Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 1 (August 29)

Greetings!

We had a great first day in class.  I'm glad to be back in class at CHAT and working with some hard-working homeschool students.  Though the set-up at Grace is different, it seems to me that students are doing well with the change.  I anticipate a great year!

My focus for the first week is to get to know the students and to introduce the materials.  I start all of my classes with a Quick Write, and today's was "I am _________ summer is over because ______ ..."  The aim of the Quick Write is to get the students thinking in a "writing sort of way."  The writing prompts for these are either light-hearted or seasonal or related to a current event.  I collect and read them, but don't correct or grade them.  As the semester progresses, we will use ACT and SAT writing prompts as our Quick Writes.  

Another activity that I include at the beginning of class is a Word of the Day.  Since writing is made of words, I like to explore various types of words in order to expand our vocabulary.  Using a book of foreign words and phrases, I had the students select words that began with a letter on the "letter dice" that they rolled.  This week we had "yakuza" ( a Japanese gangster) and "android"  (a mobile robot usually with a human form).

I handed out the following papers to the class:

Classroom Policies

Writing 3 Syllabus

ACT/SAT Writing Prompts

Research Paper Rubric

30 Steps to a Research Paper

Parts of Speech Worksheet

Week 1 -- The Sentence

We discussed the Classroom Policies handout, and part of their homework assignment is to have parents read and initial it. On it I mention 2 additional online resources that I use for the class:  a blog (http://chatwriting3.blogspot.com) and Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)  On the blog I will post the content of the Class Notes e-mails, copies of any handouts, video lessons, and posts with any interesting information or links related to our studies. (You will notice the sidebar on the right that has the weekly handouts for the Research Paper.)  Dropbox is an online document storage site, and I will have all of the handouts available there.  I will also send as attachments any papers handed out in class.  This may seem like a bit of overkill (having information in 3 places), but since I've been doing this I haven't had any instances of missing worksheets, etc.  You will be getting an invitation to join the Dropbox folder for Writing 3.  

Our primary discussion this week centered on the specifics of a thesis-driven paper, possible topics, narrowing topics, and brainstorming research questions.  The very first step in writing a research paper is to decide on a research-worthy topic and also to decide on the stand or opinion that will focus and drive the paper.

We didn't have time to discuss the grammar for the week, so we will cover twice as much next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Have a parent read through the Classroom Policies handout and initial it.

-- List 5 - 10 possible topics with a thesis idea for each

-- Narrow the topic to 2 topics with leading questions for each.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard