CHAT Writing 2--Week 10 (3/27)

 Hello Everyone!

Time flies when you are having fun–and it sure flew once again today in Writing 2.  You students are such a joy to teach!  Read on for a recap of all we accomplished in class today!

Visual Vocabulary

Today’s words are acumen and cogent.  Acumen means the ability to make quick and accurate judgements and decisions, especially in practical matters.  Cogent means convincing or believable, especially in terms of an argument, explanation, or reasoning.  We decided it would be awesome to be able to make a cogent argument with acumen!

Writing

Now that we have handed in our Weaknesses as Strengths narrative essays along with our notes of apology.  

We spent some time today analyzing a sample, brainstorming some ideas for topics and also some strategies for organizing itNow that those are in, we are ready to embark on our last “from scratch” essay–the Persuasive Essay.  This essay requires students to pull all their writing skills together and to write a five paragraph essay with a thesis statement, bibliography and complete style checklist.  The KWO is due next week (April 3) and the final draft is due after break (April 17.)

For the Literature portion of our class, we finished our short stories unit with an in-class quiz, then we started our next unit–poetry.  Our poems come from a book titled 101 Great American Poems, and they will be reading a chronological collection of poems, starting with poetry from the early 1800s to that of the mid-1900s.  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.

Grammar

Our topic today was parentheses, dashes, and ellipses.  After reading some tips about using these, students got to work practicing on their worksheets. I had printer problems, so there are only two worksheets this week instead of three!  

Homework for this week

–Persuasive/Pro/Con Essay KWO

- Read Week 11 Poetry 

 Week 11 Poetry Pt. 1 -- Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow

 Week 11 Poetry Pt. 2 -- Whitman, Dickinson

- Poetry: Read Emerson (4-5); Longfellow (6-10); Holmes (21), Whitman (22-26),Dickinson (29 - 32)

-- Poetry Response (2 Poems)

        Week 11 Poetry Pt. 1 -- Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow

         Week 11 Poetry Pt. 2 -- Whitman, Dickinson

Grammar:  Wk10 - Dashes & Parentheses

Grammar:  Wk10 - Parentheses & Dashes

Grammar:  Wk10 - Ellipsis

Links for this week

About the Persuasive/Pro/Con Essay KWO

CHAT Writing 2 Class Notes--Week 9 (3/20)

 Hello!  

We are in the thick of it and the weather is turning warm.  Just as spring should be!  We had another great class together today.  Here’s what we did.

Quick Write

The topic today was designed to get students thinking about success, qualities in others they admire, people they admire and fictional characters they’d love to meet IRL 🙂.  They were given five minutes and they could choose whichever topic piqued their interest.

Writing

Today we had a check-in on their Weakness as Strength essays that were assigned last week.  The subject of this essay is to think deeply about how to switch your perspectives on some character traits in order to see it from the positive side. Sometimes, in our weaknesses, we make mistakes; sometimes our mistakes require us to give an apology.  So today, we explored the art of a proper apology.  Although it’s not customary to write a note of apology–we usually do this in person–we took the opportunity to think deeply about how to give and receive an apology.  We watched a few short videos on this topic.  After that, each student picked out some stationary and they got started. Their finished apology notes are due along with their essays next week.  

While they were writing, I went around and gave them credit if they met the deadline for their KWO.  Their KWOs were due this week and most students look like they are tracking well.  

Two more sentence openers were added to our checklist for this next assignment and today, we learned the [5] adverbial clause opener and the [1] subject opener. The [5] sentence opener is very straightforward if you remember the WWW.ASIA.B  dress-up.  You just start the sentence with that. The only trick is to make sure to use a comma after the adverbial clause.  Remember:

AC, MC  

That stands for adverbial clause COMMA main clause.  (You need to use a comma after the www.asia.b clause when you use it to start the sentence.)   For example:

[5] When you use this adverbial clause, you must put the comma after the clause.

 The subject opener is SUPER SIMPLE!  It's what you write as a default--which is why I leave this one until last.  You simply start the sentence with a subject.  (You may use an adjective or article to precede if necessary.)  Don't overuse this because it can be very tedious to read.  For example:

[1] This sentence opener is very easy.

Literature

This class is enjoying our short story unit and today we had an enjoyable Literature Circles Discussion.  After refreshing ourselves on the other three stories from last week, we spent the rest of the time focusing on “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin.  In this Jigsaw style discussion, students became “experts” on one aspect of the story:  Plot, Theme, or Setting & Characters.  After they had thoroughly discussed, they re-grouped and shared their information.  They were to come to a consensus on this question:   What is your opinion about Mrs. Sommers' choices for how she spent her money?  Once again, they had some wonderful insights!  They are to read the next batch of short stories for next week and do the worksheet.  There will be a Quiz over this week’s and next week’s reading in class next week–so make sure you are prepared!  

Our topic for Grammar was fairly simple. There are two worksheets on Hyphens and End Marks & Abbreviations.  Though we didn’t have time to work together in pairs on these, I did post an information sheet on hyphens in case more support is needed.  They are to be corrected and are due next week.

Homework

Weakness as Strength Essay

Note of Apology (& videos)

Read:  Larsen (110); Anderson (1); Hardy (56); London (122)

Audio versions

Short Story Questions

Using Hyphens

End Marks and Abbreviations

Links for this week

About Weaknesses as Strength Essay

Literature Circles Discussion

Hyphens Rules

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 8 (3/13)

 Visual Vocabulary

Our words today were modicum (noun) and brusque (adj).  Students worked with those words today.

Literature

Today, we had a review day.  After putting the students in groups, they had some time to talk over the main points of the stories we have read so far:  plot, characters, tone, etc.  After they had reviewed, it was time for the promised quiz.  It pays to be prepared for class!

Writing

The “Franken-essays” were due this week.  Now that they have had some practice writing effective introductions and conclusions, they are ready to sink their teeth into some proper essays.  

I introduced the “Strength as Weakness Essay.”  We watched the Ted Talk on this topic, where the speaker discusses his disabilities and how his mind was blown when he realized that, when applied to different contexts, these disadvantages could actually be  “superpowers.”  I love this concept!  We took a few minutes to brainstorm ideas and discussed two options to organize this essay.

 

Option 1:  take three weaknesses and discuss how they can actually be strengths in other settings/contexts.

Option 2:  take one weakness/character flaw and discuss three ways they can be strengths in other settings/contexts.

The Key Word Outline is due next week (either bring it to class OR scan and upload it to GC.  I won’t be accepting submissions after the due date for that one ; It’s worth 20 points!)  Next week, we will talk Style (dress-ups, sentence openers.  However, if you want to get a jump on drafting your essay, the template is posted right now.  It will be due Week 10 (March 27th.)

Grammar

We are forging ahead with our comma unit and today’s topic was a review on where to put the commas in dates and addresses.  There are two worksheets due next week–they are to finish and correct them.  Please note, the worksheet “Commas in Dates and Addresses”

Homework 

Read:  Chopin (30); Mansfield (130); Pirandello (149); de Maupassant (134)

PDF and Audio Versions

Short Story Packet #2

Weakness as Strength KWO

Weakness as Strength Essay (if you want to start early; not due until 3/27)

Commas in Dates and Addresses

Commas in Dates, Addresses and in Letters

Links for this week

“How Our Weaknesses Can Become Strengths” Ted Talk by David Rendall

About the Strength as Weakness Essay