Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 7 (October 15)

 Greetings!

This would have been our fall break, so I feel that we should all get a merit badge for having a good class today.  For our Quick Write, I asked students to write about a strong opinion that they have.  Then, they were to give three specific points about that opinion.  Following that, they were to think about what the other side might think.  The goal of this Quick Write was to encourage the students to think about how others think about the same topics.  As I told them, being able to actively listen to others while trying to understand their perspectives is a sign of maturity.  In this day and age, God needs us to value those around us, whether we agree with their strong opinions or not.  (By the way, one of the most controversial topics for all classes today was "Does pineapple belong on pizza?")

We had a short Words of the Day portion of class.  Here are our words:

comma -- fr. Latin, comma, and Greek komma, which means a "piece which is cut off." --   The comma is that little bit of punctuation that separates parts of a sentence.

noun -- fr. Latin nomen, "name" -- The noun is the part of speech that names a person, place, things, or ideas.

veb -- fr. Latin verbum, "word" -- The verb is the part of speech that communicates action or state of being.

We covered the following topics today:  narrowing and focussing topics; developing leading questions; finding good resources; taking notes, and plagiarism. When writing research papers, students need to consider these various topics as they do their research and start writing their papers.  

A major topic to consider when writing research papers is the issue of plagiarism, and one of their homework assignments is to read 4 short articles about the consequences of plagiarism.  

For the last part of class, I divided the students into 2 groups to share their topics and thesis statements.  I enjoyed listening to their conversations.  Their rough drafts of their research papers are due next week.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Quick Write 10/15

-- Truth or Consequences Packet

-- Research Paper Rough Draft

Links for This Week

Class Notes

The Research Proposal assignment

Research Paper Outline assignment

Information about Plagiarism

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature