Writing 3 Class Notes -- October 3

Greetings!
My apologies for the later-than-usual class notes.  Some weeks just seem to be busier than others.

In lieu of a light-hearted Quick Write, we took time with one of the ACT writing questions.  This question asked the students to respond to the idea of whether or not high school should be increased to 5 years giving students more time for academic work, community involvement, and extra-curricular activities.  As we've worked through some of the sample ACT or SAT questions, we discuss strategies for brainstorming ideas and them organization.  Rather than work all together, I divided the students into 2 groups to do their own brainstorming and organizing.  Both groups did a great job thinking seriously and critically about the question, coming up with valid points for each side of the argument, and organizing their ideas into a chart.
Discussed MLA styling, plagiarism, presentation plan.

This week, they handed in the Detailed Outlines for their papers.  Some were more detailed than others, but we discussed that outlines will continue to develop and even change as they write.  Next week, the first Rough Draft is due.  They will write 2 rough drafts for this paper; for this one, I will be looking specifically for content and organization.  In other words, is the content presented logically and is there enough information to support the claims and thesis?  I may mark the occasional grammatical error, but that won't be the focus of this paper.  By the second rough draft, the content/ information and the organization should be in good shape, and I will read for mechanics.

The two steps of the paper that we discussed this week were MLA citations and the initial plan for the presentation.  The MLA formatting can be a challenging topic, and I anticipate that we'll cover it a number of times.  Also, what information and ideas must be cited is often unclear for writers.  I will have more information on that for them.  If time permits, I'll send them some links that will be helpful before the class next week.

Assignment for Next Week:

-- Rough Draft #1!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard