homework policy, any assignments due on Week 2 is now overdue. Grade Reports were sent Week 3 and I will be sending another round in a few more weeks.


We have finished our Sherlock Holmes stories and are not reading from a selection of short stories. For this week they read 3 stories by Russian authors, and we discussed the main points and overarching themes for each.  After that, I introduced the concept of Annotating.  I want students to become experts in this skill so they can apply it to other areas in their lives ahead; both academic and personal.  Today, we learned the skill of (purposeful) underlining/margin notes, and drawing icons (arrows, stars, thought bubbles.)  After assigning each student a story, we applied these new skills, broke into groups and discussed our findings.  I overheard some very insightful comments.


Students handed in the final drafts of their Mystery Story.  I'm really looking forward to reading these because their rough drafts were so good!  


When we finish one paper, we start another.  For the next round of essays,  students can choose to write a Cause/Effect Essay or a Problem/Solution Essay.  We did a lot of brainstorming about how to structure these kinds of essays.  Students have the next three weeks to do their brainstorming and research.  The pre-writes and rough drafts should be handed in on March 2.


At the end of class, I gave a very brief Grammar  "power lesson" about the commas that follow introductory elements.  These elements can include interjections, personal addresses, prepositional phrases, and dependent clauses.  They have 2 worksheets to  practice this.  


Sidenote, Complex Sentences 1,2,3 was due last week.  As I corrected it, I noticed there were many students who did not understand the concept.  If you would like a chance to improve your grade on that assignment, please watch the video and then make corrections and resubmit your work (or hand it in) next week.


Assignments for March 4

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Pre-Write (due Mar 2)

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Rough Draft (due Mar 2)

Discussion Question:  Which essay?  What’s your topic? (GC)

Read Dickens (45); Wilde (189); Kipling (101); Munro (140) & Annotate

Week 6:  Dickens, Wilde, Kipling, Munro (Short Story Worksheet)

Grammar:  Wk5 - Introductory Commas

Grammar:  Wk5 - Commas after Introductory Phrases


Links for This Week

About Cause/Effect and Problem/Solution Essays

Google Slides Presentations

–Annotation Skills 1 & 2

–Cause/Effect & Problem/Solution Essay


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