Our Evil Class Essay

After our vocabulary review for Monday's quiz, we spent the majority of the hour reading our body paragraphs for our class essay exemplifying evil. Throughout each body paragraph, the main consistency was the plethora of specific examples - featuring quoted materials - that exemplified how each subject was the epitome of evil. As we move forward into more exemplification, keep bringing in more details and examples.

For the remainder of the class, you worked with a partner/partners, to complete the third, and last, grammar review. If you have any remaining work left, finish over the weekend and we will go over the answers on Monday.

Evil Wednesday

1. We finished all our words in Unit 4. Review will be Friday and quiz next week.

2. We finished our second grammar review by looking at comparative pronouns and identifying all parts of speech in sentences.

3. We resumed our exemplification unit by writing body paragraphs for our class essay on evil. During today's class, you worked on structure of exemplification paragraphs: a topic sentence that clarified your specific example and its connection to evil, supporting details that explain why and how this example is evil via quotes and multiple examples, and a concluding sentence summing up the evil example. Following a drafting, we discussed the need of transitioning quotes into your writing. At this point, you should not "shove" a full sentence quote into the middle of a paragraph. Instead, transition any outside evidence into your writing to avoid choppiness. In addition, we clarified how to cite in a paragraph. Remember, the citation is placed at the end of the sentence and the period goes after it. With this knowledge, you revised your paragraph for our class reading on Friday.

If you were absent, you will need to write a paragraph exemplifying your evil example for Friday's class.

The Great Grammar Review Takes Over Fifth Hour

Alas, the evilness that we wanted to write about today has been pushed aside in favor of the grammar review.

What happened today...

1. Vocab Experts for Unit 4 - we are 12 words in with 3 to go in this unit. From the growing number of "passes" in class, I highly recommend studying these words now in order to retain them for later.

2. We almost finished the grammar review -- we will go over the identifying parts of speech section tomorrow.

That means tomorrow's class will be Evil Wednesday featuring our class exemplification essay. Make sure you have your notes with at least one quote for your evil selection.

Exemplification

After four more vocabulary words, we began our next mode of discourse: exemplification, or more simply put as using specific examples to clarify an idea or topic.

To break this down into digestible components, we used the broad topic of "student" as our introductory sample.

 First, brainstorm all related words, ideas, objects, people, feelings, or anything that pops in your head regarding the topic. You do not want to limit your possible examples, so do not edit your ideas.

Second, select a theme or (better yet) a working thesis statement that could could cover several, specific examples. For example, we picked "stress" as an overall theme for students.

Third, select the relevant examples from your brainstorm and group like examples together. For instance, we removed the chaff not related to stress and then combined remaining examples into school-related stress, outside of school stress, and results of stress.

Fourth, select the range, or the order you would like your exemplification to follow. This may be chronological, spatial, least to most important, most to least, cause and effect, or any other way to keep your exemplification organized. In class, we chose cause and effect by ordering school, outside, and results.

Fifth, specify each examples. During our class practice, we went from having "a lot of homework" to exemplifying the hours, the practices, and the steps involved for PreCalc; we went from having "to do everything" to exemplifying counter service, customer service, drive-thru service and food preparation while working at McDonalds; we went from "everything in the past and present" to exemplifying scholarship, GPA and ACT statistics, and college major selection.

To further specificity, we read "Be Specific," an essay that calls upon all writers (that would be you) to bring in specific names of flowers, people, and places to help the reader better understand your exemplification.

And, we are not finished yet! To practice all of this exemplification, you created a class brainstorm on the board - the topic of "evil" haunting all of your examples. With all of these samples, we created a class thesis statement to define evil and help tie together our specific examples. Then, each of you selected one example of evil.

Lots to do outside of class tonight...

1. The final draft of the narrative essay is due by 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday. Please staple the scoring guide to the final draft.
2. On your selected evil example, jot down the reasons why this person/thing/entity/idea is evil. You will need to include at least one direct quote from a website or source. Do not forget to write down your website and address for citations purposes. (For this assignment, you may use .com and even Wikipedia for your sources.)
3. Complete the second grammar review. We will go over this in class tomorrow.

Narrative Peer Review Day

The majority of the class focused on peer reviewing your narrative first draft. Each student read his or her essay out loud, and the other students gave feedback and editing suggestions for improved writing. THE FINAL DRAFT - IN HARD COPY FORM - IS DUE ON TUESDAY BY 2:45 P.M.

The remainder of the time was for vocab experts and handing out your second grammar review, which is due Monday for our class time.

Prepositions

Today's class focused on our last part of speech, the preposition. Utilizing prepositional phrases, we created short stories -- without any verbs since these phrases do not partake in any verbage! Afterwards, we practiced identifying all the parts of speech, discussed how not to end a sentence with a preposition, and practiced the eradication of too many prepositional phrases in a sentence.

For the remainder of the class, you began working on the module review for englishgrammar101.com, in which you are practicing grammar and mechanical reviews in preparation for the Grammar Quest next week. Make sure to check off if you have mastered a skill, need some review, or need full study for each element. This will help individualize your studies and success on the quest.

See you on Friday with your narrative first drafts and the grammar handout completed!

P.S. The number is 372.

College Ap Tips & Samples

After recapping "Porkopolis," an excellent college application essay that reveals the narrator's genuine nature, passion, and dedication, we continued forward with tips for writing college ap essays and narrative essays. To further exhibit the qualities of voice, imagery, and random Bananas, we read two sample essays from Harvard, and you heard three sample essays from my former students. With all of these narrative and college ap samples, it was time to assign the narrative essay. You have 3 choices for your narrative assessment: game narrative, future narrative, or a college ap/scholarship prompt.

For Friday's class, you will need to have the first draft of your narrative for peer and teacher evaluation. This draft will need to be a Google document as we will be sharing drafts with each other over the course of the hour. Final draft will be due Tuesday, September 27, by 2:45 p.m. in hard copy format.

Warming Up, Punctuating, College Apping

1. Simultaneously, we briefly met to review your narrative warm-ups while you copied down unit 4 vocabulary. For those of you camping, that means I will need to see your narrative warm-ups for credit points.
2. After assigning vocab words to begin tomorrow, we reviewed punctuation by having students go to the board and correct sentences for comma, semicolon, and colon issues.
3. We began a college application essay example entitled "Porkopolis," which takes the boring prompt of selecting an influential person and creates a narrative that reflects more about the writer than Lisa Simpson.

For tomorrow, finish those last 3 paragraphs of "Porkopolis" and be ready to talk about the author's decisions in creating this narrative structure.

Punctuation on the Board!

For those missing our third vocab quiz, you have until Tuesday to make up the assignment. For the majority of the hour, we reviewed comma, semicolon, and colon rules using the handout you received on Wednesday. To add to the drama, we worked on the handout on the board, with students noting punctuation errors and explaining why. For homework, complete narrative warm-ups 1 & 2.

Lastly, if you would like to bring in your own college application or scholarship prompt for your narrative writing, find the prompt and bring this to class with you next week.

Narratives & Punctuation

1. We performed our dialogue conversations, with each interlocutor portraying a specific gender and age. With this brief activity, you were required to pay close attention to diction and how this portrays a character in a narrative.
2. We reviewed vocabulary by playing last person standing. That means your quiz is tomorrow!
3. We read "My Mother Never Worked," a sample narrative that we discussed in small groups.
4. We started punctuation rules by identifying independent and dependent clauses, learning about the rule of 5 and how it involves those FANBOYS, seeing how commas impact the mixing of independent and dependent clauses, and locating transitions and their punctuation.

For homework, finish highlighting 1-5 on the punctuation handout and complete Narrative Warm-up number 3 (on notebook paper, no full sentences required).

In addition, don't forget that your future narrative essay for this course can double as a college application essay. You are more than welcome to bring in a prompt that you will use on your application.

Dialogue

After vocab experts today, we continued working with narrative features. By discussing and analyzing the narrative features of "Only Daughter," we reviewed the theme and how it haunts every moment of the narrator's existence, time and how the narrator utilizes flashbacks to show the inundation of parent apathy, characterization and how two characters can be the focus of a story, dialogue and how it can be appropriate or distracting, and imagery's effect on creating a fully developed text.

To continue with dialogue, we worked with how words and details can reveal much about a character. Given an age and gender, you created a conversational piece that utilizes details to provide characterization and audience understanding. We will read these aloud on Wednesday.

To continue with Wednesday's agenda, we will review vocabulary, read another sample narrative, and review punctuation rules utilizing highlighters and activities.

Adverbial Narratives

To begin class, you performed your adverb skits, utilizing a plethora of adverbs to show action and behavior. While each skit came into fruition, the remaining students jotted down all the adverbs used and then reviewed the adverbs aloud.

Next, we returned to vocabulary unit 3, in which we are at a total of 12 words. As a result, we will have 3 words tomorrow, review on our block day, and the quiz on Friday.

Then, we started our next writing unit: narrative, the world of storytelling, often in first person. Narrative is about focus (theme), time, dialogue, character, and imagery. Be mindful of what characters and dialogue populate your narratives. To emphasize these narrative writing traits, we read Malcolm X's "Coming to an Awareness of Language" and analyzed these traits as a class.

For homework, read "Only Daughter" and prepare notes/discussion points for tomorrow.

Grammar in Motion

Today, we finished up our who/whom tricks. When in doubt, remember that who connects to a subject and whom connects to an object. Then, after vocabulary, we looked at adjectives -- identifying them correctly when reading the directions -- and the order of adjectives in describing an object. This then moved into why we would use or not use commas with multiple adjectives. If two adjectives are coordinate, or switchable, you need a comma. If two adjectives follow the order and accumulate information, then you have a cumulative situation and do not need a comma. Last up, we tackled adverb usage by acting out the same sentences using varying adverbs to describe motion. Victoriously! To end class, you are creating your adverbial skit -- creating a minimum 10 sentence skit utilizing different adverbs to create the behavior of your actors.

Narratives start next week!

Vocab with Buzzers & Pronouns!

I can tell that some of you had the competitive juices flowing during class today. First up, we added four new words to our vernacular and reviewed using the buzzers. If you enjoy the fast-paced action of Scholar Quiz, we will have them out in the future -- not every day, though!

For the remainder of the class, we worked with pronouns. The most important element to discerning pronouns and understanding the rules is the differentiation between subjective and objective pronouns. Once that is determined, you are better able to utilize the appropriate pronoun and maintain antecedent and pronoun agreement. (This also involves who and whom -- who usually has a verb after it; whom usually has a noun or pronoun.)

I am writing this blog during lunch, so I will assume that we finished the pronoun assignment and began with adjectives? In any case, we will work with more grammar tomorrow!

Composing the Descriptive Essay

Today's class will be the last one focusing on descriptive writing. Evaluating introductions and listening to samples of body paragraphs and conclusions should assist you in creating accurate, mood-inducing reflections of your three selected family members.

By Friday at 3:30 p.m., your assignment is to turn in a hard copy of your descriptive essay. Attach the scoring guide and your three previous descriptive writings (painting, library, object) to the final draft. If you are absent all day, you are to share the essay with me and bring a hard copy on Monday. If you are at school at any point of the day, you are required to turn in the work by this time. (This will be the expectation for all future essays.)

For the remainder of the hour, you copied down vocab unit 3, which will begin tomorrow, and worked on your essay. Today is the last class time to work on the essay; the remainder of the work - the beautification of your writing - will occur for homework.

P.S. Don't forget literary devices in your own writing -- utilizing similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, alliteration, and other techniques add to your presentation and voice.

P.P.S. Don't use contractions - spell out everything!

Essay Format & Structure

After our second vocabulary quiz, we looked at MLA format, essay titles, and introductory paragraphs. For example, we looked at how one could use an anecdote, imagery, and analogy to set up an essay, provide foreshadowing details, and lead to a thesis statement. We ended the hour by working on introductions, which you will be peer evaluating tomorrow. We will also look at body paragraphs -- samples to show how every single detail counts -- and concluding paragraphs. The challenge of a conclusions stems from finding a way to end with a memorable final thought or image. If you have already set up an analogy or theme in your introduction, you can use this to tie together the conclusion.

Final draft of essay will be due on Friday by 3:30 p.m.

Rushing into Essay Structure

1. We reviewed vocabulary, which means a quiz is coming on Tuesday.

2. We practiced grammar issues including subject-verb agreement, active & passive verbs, to be verb eradication, and split infinitives. 

3. We peer reviewed your descriptive paragraphs regarding your relatives. As noted, the more you can "explode" a detail - showing one's voice, clothing, behavior - can add to the overall impact of your description.

4. We very hastily reviewed essay structure - introduction, body, and conclusion. Yes, this was a complete rush job, but the clock worked against us today! For Monday, write an introduction to your relative body paragraphs. You are more than welcome -- and I would recommend this for future drafting - to type up these four paragraphs for classroom work. We will work on introductions and conclusions next week, and then you will have a final draft!