Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 15 (December 17)

 Greetings!

We had a marvelously full day today.  I always feel so proud of my students on our presentation days.  They have worked hard on their research papers, and listening to them talk about aspects of their topics allows the rest of the class to appreciate their hard work. 

Another aspect of the presentations is that the students are able to give visual images for the information that they had been putting into words.  Whether it's the animals of the national forests, bridges and buildings, or paintings by Degas, these items provide broader representations of their topics.

Today we heard about the Dutch language, Degas and Impressionism, technology's benefits and pitfalls, cultural differences in architecture, the national parks, and the history of the piano.  We had some technical difficulties for one of the slide presentations, but other than that, the students were wonderful!

Now, all that's left to do is get the final drafts in. As I told them last week, I will take any work (except rough drafts) until Sunday at 5:00 p.m. 

I would love to get everything graded and have grades out before Christmas, but that might happen.  I have final drafts from all three classes, so the whole process might take a little longer.  I will send electronic copies of my notes and rubrics, but if a student wants the physical copy, he/she should let me know.  It could be picked up at CHAT in January, or I could mail it.

This class has been a pleasure.  May all of the students have a well-deserved rest!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Links for this week

(Note:  I've included links to the slide presentations.)

Class Notes

History of the Piano (Abby Kate)

Technology (Will)

National Parks (Isaac)

Architecture (Jacob)

Dutch Language (Laura)

Degas (Katie)

Low Cost Weddings (Annika)

Trafficked (Dellia)

Chemical Warfare (Lilly)

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 14 (December 10)

 Greetings!

Now, we are truly down to the home stretch for Writing 3 and our research papers.  In class we talked about that bittersweet feeling when you near the end of a bigger project; most people feel both relief and a bit of a letdown when they finish something that has taken a lot of work.  

We started class with a Quick Write, using these prompts:

Option 1: What is your favorite restaurant? Why? What do you like to order there? Option 2: What is your least favorite kind of music? Why don’t you like it? Option 3: What is the most generous thing you’ve done? Would you do it again? Why?  

I had chosen these prompts from a list from another class, but the music-related prompt set us up for Martha's presentation.  

Following the Quick Write discussion, I covered again some of the details about in-text citations and the Works Cited page.  This is one of those topics that only fully makes sense when you are actually writing a paper and using that knowledge to correctly document your sources.  

We had two strong Presentations today:  Annika shared about weddings and low cost options, and Martha spoke about music.  Both were well-prepared and thought-provoking.  Next week we will only do presentations, and these are the people presenting:  Sophia, Abby Kate, Will, Laura, Isaac, Jacob, Brad, and Katie.  (No Quick Writes or instruction!)  We are not allowed to eat in our classroom, but I will bring some treats for afterwards.

I reminded the students that their Final Drafts are due next week (Dec. 17), but I also told them that I would take any work until 5:00 pm on Sunday, Dec. 20.  However, I will not take any more rough drafts after next 8:00 AM, Wednesday, Dec. 16.  I spend almost an hour on rough drafts of research papers, going over not only the body of the paper but also each reference on the Works Cited page.  Students should also feel free to have peers, parents, or siblings go over their papers.

Note:  Students, if you hand in anything between now and next Thursday, please also send me an email so that I know it's there.  

Until next week,

Mrs. Prichard

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 13 (December 3)

 Greetings!

It's hard to believe that we're in December already and that there are only 2 weeks left.  I feel like I'm just getting to know them as students, and we're going to be done.  

For this week's Quick Write, I offered the following prompts:

• Option 1: On December 2, 1867, Charles Dickens gave his first reading in America. People waited in mile long lines in New York to hear him read. Is there an author, speaker, or other person whom you would wait in a long line to hear? Why?
• Option 2: On December 1, 1824, the results of the election went to the House of Representatives because no presidential candidate had received a majority of the total electoral votes in the election, and according to the 12th amendment, Congress turned to the House to decide. What do you think of the election results and the efforts to find evidence of fraud?
• Option 3: On December 4, 1783, George Washington bid farewell to his officers, leaving military life before being elected in 1797 the first president of the United States. Do you have a favorite found father, military leader, or world leader? Who and why?

Following our Quick Write discussion, I went over the various rubrics that we're using with our final products.  For the Presentations, I will evaluate the students with a rubric, students will use the same rubric for a self evaluation, and classmates will use a shortened version for a peer evaluation.  Rubrics allow for a more holistic evaluation; a student can be strong in one point but weaker in another, and a rubric acknowledges those differences.  An important part of learning (and thinking) is to both reflect on work done and to think about the work of others.  I also use a rubric for the Final Draft of the Research Paper; students will fill out the same rubric as a Self-evaluation.

Here are the links to the Self-Evaluation Rubrics

Presentation Self-Evaluation Rubric

Research Paper Self Evaluation Rubric

After looking at those rubrics, we had our first Student Presentations.  Joseph told us about the dangers of rotational falls and frangible technology in the context of cross-country eventing.  Lilly, whose paper is about World War I, chose to focus on one aspect, the details of the chemical warfare of WWI.  Finally, Dellia had done research about the issue of trafficking in the United States and shared some sad, yet important statistics about this concern.  As I told the class, they've worked hard on their papers, and not only is it good for the rest of the class to learn some of what they've learned.  

With two weeks left, students should not only be finalizing their presentations, but they should be finishing up their papers.  Every student is in a different place and in varying stages of rough draft revisions and final draft preparations.  As soon as a student has a draft ready for me to go over, he/she should submit it to Google Classroom AND send me an email.  I'll do my best to get it back ASAP.  If there's a concern about a draft or any questions, please let me know.  The Final Draft of the Research Paper is due on December 17, which is the last day of class.

Here are the links to the Google Classroom assignments for each of the drafts:

Rough Draft #1

Rough Draft #2

Rough Draft #3 (opt)

Final Draft

Looking forward to more presentations:

December 10

Sophia

Annika

Abby Kate

Martha

December 17

Will

Laura

Isaac

Jacob

Brad

Katie  

We're down to the homestretch!

Mrs. Prichard

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature