Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18)

Greetings!

We had a good day in class and covered a lot of ground.

Quick Write

For today's Quick Writes, we had the following prompts:

1 -- Contribute to the list of Quick Write ideas to be used for my classes for the rest of the year.

2 -- Write about a sports mis-hap that happened to you or that you know about.

3 -- November 18 is National Princess Day and November 16, 1553, was the day that Queen Elizabeth I became the queen of England following the death of her sister, Mary.  Write about any royalty that you are especially interested in.

Words of the Day

We had no words because I anticipated the class time to be too full.

Homework Discussion

We went around the room, and the students shared where they were in the process of their papers and what challenges they were experiencing.  Some common themes about their challenges came up:  time management issues, difficulties finding the right resources, personal challenges, overcoming perfectionism,  refining and defining the focus and topic, etc.  The students are all in different places in their progress, but they're all moving forward.  Some rough drafts have been handed in the the past couple of days, and I will get them back to students over the weekend.  

One of the common challenges was finding enough resources. I recommended trying ProQuest or EBSCO, online databases of peer reviewed, academic articles.  Most local, public libraries have access to these articles and journals.

Presentations

Students are required to present something to their class.  It can be a quick overview of all their topics or a focused look at one aspect.  They can have some kind of visual aid to help them in their presentation.  Lots of students use PowerPoint slides, but they could use a poster or use some other object.  Because we have a large class, the presentations will need to be short (10 minutes), about which some students are really glad.  I showed them a short, humorous video about giving presentations.  I'm also posting some of next week's assignments, because they're related to our presentation.  

Below is our Presentation schedule:

December 2 -- Michael, Gabi, Philip, Levi, Tyler, Jessie

December 9 -- Benjamin, Elliot, Josie, David, Kara, Maria

December 16 -- Ellie, Ethan, Carson, Brooke, Leighton

Sample Paper Reading

Students took some time to read a sample paper by one of my students from about 8 years ago. This was a well-written paper, but not perfect.  They were told to look for what the writer did well and what was not as strong.  

Helpful Resources

In the links below I've included some websites that might be helpful at this stage of their writing.  Some students might need help with in text citations and the Works Cited page.  Even though we've talked about this multiple time, it's always a little different when you're actually doing it.  One resource listed below is something that one of the students, Kara, said she was using.  Supernotecard is an online note-taking app.

We won't have class next week. Enjoy your family and Thanksgiving weekend.

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Class (12/2)

Research Paper Assignments

Research Paper Rough Draft #1

Research Paper Rough Draft #2

Research Paper Rough Draft #3 (opt.)

Presentation Assignments

Presentation Outline

Presentation Self Evaluation

Links for This Week

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 18) 

Quick Write (11/18)

Zoom Recording -- November 18

Presentation Rubric

SuperNoteCard

How to Sound Smart (TEDTalk)

How to Give a Great Presentation (video)

EasyBib Writing Center

Purdue OWL General MLA Format

Purdue OWL Works Cited page

MLA Works Cited page on Google Docs (video)

MLA Works Cited page in Microsoft Word (video)

How to Format Entries on a Works Cited page
 

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 12 (November 19)

 Greetings!

A good class today!  

Our Quick Write today was to write about goals (short term or long term) and/or bucket list items.  At this time in students' lives, they are often thinking about the future and makeing plans.  As an older person, I often contemplate  who some goals/dreams have stayed the same and how some have drastically changed.

We covered 3 Latin roots in our Words of the Day:

ambi - Latin, ambiguu, having double meaning or both -- derivatives:  ambidextrous, ambiguous, ambidexterity

aud - Latin, audire, to hear -- derivatives:  auditory, audio, audience, auditorium.  (by the way, audacious comes from audacia, boldness)

aqua -- Latin, aqua, water --  derivatives:  aquatic, aquarium. aqueduct, aquifer

We had a short discussion about the challenges of writing this research paper.  On a scale from 0 to 5, students were somewhere between 1 and 3.  Most of them found time, motivation, and momentum to be concerns.  Other issues that came up were the challenges in organizing information, figuring out what to include and what to leave out, and finding the right balance between opinion and facts.  The students are each in a different place in their processes -- some are on the first draft, the second draft, or the third draft.  

Our other discussion topics for the morning included common grammar topics (commas, semicolons, and the like), documentation, and presentations.  We watched two videos about how to give presentations.  One student asked about using a video, which would certainly be OK.  As I told him, the key issue for this presentation is for students to share their information with their classmates.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Week.  Be blessed!

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for the upcoming weeks:

-- Work on Rough Draft #1, Rough Draft #2, Rough Draft #3 (if you want), or Final Draft

-- Work on presentations.

-- Citations Quiz

Links for this week:

Class Notes

How to Sound Smart TEDtalk

How to Give a Great Presentation

How to Give an Awesome PowerPoint Presentation

Avoiding Death by PowerPoint (TED Talk)

Links for Documentation

Videos for Formatting in MLA, pt. 1

Videos for Formatting in MLA, pt. 2

EasyBib Format GuidelinesEasyBib

Citation Machine

Cite This For Me

Purdue OWL Research Guides

Insert Citation in Google Docs

How to Create a Hanging Indent in Google Docs

Creating Citations in Google Docs (video)

Formatting a Works Cited Page in Google Docs (video)

Formatting a Works Cited Page In Word (video)

Adding References and Citations in Word (video)

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 3 (Sept. 17)

 Greetings!

We had a great class yesterday.  This is a good, conscientious group of students.

We started with a Quick Write.  For today's prompt, I offered them 2 options.  September 15 was Agatha Christie's birthday, and she is known as the "queen of mysteries" with over 80 books to her name.  She also wrote the world's longest running play, The Mousetrap.  Students could write their opinions about mysteries, a mysterious event, or an original mystery.  The other option was related to National Apple Dumpling Day (Sept. 17).  Baked apple goods seem to be the quintessential fall food.  Students could write about apples or some other favorite fall food.

Following our Quick Write, I went over some Google Classroom "Protocols," hopefully clarifying questions that students have had.

• 99.9% of your assignments are on Google Classroom (GC)
• You can hand in work on GC or in class but NOT BOTH
• If you do the assignment on Google Classroom, remember to "Turn In"  (button in the upper right corner of the window.)
• If you have handed in an assignment during class (the paper version), please the Google Classroom assignment alone.  I will assign a grade and return in.
• Some assignments can ONLY be done on Google Classroom. When that is the case, those homework assignments will be designated (GC)
• For the Final Drafts of your essays, follow these steps IN ORDER:
• Open your Rough Draft document, select/highlight all of the content (Ctrl-A) and copy it (Ctrl-C)
• Open the Google Classroom assignment for the Final Draft and then open the document/template.
• Paste the contents of the Rough Draft onto this document.
• Make corrections and revisions. (DO NOT MAKE CORRECTIONS WHILE IT IS STILL IN THE ROUGH DRAFT DOCUMENT!)
• Turn it in!

This week, students were to take notes of class, and these notes are due in class next week.  Sometimes when we are covering a significant amount of content, I will have students take notes and then turn in copies of those notes.  Students can hand in the paper copies of their notes next week OR upload copies to the Google Classroom assignment.  

Students are taking part in some of the instruction of the various topics related to research writing.  This week Katie and Laura led the discussion/instruction regarding MLA paper format.  They thoroughly covered the bases.  (Here's a link to a copy of their whiteboard.)

We took the rest of our class time to go over the Rough Drafts of their essays in a peer review session.  Students traded papers and read through one another's essays, making comments about content, organization, and mechanics.  I was pleased with how thoughtful and intentional they were and how thorough they were in filling out the peer review worksheet.  (Those who were absent will receive scanned copies of their rough drafts.)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

-- Final Draft of Essay #1

     -- This should be submitted online via Google Classroom 

     -- Bring the rough draft with my corrections to class on 9/24

-- The MLA Format Quiz (GC)

-- A Copy of your 9/17 notes

-- 3 potential topic ideas for the Research Paper

Other Links for This Week

Videos for Formatting in MLA, pt. 1

Videos for Formatting in MLA, pt. 2

EasyBib Format Guidelines

Class Notes for 9/17

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 11 (November 9)

Greetings!

This week we did some problem solving for specific difficulties relating to format/citations. As students are working on their papers, they don't always know what they don't know (or can't do) until they encounter difficulties.  I showed them how to do hanging indents in both Google docs and Word.  We discussed how what to put between the parentheses of an in text citation.  

In a short time, students are to present their information to the class.  They can share the highlights of their topics or focus on just one aspect.  Some students have not done PowerPoint or Google slide presentations.

Students handed in their second rough drafts, which I will go over this week and hand back next week.  Next week we will do some peer reviews.

Assignments for Next Week

-- Work on your presentation

Links for This Week

Class Notes

How to Sound Really Important (TED Talk)

How to Give Great Presentations:  An Alternative to Bullet Points

Powerful Presentation Skills Simply Stated

Changing Educational Paradigms (One of my favorites ever!)

How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint (TED Talk)

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Videos for Formatting in MLA, Part 2

Videos for Formatting Documents in MLA, Part 1

Choosing a Topic Video Links

Choosing a topic for a research paper can be challenging.  Making sure you have chosen a topic that works for a thesis-driven paper is also challenging.  Below are a few links that might prove helpful as you wrestle with this part of the research writing assignment:

How to Develop a Good Research Topic

Choosing a Research Paper Topic

The Thesis-Driven Research Paper

Week 5 -- Helpful Videos for Note-taking

Class,
Below is a list of helpful videos related to note-taking and research. 

Writing Videos
Taking Notes
Making Note Cards
How to Avoid Plagiarism
How to Write a Great Paper
Note-Taking Strategies
MLA Style
Writing a paper
Thoughts on Writing

Writing 3 Class Notes -- October 24

Greetings!

We had a good and productive class this week.  This is a hard-working group of students!

We've been working hard on ACT/SAT writing test questions, so we took a break for something more light-hearted.  For our Quick Write this week, we used cards from a game entitled "Man Bites Dog."  Each student got 6 cards; a noun, adjective, adverb, or verb was on each card.  They object of the game is to develop a headline using those words.  For our writing exercise, they not only created headlines, but wrote a news story to go with it. Once again, we had some creative endeavors.  I love those first minutes of class when their heads are bent down towards their papers, and their pens or pencils are working quickly.

We discussed how the students are progressing on their research papers.  I think it's helpful to do this as a group.  Many times one student asks a question that others are wondering about, too.  Most of them are needing to do more research and increase the quantity of material which they are presenting in their papers.  As I read through the rough drafts last week, I gave some ideas for expansion of their topic.

Re-organizing is also a common task at this point.  Thanks to computers and word processing software, editing and reformatting does not mean having to re-type the entire paper.  Many parents remember the days of typewriters, carbon paper, and "white out."  Do you think we can convince our children that they have it so much easier?

As a class we brainstormed a bit about what the presentation portion of their work could look like.  Some topics may lend themselves more easily to this than others.  Their presentation needs to have two components:  an oral presentation and a visual aspect.  For the oral presentation, we discussed that they can either give the primary points of their paper or choose one section that is representative of the whole.  For the visual part, they can bring in charts, maps, poster, pictures, etc.  They can also put together a PowerPoint presentation.

We also looked at some examples of MLA formating.  On the newest version of Microsoft Word, the reference dropdown menu gives you boxes to fill in and then formats it according to the MLA styling for you. (Again, kids these days have it so much easier than we had it.)  If you're working with another word processing software, a handbook will give the exact formatting.  Another help is the Son of Citation website.  Web pages can be confusing to cite; this site is especially helpful for that.  Some college professors like this website and encourage their students to use it.  Others consider it "cheating."  Since my goal is to have students learn this format, they can use it .... but there may be a test to see if they really know it!

Next week we'll discuss some specifics regarding writing styles and editing paragraphs and sentences.

Assignments for next week:

-- Presentation plan --- something to hand in!

-- Continue working on the rough draft

Keep up the good work!

Mrs. Prichard

Helpful Blog Entries:

This week's blog

Citing Sources

Plagiarism 

Helpful MLA Websites

Helpful MLA Citation Sites

Research papers are challenging.  Not only are you required to come up with an original, thought-provoking thesis, but you have to research primary and secondary sources for enough information to back up your position.  And on top of that, you need to use your sources with integrity and give credit to those who are experts on your topic.  And if that's not enough, you need to follow specific guidelines for letting your reader know where you found this information.  Whew!!

Below is a list of helpful websites that will help with the MLA format.

Son of Citation Machine:  This website does the formating for you.  Type in the essential information, click on "Make Citation" and it gives you the entry that you can copy and paste into your paper.  Some college professors encourage their students to use this so that they have the correct format.  Others consider it cheating and the lazy student's way out.  I don't mind if students use it because I feel it's part of the learning process.

Easy Bib:  This site is similar to Son of Citation.  Like the above site, I think these are especially helpful with non-traditional sources.  Citing books with one author is not difficult.  Other print and non-print forms are challenging.

Purdue OWL:  One of my favorite writing resources is the Purdue Online Writing Lab.  If you go to the homepage, you will find just about any topic related to writing essays.

MLA formating videocast:  This Youtube video helps students format their papers.  It refers to Microsoft Word 2007. Some students already know a lot about using Word; others have parents who can help.  This is a helpful video if this information is needed.

MLA Works Cited videocast:  Another Purdue OWL video specific to the Works Cited page.

Durham College MLA style:  This is a longer video, but it's very complete!  In fact, I'd really like everyone to take the 30 minutes and give this video a careful "listen."

These are only a few websites.  If you need more help, google "MLA citation," and you will find a plethora of options.