Moving Forward

For those of you that do not know yet, I will no longer be teaching this class.
I am so so sorry for the sudden change.

For more information, please see the following link:

A letter to 2nd period

Students, please take a few minutes to fill out this form.

http://goo.gl/uhxHmL



Moving forward, the website that you will be using is as follows:

samakoskyplhs.blogspot.com


Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding.

DFTBA (Don't Forget To Be Awesome),
Ms. Black

Character and Setting

Welcome to class. You need a book!

"Believe in your character.  Write with sincerity." - Glen Keane

"An author knows his/her landscape best; (s)he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his/her place." - Tony Hillerman

Do Now:
In your Writer's Notebook, at the top, under today's date (10/7), write to the following prompt:
Describe a time when you took a risk. Try to be as specific as you can in illustrating this event. Where were you? What was the experience like? What happened?

(We're going to use this in a bit.)

Today we will be focusing our attention on Character and Setting.

* Mentor Text Handout
* Activity - Read both examples. Annotate and chart what you learn about Character and Setting
* Note the differences between both texts
* (Re)write your own "Risk" scene using the mentor text as an example for style, detail, and richness
* Record ALL work in your notebook with the date/activity title

Getting our creative juices flowing

Good morning, seniors!

After we read, we have two goals today.

Goal #1: Score your Personal Statement

1. Open your final draft of your Personal Statement. (If you do not have the document I asked you to make a copy of last Friday, here is the link. You have to make a copy of it and share it with me.)
2. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and follow the directions under "Your Rubric."
3. You will need to assess your own essay and highlight the area of each section of the rubric that you believe you achieved. 
4. Once you have done that, explain your reasoning for giving yourself those scores using evidence from your essay. There is a box for you to do this on your document
5. If you have not shared this document with me before you leave today, your personal statement will be considered late, and it will affect your grade.

Goal #2: A Writing Activity

This is an in-class activity to get our creative juices flowing. Stay tuned.


Bonus: Take a look at this article later. It's called "7 Lessons Every Writer Must Learn." Much of what we'll be doing in the next few weeks will connect to lessons like these ones. The astute observer will notice that the writing activity we did today was based off of these 7 lessons.

Proofreading and Editing

Happy Friday!
Make sure you have a book out. 

I apologize for not being able to give you the document for your final draft of your personal statement earlier this week. As I said, I was attempting a new tool. As may always happen, it didn't go over as planned.

Because of this, you will need to open the file below and make a copy for yourself that you share with me.

When it asks you how to title it, please fill in the space where it says "full name" with your actual full name.

PERSONAL STATEMENT


Today's Goal:
This is the last day you have in class to work on your Personal Statements, so a few things need to happen:

• Proofread your work. Every time you start a new sentence, there should be a capital letter. Your sentences need to end in periods (or exclamation points, or question marks). 
• Does your verb tense match your nouns? Are you using the same verb tense throughout your essay?
• Look at your sentence length. Did you vary the sentence length? Is there a flow between sentences?

If you were to read your personal statement out loud, how would it sound? Sometimes reading a written piece of work out loud will help identify problems areas that sound weird. 

Last Ten Minutes:

On Monday, we are moving on. Now that the personal statement unit is over, we have a little bit more freedom in how we use our time. Not a lot, but enough that I am able to ask you to respond to the following questions:

We're moving on to fiction writing beginning next week. Knowing this, what do you want to be able to do and learn in our English class as we tackle it, and why? What would make your time in here the most valuable?


Your personal statement is due on Monday, October 10/6. Meaning your final draft should be in the document you created today, and shared with me. If it is not shared with me, it will be considered late.

Strong Introductions

Good Morning!

Let's read.

Today we're going to be looking at the first sentences of personal statements, or what's commonly known as the "hook."

Let's take a look at some example opening statements:

Your turn:

1. Open your own draft and review your first paragraph.
2. Keeping your overall purpose in mind, take five minutes to brainstorm 4 or 5 different opening sentences. Don't worry about quality. Just experiment with different ways you can get your reader's attention.
3. I'll let you know the next step when we get there.

Writing Response

Good Morning!

We'll be reading, as usual.


Goal #1: Revision
While some of you may have gotten good advice from some of your peers yesterday, we need to take a step back and work in smaller steps.

Today, you will work with partners. You should all be with new people. With these partners:

1. One person will read their personal statement to their partner.
2. The listener identifies at least one piece of praise, one question, and one wish about the reader's personal statement.
3. Trade roles.
4. After this process, I will give you all a copy of the rubric. Identify where your partner falls in each category on the rubric, and give some suggestions for how your partner could improve their score. I would recommend trading computers so that you don't have to worry about sharing it with them. 

Goal #2: Reflection 

When you return to your seats, after you've put your netbooks away, I have a small piece of reflective writing to ask of you. I will give you paper.

1. What worked well and what didn't work well in today's process of peer editing (being assigned a partner, reading, sharing suggestions, looking at the rubric)
2. What is working/not working in your personal statement?
3. What is your plan for fixing/improving upon those issues?

Writing Response Groups

Good morning!

Let's get reading!

You need tabs open for:

• This blog
• Google Drive
• Your Writer's Notebook

We have a few goals today.

Goal #1:

Check out the document I sent you. There should be a link to it in an email you received last night from Google Drive. You should also be able to locate it in the "Shared with Me" folder in your Google Drive. (You'll need to move this document to a better location by clicking "File" and then "Move to Folder..." Put it somewhere where it won't get lost.

This is where you will "turn in" your personal statement.

Goal #2:

Yesterday, you looked at the elements of the rhetorical framework in relation to the essays you were writing. Today, you will work in Writing Response Groups to look for ways to revise and improve your writing.

FIRST: Identify three questions that you have about your personal statement for your peers. (I will give you examples of the kind of questions you might want to ask.)


Once in your assigned groups, this is the procedure:

1. The reader will read their draft out loud to their group after sharing the three questions (s)he has about the product.
2. As the reader reads, other group members are listening, following along, and making notes using the framework provided.
3. Once the reader is finished, the group has five minutes to talk about what they heard using the Writing Response Group procedure: All members of the group should be able to state one piece of praise, one question, and one wish. One Timekeeper should keep track of the time. The reader does not speak during this time.
4. After five minutes, the reader gets 2 minutes to clarify anything or ask questions. The reader gets the final word.