Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 9 (October 23)

Greetings!

My apologies for the lateness of the week's e-mail; it's been a busy week at the Prichard house.  You never know when it's going to be this nice again for yard work.

Our beginning of class activity was to work through one of the ACT test prompts, which proved to be timely since this Saturday was a test day for the ACT.  The question we worked on was #10 and had to do with dress codes. I had the students individually brainstorm for ideas that both supported and opposed a dress code.  Then, I assigned them to a side (pro or con), and had them work together to come up with the main points of an essay.  Strong thinkers are able to look fully at both sides of an argument.

I took some time to have a class-wide check-in about their progress.  When working on a research paper, students often find that one step of the project is harder than others.  Whether it is researching, organizing information, the actual writing of the paper, or simply finding enough time to get it all done, each and every student encounters small to overwhelmingly large road blocks.  Many times, procrastination sets in when we reach those personally challenging spots.

We talked more about MLA formatting and the Works Cited pages.  For the most part, the Works Cited page is done according to a formula.  The harder part is figuring out exactly what needs to be cited and how to cite it in the body of the paper.

A reminder of our upcoming due dates:

Class	Discuss	Hand In
Week 10	Revising & Editing	Works Cited Draft
Week 11	Giving Presentations	Rough Draft #2
Week 12	MLA formatting	Presentation Plan
Week 13	Presentations	Rough Draft #3   (opt)
Week 14	Presentations	Final Draft
Week 15	Presentations	Final Draft

The Works Cited draft is due next week; the next rough draft is due in two weeks.  It doesn't take too much time to do the Works Cited, so students should also be working on their rough drafts.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Works Cited draft

This week's links:

Helpful videos for MLA in-text Citations

Class Notes

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard