Writing 2 Class Notes--Week 14 (April 27)

 Greetings!

Today is our penultimate class–the one before the last one!   We started the class period with a Quick Write, and today's prompt was connected with the fact that it is National Poem in Your Pocket Day.  I gave the students a sheet of paper with an extra large pocket outline. They were to write a poem within the lines of that pocket.  After reading William Carlos William’s famous short poem, “This is Just to Say,” students composed their own “This is Just to Say '' poem.  Perhaps we will get to hear one or two of these for our Poetry Event?

After the Test, they had the opportunity to begin their very last Essay assignment which was a  Reflection Paper. For this paper, they are to write about what they learned this year, what they learned about themselves this year, and what did and didn't work well this year.  If they didn’t finish in class, they can finish it at home and turn it in next week.  (At the bottom of this email is a link to an article about the value of reflection as a part of learning.) As a reminder, the Essay Re-Write was due this.

As they finished their essays, students were invited to compose a “Blackout Poem.”  In this last poetry writing opportunity, students choose a page of text, in this case a page taken from a classic novel, and they skimmed it to find interesting words, phrases, ideas/ themes.  After lightly circling those words with pencil, they attempted to arrange them on a separate piece of paper into a poem.  They could find any filler words like “a”, “the",  "it” from the text page as well as needed.  After that, it was time to get blacking out.  Using their Sharpie, they could draw a few images that represented the poem and then they blacked out everything except their boxed words and images.  Since most of the hard work from our semester is finished, we relaxed a bit during this stage and played some music while they blacked out their poems.  The ones who finished displayed their poems for the class to see. They are due next class period.

The rest of the class time was used to prepare for the Poetry Event to be held next week.  We will be meeting in the Student Lounge downstairs and each student will be performing two pieces of poetry.  The committees are working well together to pull this event off!  

Next week is the final week, and I will accept homework until Saturday, May 6 at 7:00 AM.  Once the CHAT classes are done, students really lose momentum for completing late homework.  My plan is to get final grades out within the week.  

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Any old homework

-- Essay Re-Write

-- The Reflection Paper

–Black Out Poem

-- Poetry Event Preparation!

Links for this Week:

“This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams

Writing 2 Class Notes -- Week 14 (April 27)

The Value of Reflection Paper

See you next week!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 13 (April 20)

 Hello There!

We had a fast-paced class today as we approached the end of the year.  

As usual, we started the day with a Quick Write, and here are the prompts:

• Today is National Look Alike Day.  Do you have a “Doppelganger”.  Tell about a “look alike” experience you have had–or would like to have.

• It is also National Lima Bean Respect Day.  What are your feelings about this legume?

• Tomorrow (4/21) is National Kindergarten Day.  What is something you remember from your Kindergarten days, when you were about 5 years old?  Do you recall toys you played with or activities you liked to do?

The Final Drafts of the A.I Prediction Essays were due today, and I introduced the next writing assignment, which is an Essay Re-Write.  For this essay, students can choose any essay they have written this year for Writing 1, or they can choose an essay that they've written for another class.  They should take one of their final drafts and look for ways to improve it.  I often suggest that students choose the essay that they got the worst grade on or that they want to spend some more time on. This writing assignment is due next week, and students should hand in the original along with the re-write.  (Note:  This isn't our regular pre-write to rough draft to final draft process.)

To conclude our Grammar for the year, I have a Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take next week.  For this week, they have a review sheet that they should complete and then correct. (The Key is on the Google Classroom assignment.)  Correcting their own work will further help them review and will be much more beneficial than waiting a week to see if they got the answers right.  

For our Literature portion of the class, we spent some of our time talking about the poems from last week’s reading assignment.  I broke the class into groups, and each group focused on a group of assigned poems.They discussed the highlights (and lowlights) and then each group shared their insights. 

After that, students had the opportunity to try their hands at writing some original poetry.  We watched a video of local poet Rudy Francisco perform a piece called “My Honest Poem” and then read an example based on his performance.  Students had time in  class to compose their own “My Poem” based on the examples.  I could tell some really got into “the zone” writing these and my hope is to hear some of these performed at our Poetry Event.  

Speaking of the  Poetry Event, which will be the last day of class , we spent the rest of the class getting into more details about this project.  It takes a lot of work to put on an event like this, and to split up the labor,  each student signed up for a role on a committee.  Their grade on this project will depend on not only their poetry performance techniques, but also how well they worked as a group.  

We have a couple fun weeks planned to finish out our year, so let's make sure you get caught up on any late work.

Assignments for Next Week:

--Choose 2 poems for your contribution to the Poetry Jam (Here is the scoring/committee information)

–Finish composing “Where I Am From” ( if not finished in class)

-- Complete the Essay Re-Write

-- Complete the Mastering the Comma Review sheet and correct it. (Bring the corrected version to class)

Links for This Week

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 12 (April 20)

Writing 2 Class Notes–Week 12 (April 13)

 Greetings!  

The weather is turning for sure now.  No Spring for us Minnesotans–just straight to Summer.  I saw many more wearing lighter clothes and not a Winter jacket to be found!  (Now, as I prepare to send this out, it looks more like Winter, again!)

We delved more into our Poetry Unit by watching three poets perform their work for our QuickWrite.  Students were to see if they could identify a theme as well as observing performance techniques and style.  We are compiling ideas for their own Poetry Event to be held the last week of class.  Below are the links to the poetry clips.

 For the Literature part of the class, we did Jigsaw groups.  The students were first in groups that discussed one of the assignment poems.  Then I remixed the groups so that a group had a representative for each of the poems.  From both groups I heard some thoughtful comments about both the surface and deeper meanings of the poetry.  Well done, class!  As homework, they are to read Week 13 poems and respond to two.

After that, we had a very brief Grammar teaching on italics and quotation marks  Students had time to work on the two worksheets in class.  

Lastly, we discussed the Poetry Event that will be held the last week of class. Not only will students be performing two pieces of poetry, but they will be organizing and running the event themselves.  I find that when students are given ownership, there is more motivation to do their best.   We talked about the three committees and the duties they will need to perform in order for the event to be successful.  They are to think about which committee they would like to be a part of and be ready to report back next week.

As a reminder, the A.I. Prediction Final drafts are due next week. For those who got their rough drafts in late, I will go over them by this weekend and will let students know when they are ready to revise.

Blessings on your week!  

Mrs. G

Homework 

Week 13 Poems

Poetry Response Packets

Week 12 Grammar 

–Italics & Quotation Marks

–Using Italics

A.I. Prediction Rough Draft

A.I. Prediction Final Draft

Links for This Week

Poetry Clips for QuickWrite

Poetry Event Committees & Grades Information

Writing 2 Class Notes–3/30 (Week 11)

 

I have been looking forward to sharing poetry with this class for two reasons:  first because I love it, and second because I believe we have some natural-born poets in this particular class!

To start out, we tried our hands at poetry in our Quick Write today.  I asked students to think of three questions–(serious, funny, or mundane) and to write them in a list.  We took a few minutes to arrange them into a poem while we listened to music.  I am looking forward to reading them!

We had two Words of the Day today:

HONE: to make sharper or more effective

OPIATE: a narcotic drug that causes sleep and relieves pain

Their A.I. Prediction Rough Drafts are due today.  Some students said it was challenging to find information on A.I. because it is very new.  I reminded them they are to make “an educated guess” based on what they already know and whatever research they can find.  Like a pundit, it’s OK if they are wrong–but communicate it confidently!  They should tailor their predictions to what their target audience would want to know.

For the Grammar portion of the class, we had a special lesson on the semicolon.  Most people (students and adults alike) are confused about the bit of punctuation; they use it as a comma or as a colon.  I use the Reese's peanut butter cups as an object lesson.  Ask your students about how the semicolon is like this candy.  They also have 2 worksheets to practice putting semicolons and colons in the right place. Most of the students finished these worksheets in class.

The Literature portion of  class was dedicated to poetry. Some students enjoy poetry and some are not crazy about it.  We talked about how poetry is art made with words.  I told them that it is said that poets are born–but the rest of us can learn how to write verse and enjoy it.  :) 

After refreshing ourselves on last week’s poetry selections, we had a short discussion on themes and what stuck out to us.  It was interesting to hear their insights.  After that, we watched three poets perform their poetry and evaluated their style of delivery and whether or not we liked the poem itself.  My hope is that observing other poets will serve as inspiration for our own Class Poetry Slam at the end of the semester.  Their homework is to read the poems for next week and respond to two.  

Have a Wonderful Spring Break!

He is risen!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

• A.I./Prediction Pre-Write

• A.I. Prediction Rough Draft

• Poetry:  Read Wilcox (33), Thayer (34-35), Sandburg (p. 53-54), Williams (p 60-61), Johnson (41), Dunbar (p. 41 – 43)

• Week 12 Poetry (pdfs on Google Classroom)

• 2 Poetry Responses

• Grammar – Wk11:  The Colon

• Grammar – Wk11:  Using the Semicolon and Colon

Links for this Week:

QuickWrite