Today started the last lesson I had to plan for this week. I can get on board with the last lesson I have to plan landing on a Wednesday. Then again, it is also a Wednesday, so that means cluster after school. I can't ever escape that catch-22.
In Read 180, we did a lesson on grammar and punctuation, and I gave the students time to look over their papers and correct any grammar errors they had. They seemed to grasp the punctuation errors we were talking about, but we are editing the papers tomorrow, so I guess we will see how practically they were able to apply what we discussed.
In my English 12 classes, we discussed expository writing and topic selection for our first papers. The word "expository" seemed to confuse many of them, but when I defined it and had the classes tell me examples of it they see in everyday life, the length and newness of the word lost its intimidation over them. For their first papers, I am having them write on a place they want to live or visit, but it cannot be a place they have lived. The reason for this is two-fold: 1. last year my seniors were able to chose any topic at all, and many of them had a hard time staying on point, 2. this is what at least one Ivy Tech class does for their first paper, and since our curriculum was modeled after theirs, it seemed to be a logical choice of narrowed topic. We also had class discussions about what specifically they could write about (legends, attractions, history, etc), so I think the fear of having to write 500 words is starting to dissipate some. I am betting I don't have papers under 550, and they will be surprised how easy writing 500 words on a researched based topic is.
The school day ended with cluster, which was on thinking. Oh, the irony. Soccer practice then followed, which I cut a little short in light of it being the hottest day of the year, a game yesterday and a game tomorrow. Hopefully, we can bounce back from the disappointing tie and play better tomorrow.
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