Narrative as College Application

1. Vocab Experts -- we finished the 20th word of our combined unit, which means review tomorrow and a mega quiz on Friday. Yes, I am one of those teachers who likes to put "old words" in to test you.

2. We reviewed verb issues including subject-verb agreement, active & passive voice, "to be" verb eradication, and infinitives.

3. We read "Porkopolis," a college application essay that provides a narrative about Lisa Simpson and her influence on the narrator.

4. For the remainder of the hour, you received an age and gender and are creating a character based off this general information. Tomorrow, you will find out what your character will be up to in class.

Befuddling Verb Rules

After our new three vocab words, we spent some quality time with verb rules - including subject-verb agreement, active and passive verb phrasing, and split infinitives. As we need another day of practice with these rules, we will do a second round of verb work tomorrow. Afterwards, we read "My Mother Never Worked" and analyzed its theme, dialogue, time, character, and imagery in its narrative style. At the end of class, you received your narrative warm-up handout. Complete the questions for warm-up three for tomorrow.

Narration

1. We added 4 new words to the vernacular.
2. We reviewed noun identification (make sure it is not an adjective), capitalization of proper nouns, and apostrophe usage.
3. We began our brand new narrative unit, which will focus on theme, time, character, dialogue, and imagery. In order to identify these components, we read the following essay: http://wp.lps.org/mpayant/files/2012/07/Coming-to-An-Awareness-of-Language-Malcom-X.pdf. If absent, read through and identify the five items listed above. I will not be collecting this from you. However, it is a brief exercise to prep for next week's narrative work.

Verbage

After completing our vocab quiz - which will need to be made up by absentees this week - you wrote down the next 10 words, which we will commence on Friday's class. Then, we finished up our definitions for the grammar prep.

Returning from lunch, we spent some quality time with your descriptive essays. First, the addition of specific, mature active verbs aids the level of diction every time. Removing "to be" verbs, familiar ones (uses, says), and redundant choices creates a better presentation for your writing. Second, eradicate the usage of second person from your formal essays. Third, formal writing requires full words, so spell out those contractions! After two rounds of conferences, we spent the last ten minutes reviewing capitalization rules.

Do not forget your deadline for the descriptive essay is 3:30 p.m. on Friday in hard copy!

Concluding

After reviewing vocab for our brief vocab quiz tomorrow, we reviewed your introductions for hooks, diction, and thesis statements. Whether it is an analogy, an anecdote, or some show of mature diction, you want to engage your audience from the opening sentence. A strong hook aids not only in the start of the essay but also the end of the essay. A conclusion is a reference to the essay, but it should not be a regurgitation of everything that came before. If you have an analogy for a hook (the brick by brick analogy courtesy of Jenna), then your conclusion can return to this analogy and finalize its meaning. If you have an anecdote or partial story for a hook (the boxing ring courtesy of Logan), end the story in the conclusion. As noted in class, do not worry about sentence count in your conclusion - or for in any paragraph for that matter. You want quality sentences that fully explain your point or tie the essay together.

The hard copy final draft of the descriptive essay has a deadline of Friday at 3:30 p.m. If absent all day, you will share/e-mail the draft and then bring a hard copy on the next class day. If present at any point on Friday, the deadline remains the same.

For our last twenty minutes, we spent time with nouns, verbs, and pronouns. We will finish up with adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions tomorrow.

The Essay, Descriptively

After our new three vocab words, we focused on how to further our descriptive paragraphs on family members. Using similes, metaphors, precise examples, and imagery, your ideal goal is to construct a writing that reflects each family member's persona. If you introduce that someone is funny, show us an example of his or her phrasing or behavior; if you introduce someone as tough, show us an example of his or her tenacity. If you want us to get to know a person, compare him or her to something we know: a tea kettle, for instance.

All of these paragraphs equate to the body section of an essay. Each body paragraph should commence with a topic sentence, the main point that will be exemplified in the paragraph. After you have crafted all the descriptive, quality details, you will wrap up the paragraph with a concluding sentence, the final thought regarding this person and what you want your reader to remember.

Moving forward, we discussed MLA format with heading (writer, professor, class, date due), page number insertion, title placement, and overall font (12 Times New Roman).

Wrapping up class, we looked at introductory paragraphs, which include a hook and a thesis statement. As noted in class, a hook can be an analogy, an anecdote, an example, or any other multi-sentence, attention-getting opening that will engage the reader. At this level, a question or a quote may limit your introduction and eventual essay, so I recommend focusing on how you can use your words to hook the audience. The thesis statement features the overall main idea of the essay. You may do this one of two ways: a thesis map, in which you list your upcoming topics 1, 2, 3; or an overall thesis that clarifies an overall idea about your topic (the family).

For tomorrow, you will need to have an introduction and your three paragraphs revised -- typed in Google (no printing needed; we will use laptops in class). We will work with reviewing these steps and then use the remainder of the time to prep for our upcoming Grammar Boot Camp.

Time to Write

After peer reviewing your subjective and objective paragraphs (remember, hold on to all of these descriptive writing practices for later turn-in date), we added three more vocabulary words to our vernacular. Then, we read the following article to look at imagery and other literary elements used to describe the culture, the father, and the situation of the author: https://www.cabrillo.edu/academics/english/100resources/'Only%20Daughter'.pdf.

Afterwards, you received three assignments.

Up on deck first will be 3 descriptive paragraphs for Monday's class. Select three family members and write one paragraph describing each one to an audience that has never had the opportunity to meet him or her. Make sure to include details that physically and emotionally represent this person.

For Tuesday, you will need to complete the Grammar Prep handout. For each item on the handout, be able to define and provide examples for course review on Tuesday.

For Wednesday, you have the optional extra credit assignment: summary posters.

Any absentees are welcome to e-mail for the specific handouts.

More Description

1. We started our next 10-word unit of vocab.
2. We used highlighters to identify sight, hearing, smell, and touch/feeling sensory details in the library description.
3. We read and analyzed "Words Left Unspoken" for descriptive writing components.

For homework, select an object that has a significant meaning to you (no cell phones and pets) and write one paragraph describing the object objectively and one paragraph subjectively.

Place Descriptions

For the first half of class, you discussed in small groups the "Ground Zero" article and analyzed its thesis, imagery, literary devices, and mood. We then completed a full class discussion. If absent, you will need to hand in your annotated essay to me for participation points.

With our discussion complete, you copied down the next 10 vocab words, which will commence tomorrow.

And to end our class, we ventured to the library for your to jot down notes about what you heard, saw, felt, and smelled. For homework, you are to write a 1-2 paragraphs describing the library to an audience that has never been there.

Describing A Thing

After our vocabulary quiz today, we worked on description by composing a paragraph on John William Waterhouse's Miranda. As with description of any "thing" or object, you want to create imagery and a mood for someone unfamiliar with the topic. Since our class was curtailed by college credit visitors, you will read and annotate the descriptive essay for homework.

Into the Imagery

After reviewing our 12 vocab words and crowning Jenna the unit 1 vocab champ, we met for feedback on our second summary. Following that meeting, you received a text to annotate and write a summary for your final assessment. Here is the text for any absentees: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/22/opinion/is-harry-potter-evil.html.

For the majority of our second half, we began our descriptive unit, which covers imagery, mood, subjective and objective detailing, and purpose. In order to practice imagery and creating a mood, you worked with these bland sentences (http://jupiter.plymouth.edu/~megp/test/vague.htm) to convey specific, memorable details. We completed revisions for number 2 and number 10.

We will resume descriptive writing on Friday.

More Summary

After finishing our vocabulary today, we looked at the 7 components of a strong summary. As indicated in class, the most important element is to reference the author throughout the piece and be selective with the details you place into your summation. For homework, you are to write a summary for the "Adjuncts" article.

See you tomorrow for more summaries and possibly a little digital work too.

Annotating to a Summary

1. We commenced with 4 more vocabulary words for a grand total of 8 at this time. We will finish the last four tomorrow and then have a review day prior to the quiz day.

2. We reviewed how and why we annotate texts via the Sperber article on college-level writing.

For homework, you are to complete a summary of the Sperber article. We will use this in class tomorrow to discuss the qualities of a summary and how to write a successful one.

E-Mail Assessment

After beginning our first vocabulary unit with four words, we spent the remainder of class completing the e-mail assignment: three e-mails (one a question, one an absence, one a turn-in of work) to me. If absent today, you should complete this task prior to Monday's class.

Welcome to Advanced Composition

While future blogs will most likely cover more details regarding writing and mechanics, today's blog will be on the short side. First off, welcome to Advanced Composition, a class in which the goal is to make you stronger writers that recognize the importance of every detail.

To begin class today, we chatted about college credit courses, what you want to improve during the class, and what adjective best describes you entering the final semester of your high school career.

After looking at the syllabus, you copied down the first 12 words of vocab unit 1. To learn vocabulary and maintain its meaning in our daily vernacular and written projects, you will become vocab experts on one word. A vocab expert gathers the definition, at least two synonyms (preferably not from the class vocab book), and a memory trick to help your classmates understand the word's meaning. Today, our small nine were assigned their given word and will prep the aforementioned components for tomorrow's class. Absentees, don't fret - you will have your word tomorrow.

At the end of class, we discussed e-mail communications by looking at sample e-mails and suggestions for the five components necessary in a professional e-mail. During tomorrow's class, you will have the whole hour (unless you all finish early and we have a great deal of time on the clock) to write 3 e-mails to me. One e-mail will be on a question for an assignment; one e-mail for an absence; one e-mail for turning in an assignment.

While we are a class of 12, that number will work wonders for paper writing and revisions. See you tomorrow -- sans snow, of course.