|
Students are in the home stretch with their final writing piece--the op ed. I am very happy with the progress many of them have made, and I hope our final week of writing workshop helps the students perfect and polish these pieces!
If you’d like to review the assignment sheet and scoring rubric, please click here. Also, please encourage your students to make use of the short instructional videos I’ve been sharing with them on Google Classroom for the past week. Developing your counterargument Organizing your rough draft Citing your sources and backing up your claims Improving your word choice Students need to bring complete, PRINTED drafts of their op-eds to class on Tuesday. The other thing we’re beginning work on this week is our final speech of the year. Students will be giving a persuasive speech about one of their independent novels from the year. Please click here for the assignment sheet. Students should have a book in mind already that they will use for this assignment, and we will begin drafting those speeches next week as well. One final, very important thing about this upcoming week: Reading and Books. On Friday we will have our end of the year reading party to celebrate all the reading we’ve done this year and make plans for the reading we’ll do this summer. I have a list of books I’m planning to read that I’ll share with the students and a list of suggestions I’ve gathered from the staff at the high school. We’ll revisit the reading resolutions we made in December and think about what we need to do to make time to read this summer. And, of course, we’ll read. Hopefully, it will be outside in the sunshine. If you’d be willing, I’ve found that reading parties are always more successful with snacks! We’ll take any donations you’d like to send in with your students. You can sign up here if you’re willing: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f054fa8aa2eaafc1-summer Also, it’s time for kids to start returning my books!! I am happy to share my collection with them all year, but I always get nervous this time of year when I see how empty my shelves are. I know some of my books are buried under beds or piles of laundry. If you could help me out by reminding them to start bringing those back, I’d appreciate it! And, if someone is in the middle of something and can’t finish it before summer, I’m happy to check it out to them over the summer--I’d just like to know who has what! Enjoy the long weekend!!
0 Comments
This past week has been a lot of fun struggling through the frustrating--but rewarding!--process of creating infographics. I challenged the students to create an infographic representative of their individuality and to use it as a way to brainstorm for their college app essays. They rose to the challenge and the graphics they have created are incredible!! Please ask them to show you what they’ve come up with--I think you’ll be very impressed with their thinking.
This coming week we’ll use those as a springboard for narrative writing. Most students are choosing to begin writing their college app essays but a few are planning to start some fiction pieces. Either is fine with me as their grade on the piece will be determined on their commitment to the writing process--conferencing with me, asking insightful questions, revising. We will work on these all week and next week students will do graded conferences with me to assess their progress. In the final week of school--exam week-- I will be in Missouri grading AP exams for the College Board. Though it’s less than ideal for me to miss the final week of school, I’m actually excited about the plan I’ve come up with for the students to complete with my sub. I have secured a highly qualified writing teacher (and former AP teacher!) to sub for me. She will be conferencing with the students about their college app essay drafts and they will submit them to me electronically on the day of their final exam. Conferencing with a qualified stranger is a fantastic opportunity for them because she is exactly the kind of audience who will be reading their college app essays. When I read their essays, I can’t help but see their sweet little faces in my head. I hear their voices and I laugh at all their jokes. A reader who doesn’t know them can give a different kind of feedback. Perhaps jokes fall flat when the reader doesn’t know you as well. Perhaps a line I’d “get” as sarcastic doesn’t come across that way when the reader doesn’t know you. I think the kids are excited about the opportunity to work with this substitute. Please encourage them to take full advantage of her expertise. She’s really looking forward to working with them! One final, very important thing about this upcoming week: Reading and Books. On Friday we will have our end of the year reading party to celebrate all the reading we’ve done this year and make plans for the reading we’ll do this summer. I have a list of books I’m planning to read that I’ll share with the students and a list of suggestions I’ve gathered from the staff at the high school. We’ll revisit the reading resolutions we made in December and think about what we need to do to make time to read this summer. And, of course, we’ll read. Hopefully, it will be outside in the sunshine. If you’d be willing, I’ve found that reading parties are always more successful with snacks! We’ll take any donations you’d like to send in with your students. You can sign up here if you’re willing: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f054fa8aa2eaafc1-summer Also, it’s time for kids to start returning my books!! I am happy to share my collection with them all year, but I always get nervous this time of year when I see how empty my shelves are. I know some of my books are buried under beds or piles of laundry. If you could help me out by reminding them to start bringing those back, I’d appreciate it! And, if someone is in the middle of something and can’t finish it before summer, I’m happy to check it out to them over the summer--I’d just like to know who has what! This past week was a little crazy with all of the students in and out for NWEA testing and field trips, but we still managed to get some solid work done on the students’ op-eds. This is their final writing piece for the year and will count toward their final exam grade. It’s very important that students invest a good amount of time and energy into making these their best piece of writing from the year.
We brainstormed topics and I spoke with each student individually; students also worked on a graphic organizer to plan their piece and develop their claims. By Monday, students need a complete rough draft. Many students had enough time in class this past week to get a solid start on their drafts in class, but some students have a little more work to do this weekend. We will spend the upcoming week revising, editing citations, and looking for rhetorical strategies in the drafts. Each student will conference with me one on one at least once this week and should be prepared with questions! Students who missed classes last week or those who need a refresher of the steps we took in class to work on the rough draft should watch the two guided videos I made last week. The first one helps students figure out what to do with the counterargument to their position. The second gives advice for organizing and beginning writing. Please encourage your students to make use of these videos as they are a good reference as they work on their drafts this weekend. Video #1: Counterarguments Video #2: Organizing and beginning writing Have a great weekend! I’m looking forward to reading those drafts on Monday! Our final project for the year is underway, and I hope your students have shared a little of what we’re doing! I have a few simple goals for these final post-test weeks. One, I want to do something relevant and useful for the students. Two, I want to do something different from what we’ve been working on all year (they’re a little burned out on argumentation!!). Three, I want to have a little fun. They’ve earned it!
To that end, we are working on a short genre study of infographics. Click here for some examples of the types of texts we’re studying and creating. Specifically, we’re looking at personal infographics. Students are creating their own this week with the goal of answering the question, “What do I want people to know about me?” Infographics allow students the opportunity to answer that question in many ways: visually through their font and graphics choices, organizational through their layout, and verbally through the actual words they choose. We talked a lot in class about the implicit messages you can send with your colors, layouts, etc. I am excited to see what they come up with!! Once these are done, we’ll use them as a springboard for the students’ final writing piece. Many students are planning to use these as inspiration for the college application essays; others are planning to work on a little fiction writing. If you have a chance this weekend, ask your student what he or she is planning to write for the final writing piece. If you’re lucky, they might show you the drafts of their infographics! Last thing: as always, encourage your students to keep reading! Their final independent book projects are due June 1, but beyond those, they should be thinking about what they’d like to read this summer when they have a little more time on their hands. I’ll be giving lots of suggestions in the coming days, but it would be great if you could talk about it with them at home, too. Have a great weekend! This week we will shift from studying and reading op-eds to writing them. Last week the students practiced a number of strategies last week to help them “read between the lines”:
Your students should be able to show you how to do all these things when reading editorials; it would be great if you could read one together at some point this week! Our goal with all of these strategies is to look closely at the writer’s intended message in order to decide how much we believe it. This week, as students shift to writing, we’ll work on applying all of those strategies to their own writing. Monday and Tuesday we will brainstorm topics and begin outlining our arguments; by the end of the week, students will have a very rough draft of their op-ed. We are also beginning NWEA testing this week so students will be missing some classes in small groups to complete their testing. In order to keep them on track, I’m experimenting with some short, videotaped lessons that will be available for the students on Google Classroom starting Wednesday. If all goes as planned, I’ll send the links to those lessons in next week’s blog post as well. Have a great week! Much to the students’ chagrin, we ARE actually “doing something” for the remainder of the year. Many were hopeful that we’d just kick and relax now that our test is over, but I have quite a bit planned still!!
Our main focus will be on narrative writing since many of them are interested in getting a jump on their college application essays. They will not be required to write a college app essay, though, as many of them are considering colleges that do not require one. I’ve encouraged them to do a little research and find out if they need one. Many were shocked when I told them how many schools don’t require them! Students who do not write a college app essay will have the option of choosing from a number of different creative writing options for their final writing piece. My main goal for the remainder of the year is for students to experiment more with their genuine, natural writing voice. We won’t be jumping into the writing just yet, though. Most students struggle with writer’s block or generating ideas when faced with narrative or creative writing. We will spend the next two weeks working on generating and organizing ideas. This week we’ll explore infographics as a way to organize information and next week they’ll work on creating their own, personal infographics so that they have a wealth of ideas/topics from which to choose when we begin writing. A note on grades: At this point, students know their final exam scores because we conferenced about their essays and scored their multiple choice. I will input those scores soon, but they won’t be weighted as final exam scores yet because of limitations with MiStar. I will show students how to manually calculate their grades so that they can see how the score impacts their overall grade. Additionally, reflective portfolios will *fingers crossed* be graded and put in my MiStar by the end of this week. Enjoy your week!! We will start the week with our final literary analysis annotation assessment. Students did lots and lots of practice in the past two weeks with many different types of texts. We’ve practiced identifying and analyzing instances where an author uses character development, point of view, parallel structure, and manipulation of time to help us better understand the story. On Monday, students will read a new short story independently and annotate to show their understanding of those four elements of an author’s style. This will be a graded assessment and should be in MiStar by the end of the week.
On Tuesday, we will get back to our study of rhetoric and the different tools writers use to persuade their audiences. Last week we studied one op-ed in depth; this week we will look at a number of different op-eds and identify the different strategies the writers use. With each piece we read, we’ll look for logos (appeals to logic), pathos (appeals to emotion), and ethos (appeals to credibility). The goal is for students to recognize the different ways a writer is attempting to persuade, evaluate how effective those tools are, and then decide how persuaded they are by the claims made in the piece. There isn’t a “correct” opinion for the students to have about the pieces we read; rather, I want them to be able to justify whatever opinion they have. I’m looking forward to some great discussions about the pieces we read this week! Their analysis of these pieces and their ability to evaluate the different elements of logos, pathos and ethos will be assessed throughout the week with various practice assessments. Students will answer short answer questions and work in groups to identify and evaluate the different elements. After we’ve practiced this week, we’ll have an assessment next week that “counts”. Look for practice (4/3/2/1) scores to start appearing in MiStar this week. Finally, students should still be reading an independent novel, and they should begin thinking about which independent novel they will use for their final speech presentation. Students will do a persuasive presentation the final week of school about an independent novel they’ve read this year. They’ll use the three rhetorical appeals--logos, pathos, and ethos--to persuade their audience either to read (or not read!) the book. Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Test week!! Last week was pretty tough for many of the kids; by Friday many had taken at least one AP test, and they looked ready for a break. Hopefully they got a little rest this weekend, finished their review portfolios, and we can do some final review on Monday and Tuesday to get them thinking about the AP Lang test on Wednesday.
Monday and Tuesday will be dedicated to in-class “games” to review quick thinking strategies for attacking argument prompts. As I’ve told the kids many times in the past few weeks, there isn’t much they can do to cram for the AP Language test. It’s a skills test, they’ve practiced hard all year, and they’re ready. A few things you can do to help them prior to Wednesday:
On Thursday, we will debrief the test and talk about how it went, and on Friday I’ll share the final project that we’ll be working on for the rest of the semester. No spoilers yet, but it should give them a nice start on their college application essays. Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Brief update this week as I'm battling some painful carpal tunnel and trying to avoid typing!!
Last week I conferenced with half of the students about their final exam writing, and this week we will finish up. Conferences are going well, and I think students are ready for their exam next week. While I am conferencing, students are completing their Revision and Review portfolios. Some students are struggling to stay focused on these; please remind your students to take advantage of this in-class time to review!! I know this week will be very challenging for many. I have some students taking up to three AP exams this week! I understand that not much review for AP Lang may get done outside of class week. I’m fine with that as long as they are reviewing while they are in class. Next weekend, after all their other AP tests are completed and their portfolios are done, I will provide additional review for those students who would like it. The more you can encourage them to take care of themselves this week--plenty of sleep and healthy eating--the better off they will be in the long run. I keep reminding them that they can’t cruise into their final AP test (AP Lang!) running on nothing but fumes. Please let me know if you have any questions about test prep and try to enjoy this crazy week! Just a brief update this week! I'm battling some painful carpal tunnel and trying to avoid typing as much as possible!
Last week we finished Of Mice and Men and our practice with identifying an author’s purpose regarding parallel structure, manipulation of time, character development, and point of view. Over the weekend, students practiced on their own with a portion of Steinbeck’s short story “Flight.” We will finish that practice on Monday in class and you will see practice scores in MiStar by Monday afternoon. Depending on how the practice goes, we will either do the “counted” assessment on Tuesday or Wednesday. I want to wait and see how much extra practice they need! In the second half of the week we will shift back to nonfiction reading and we will begin examining Op-eds and author’s purpose in that type of writing. Specifically, we will be looking at different tools of persuasion and the way an author employs classic rhetorical strategies--ethos, pathos and logos--to convince an audience. Enjoy your week! |
AuthorMrs. Hattie Maguire Archives
December 2022
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed