Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 5 (Sept. 25)

Greetings!

 We had a productive day in class today.  We began our class with a quiz on the “Research Process Timeline.”  I wasn’t as concerned that the students had committed all of the names of the steps to memory, but that they had taken time to think about them.  We filled in the blanks on a timeline that I drew on the board and then discussed which steps of the process were easiest and which were the hardest.  For most of the class, the writing on the first rough draft seems to the task the will be the hardest.  My encouragement to them was to not put it off.  Procrastinating gives temporary relief, but in the long run, it generally leads to unnecessary stress and possibly a poor quality product.

Because I wanted to cover more about the outlines and some grammar, I chose to not go over an ACT/SAT writing prompt.  I did give to the students a two sample rubrics about how the SAT writing tests are scored.  Additionally, I gave them handouts about the essay required by the Common Application.  Some of the students are at that place where they’re looking at colleges and filling out applications.  I will be glad to help them with any essays, now or in the future, that they need to write. 

A large portion of our time was spent on some Grammar.  Teaching grammar is a curious business.  When grammar has a direct connection to a student’s writing, the lesson sticks.  When it’s simply an academic pursuit, it is often in one ear and out the other.  Hopefully, today’s lesson will stick at least a little.  We discussed phrases:  prepositional, participial, gerund, and infinitive.  The last three are verbal phrases and would be considered a topic in advanced grammar.

In the research paper writing process, the students were to have the informal outlines done for today, and the detailed outline is due next week.  At this point, a lot of the research needs to be done.  Many times, some research will continue as the paper is being written, but the bulk of it should be completed in order to compose that detailed outline.

I've included a couple of extra blog posts this week with links to other sources that I thought might be helpful for the class.  While we cover the pertinent material in the class, sometimes I find other videos or websites that say it better than I did.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Detailed Outline

-- Phrases Worksheet: 

     -- Preposition Phrases (second page of the attachment)

     -- Participial Phrases

     -- Gerund Phrases

     -- Infinitive Phrases

Blogs this week:

Class Notes

Links for Writing Outlines

Week 5 -- Helpful Videos

Have a great weekend.  It looks like the weather will be marvelous!

Mrs. Prichard