Writing 2 Class Notes--Week 8 (March 9)

 Hello All!

Another snowy day, but the sun was shining and so were these students!  Here’s what we covered.

Quick Write

Here are today’s prompts:

• If you were a parent, would you prefer a girl or boy child? Would you like to have the choice to determine the gender of the child? Why or why not?

• If and when I raise children, I'll never…

• What 3 things do you do that irritate your parents the most? Why do you do them?

• What 3 things do you do that your parents appreciate the most? How often do you do these things? Do you think you could do them more often? Why or why not. 

Words of the Day

AMALGAMATE: to combine, mix, or blend

BELEAGUER: to annoy persistently; harass

ANTIQUATED: old-fashioned and obsolete

CARICATURE: a distorted representation of someone or something

Literature

We have read more Short Stories by Twain, Jewett, Crane, and Gilman.  As promised, we had a short quiz.  I asked students to write a 1-minute version of the stories they had recently read.    

Writing

The “ticket” needed for entry to today’s class was their hard copy of their Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution Essay.  We used it to do some Peer Review.  Some students found this to be a more challenging piece of writing because of the MLA style formatting that is required.  It was noted that this is like a “mini-research paper”--which it is!  The Final Draft is due next week.

Before we did the Peer Review, I went over 5 Common Errors that I found while grading this round. They focused on the Roadmap Sentence, writing out numbers 10 and under, formatting, MLA style quotes (embedded vs. parenthetical) and hanging indentations for the Works Cited page.

Grammar

Then for the rest of our Grammar portion of our class, we are continuing our work with commas.  This time, we are practicing putting commas in the correct places for ists, series as well as for dates and addresses.  

Homework

• Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution  Final Draft

• Read Short Stories: Chopin (30), Mansfield (130), Pirandello (149), de Maupassant (134)

• Short Story Packet #2

Grammar Wksheets

• Commas in Dates Addresses

• Commas in Addresses

• Commas in a List

• Commas & Items in a Series

Links for This Week

5 Common Errors Slideshow

Audio and Web Versions of Short Stories

Have a cozy weekend.  Spring is coming!

Warmly,

Mrs. G

Writing 2 Class Notes--Week 7 (3/2)

 It was good to see everyone’s smiling faces today.  We had a productive class today and I sure am enjoying this group of students!

Today’s Quick Write was about lists:

Do you make lists to get stuff done?  Do you use an app?  Old fashioned paper?  

List as many points you can think of!

• What is the worst food combination you can think of? An example: hamburgers with whipped cream. (Yuck!) Think of as many as you can.

• I am grateful for…

• List all candy you can think of.

• List all the breakfasts you can think of

• Do you make lists to get stuff done?  Do you use an app?  Old fashioned paper?  

• Make a list of items a favorite fictional character would make.

Our Words of the Day

acmethesia (n)the awareness of sharp points through the sense of touch without experiencing pain. (Contributed by Stella)

And our ACT/SAT Vocabulary:

numismatist a person who collects coins

Obtrude to force something upon another person; to intrude upon

Paucity smallness of number or scarce

I started class with a bit of “buzzkill”--and in invitation to excellence.  This time of year starts getting challenging to do the things we know we should do.  We touched on the CHAT policies regarding lateness and cell phones.  I told the class I would be enforcing CHAT’s guidelines on that moving forward, so we all need to make good choices.  On that note, I mentioned the fact that we learn best when homework is done in a timely manner:  discussions are richer when we have done our reading and writing on time.  If we don’t meet our deadlines, we are not only letting ourselves down, but we’re letting our classmates down as well.

On that note, Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Rough Draft is due today.  Next week we will be doing some peer review, so each student must bring a paper copy of their essays to class with them.  We discussed how to document websites using MLA formatting and in-text citations.  There is a worksheet students can finish at home on that topic.

In the literature section of our class, we talked about the last annotation skill:  Using Post-It notes.  Students should read and annotate the next stories and I encourage them to try using Post Its–along with any other type of annotating they like. 

After that, we had a discussion using the Hexagonal Thinking method.  This is a great way to use our critical thinking as we see the various ways the themes and concepts connect and fit in an overall web.  The key to this type of discussion is the ability to explain the connections they make.  As they manipulated their hexagons, some deep and nuanced connections were made.   I am proud of them!     We did not have time to share our connections, but students did fill out a map that explains important they made.

Students elected to forgo the grammar lesson so we’d have more time for Literature.  For that reason, I assigned the three worksheets as homework.   The focus is on Appositives and Interrupters.  (Please note, we are week behind the syllabus on Grammar worksheets. We will be caught up by next week)

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

MLA Worksheet 1-2

Hexagonal Thinking Map

Read & do 2 Annotations

• Short Stories by Twain, Crane, Jewett, Gilman

• 2 Short Story Worksheets

• Week 7 - Appositive Phrases

• Week 7 - Appositive & Parenthetical Phrases

• Week 7 - Interrupters Phrases

Link for this Week

WK 7 Stories–Audio Versions

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 5 (February 16

 Greetings!

 I am thankful we have this week off of class and I hope you are hunkered down as we prepare for this “historic blizzard” they are forecasting. Maybe even catch up on some homework for Writing Class?  In case that’s on your to-do list, here is what we covered last week.

Quick Write

The prompts were taken from the suggestions you submitted last semester:

• If you could be married to someone famous from the past who is no longer alive, who would you like it to be? Why?

• If you could trade lives with anyone in the world, who would you choose and why?

• If you could go back to any period of time or place in history what would it be and why?

Words of the Day

We are continuing with our ACT words and they were:

fatalistic: (adj)  believing everything is determined by fate and is inevitable

lackadaisical:  (adj) without spirit, interest or effort

licentious: (adj)  ignoring rules or morals; uncontrolled or immoral

Charlotte submitted this beautiful word:

apricity–noun; The warmth of the sun in winter

The lion’s share of our class was spent on discussing Writing.  I have assigned a Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution Essay..  We spent some time sharing topic ideas and brainstorming how to structure this essay.  There were some good ideas!  We will continue sharing on Google Classroom as they answer the discussion question and comment on their classmates’ ideas.  The Rough Draft and PreWrite is due when we get back from break (3/2.)

I had sent an email home to parents to broach the topic of the Artificial Intelligence tool ChatGpt.  We briefly touched on some of this tool’s capabilities and drawbacks. Students were eager to discuss and share their experiences using the tool.  There were a range of experiences:  some were already pretty familiar and some had never heard of it.  I told students we will be writing about ChatGpt in the next essay and it will be a topic of deeper discussion in the near  future. As of right now, we will not be relying on Artificial Intelligence to write our essays and doing so would be dishonest.  In order to make best use of this in our class, we will need to understand its capabilities and drawbacks and we still need to know the fundamentals of writing.

One of the things this tool does NOT do well yet is to give credit to its sources and in-text citations.  Since for this essay I am requiring 3 sources and 3 quotes along with a Works Cited page, we took the class time to review MLA documentation.  This is the main way we can maintain academic honesty and avoid the charge of plagiarism.  Students took notes on a presentation and I handed out citation maker sheets for students to keep track of their sources while they do their research.

Because we had such a robust discussion on Writing, we did not spend as much time on our LIterature Discussion.  I handed out some information on AnnotationSkills 3 & 4–and instead of applying and discussing, I assigned students to practice annotating the next assigned stories.  They are due when we get back from break along with the Short Story Worksheets

No Grammar this week!  Enjoy the time off!

Homework

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution Essay PreWrite 

Cause/Effect OR Problem/Solution Essay Rough Draft

Read Hawthorne,Bierce, Poe and Harte

Annotation Skills 3 & 4

Links for this Week

QuickWrite

MLA Presentation and Guided Notes

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

Writng 2 Class Notes--Week 4 (February 2)

Greetings!

We had a fun class today -- we covered a lot of material.  As usual, we started out with our QuickWrite.  Here’s the prompt:

January 6th is the “birthday” of Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fictional detective is known for his powers of deduction–the ability to reach conclusions by logical reasoning. He’s famous for solving unusual mysteries and his partner is Dr. Watson. What is your favorite mystery story or movie? Describe what it is about. Why do you like it? What do you like or dislike about mysteries? 

Or you may write about a real mystery, or unsolved mystery, you’ve heard about. How would you try to solve it? 

What are some mysteries you are trying to solve?

No Words of the Day today

I handed back the rough drafts of the Mystery Stories.  These were amazing!  I found myself thinking of the plots and characters long after reading and correcting them.  Many students wrote more than they usually did, and they were pretty creative.  Students are to revise their rough drafts into final drafts for next week. Ask your student to share his/her story with you. 

We've now finished our 6 short stories of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  To round out this literature unit, students are to write an essay exam in which they address the question, "Is Sherlock Holmes a Hero?"  They must first define what a hero is and then apply their definition to Sherlock Holmes.  I encouraged them to use the quotes from their Sherlock Holmes Quote assignment to support their opinions.  We had a lively (heated?) discussion over some of the finer points of Sherlock’s character.  Students had some profound observations.  I am looking forward to their written responses.

We had a brief Grammar lesson on Independent and Dependent Clauses.  We worked on them a bit in class, and students should correct their work before handing it in.  There are 2 worksheets due next week.

I gave them their next book, Great Short, Short Stories,  they have a reading assignment, and a Short Story worksheet to complete for 2 of the 3 stories.  On the syllabus it says “Short Story Annotations,” however, annotations are on pause until we have a mini-lesson on annotation.  That will be in the next few weeks.

As a culminating activity to our Mystery Unit, students finished part 2 of our Class Mystery Game.  Students picked up their assigned roles  and began where they left off last week interviewing all the suspects (classmates) to solve the case of “who dunnit”--in this case, who is guilty of injuring popular girl Angela by pushing her down the stairs at Generic High School?  Justice must be served!  It was entertaining to observe them interviewing each other and trying to follow the clues, make inferences and not be thrown off by all the red-herrings.  It got a little heated at some points!  Students are to fill out the assessment sheet of who their suspects are. The assailant will be revealed next week.  

Assignments for next week

• Mystery Story Final Draft

• Sherlock Holmes Final Exam

• Short Stories: Read  Pushkin (162); Tolstoy (169); Chekhov (26)

• Short Story Responses (No Annotations)

• Class Mystery Assessment

Writing 2 Class Notes--Week 3 (January 26)

 Greetings!

Today’s QuickWrite prompts are taken from the list that the students in Writing 1 and Writing 2 contributed to last fall.  Here are the prompts for today’s Quick Write

• Where do you see yourself in five years

• Write one story you can’t stop yourself from laughing about everytime you think of it.

• A time of awkwardness/embarrassment

• If you dropped out of school and started a business what would it be 

• If you could only have three Apps on your phone, what would they be?  Why?

• Whatever …..

Today we had 3 Words of the Day:

Tenacious:  Definition: Qualtiy that does not stop holding something or give up something easily; determined

Etymology:  early 17th cent.: from Latin tenax, tenac- (from tenere ‘to hold’) + -ious.

Example:  She's a tenacious student. She never gives up.

charisma

Definition: the powerful personal quality that some people have to attract and impress other people

adj=charismatic

Etymology:  from Greek kharisma, from kharis ‘favour, grace’.

Example:  She relaxed and her natural charisma started to shine through.

benevolent

Definition:  (especially of people in authority) kind, helpful and generous

Opposite:  malevolent

Etymology:   Latin bene volent- ‘well wishing’, from bene ‘well’ + velle ‘to wish’.

Example:  The colonel was benevolent, but not stupid.

Students have handed in the Pre-Writes and Rough Drafts of their Mystery Stories.  Many of them enjoyed writing these and felt that they wrote more than they usually wrote.  Others felt that this writing assignment was a bit harder since it's not easy to be creative.  This kind of writing required some different planning and a different kind of thinking.  I am looking forward to curling up with a cup of coffee and reading my pile of Mystery Rough Drafts.  

We are 4 stories into our book of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and the consensus this week was that the "Speckled Band" was more interesting than "The Engineer's Thumb."  We brainstormed some adjectives that describe Sherlock Holmes’ character and their assignment is to think more deeply on that subject as we approach the end of this unit.  

iMost students agreed that there was something satisfying about following clues and deducing solutions.  Someone mentioned the "red herrings" in the story about the speckled band.   These false clues and distractions add another layer of interest. 

 To that end, our class embarked on a Classroom Mystery Game–like a game of live-action Clue.  Together we read the scenario:  “Local Popular Girls Mysteriously Injured at Generic High School!” Students were given a map, a clue sheet and they were each assigned a character to play.  They began to circulate and ask each other questions in order to solve the mystery.  There are plenty of clues and red-herrings, so it won’t be easy!  We were only able to begin this game, so we will finish it next week.  They seemed to really engage in this activity and I saw some great acting in progress!  Remember:  No talking about the Mystery outside of Writing 2!!

For the Grammar portion of class, we worked again on complex sentences.  In our unit on Commas, we also need to learn about sentence structures.  You won't understand where the comma goes with regards to dependent clauses in complex sentences if you don't know what a complex sentence is.  You won't know the difference between an independent and dependent/subordinate clause if you don't understand what the essential elements of a sentence are.  All of grammar is interconnected, and the students are doing a great job at working to understand these intricacies.  We watched an Edpuzzle video and answered questions as a class about Simple, Compound and Complex sentences.

Assignments for Next Week:

• Holmes:  Read “The Final Problem” & “The Adventure of the Empty House"

• Characterization of Sherlock Holmes

• Grammar:  Wk3 - Complex Sentences & Commas

• Grammar:  Wk3 - The Complex Sentence (3 pages)

 

Links for This Week

Video, audio, and pdf versions of "The Final Problem"

Video, audio, and pdf versions of "The Empty House"

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. G