Sample
Website!
Hi, OUAZ Students! Here are the two items I promised you today: your syllabus and your course calendar. We are a little "off" but we'll catch up.
You should be studying this (Portfolio Sample) website and the Success sample (big blue button) website so you know what's expected on your Wix project which is due at the end of the semester.
TODAY IN CLASS we met our Birthday Buddies and on Tuesday, we'll introduce each other and start on evaluating student essays.
DO your journaling (see the buttons to the right) and BUY your books! Start reading ch 1 and ch 16 of Omnivore, then move on to What's it all about, Between the World, and finally Gender. It's going to be an interesting semester!
See you TUESDAY! Thanks to my dancer helpers. You are amazing :)
TODAY IN CLASS: Tuesday, 8/28/2018
Today, we broke into groups to work on the Student Essay Evaluation project. This will take us TWO class periods. Your goal today is to read all the essays and determine which are passing, versus not passing. Of those that are passing, GRADE them and take notes on each essay--WHY is a particular essay "the best" or "the worst?"
On Thursday, we will attempt to identify the QUALITIES that make an A essay earn an A, a B essay a B and so forth. Our goal is to create the Rubric by which we can all agree to evaluate our writing and our classmates' writing throughout this course.
Remember--the most effective groups assign one person to be the Secretary and one to be the "reader." Everyone should contribute to the group's efforts to read and evaluate the essays on Day One. On Day Two, everyone should contribute to the Rubric. EVERYONE must turn in a Rubric (the shared rubric your group created).
We .
Finding Forrester
Also in class today (Thursday 8/28) we watched the trailer for the movie "Finding Forrester" in which a young teen writer befriends an older writer (who happens to be agrophobic). Here is the TRAILER.
Some of the best writing advice you will get can be found in this movie. In this "Writing Scene," Forrester explains to Jamal that....
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"No thinking...that comes later. Just WRITE. "
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"Why is it the words we write for ourselves are so much better than the words we write for others?" (Do you agree or disagree?)
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"You write your first draft with your HEART...and you revised with your HEAD."
The idea is simple: life comes in three parts.
We Plan....We DO.....We Judge.
The reason we get "uptight" or freeze up when we are writing is we are worried about what other people will think of our writing before we have even put a word on the page. You can't DO (write) and JUDGE (revise) at the same time. Have you ever written the first sentence of an essay and immediately erased it, thinking "That is so dumb...." ? Don't do that. Just WRITE and use the creative side of your brain to dump all your thoughts onto the page. You can reorganize, revise, and polish later. But you can't revise what you have never put down, so write first (create) then revise (judge). This is the essence of the Journaling Assignment!
Today in class:
THURSDAY, AUG 30
We began the "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" ppt on GRAMMAR for College Composition. We need to use the nomenclature of writing which includes refreshing our knowledge of grammar terms.
The key ideas from today include:
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A word is not a part of speech. The part of speech depends on the JOB the word is doing in that particular sentence.
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AND-BUT-OR-NOR-FOR-YET-SO (sing it to "London Bridge is Falling Down") are important words. The whole meaning of a sentence can pivot on just that little word (and)
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A sentence MUST have a subject (who is doing the action) and a verb (what is the action)
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To determine if we have a complete sentence, FIND THE VERB FIRST then ask "Who did that?" (or who IS that)
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Verbs can be ACTION or STATEMENT OF BEING (is) (which are called Transitive or Intransitive, technically)
HERE is your ppt to the right. Also the GRAMMAR GRIDS which you should print off and include in your Composition notebook (where you are collecting all the important handouts).
HOMEWORK: Keep Journaling (use Penzu if you want) and work on NoRedInk.com
READ: Omnivore's Dilemma (chapter 1 and chapter 16 must be completed by you. Chapters 2-15 will be completed as a group project)
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
FRIDAY, Aug 31, 2018
Today in class, you will continue to work in groups on your Student Essay Evaluation project. Here are the essays in a Word document file for you. Dr. Hogan will have hard copies for you to use as well.
Remember to used the tally sheet as a scratch sheet only.
the RUBRIC is partially completed for you and you may share that document with your group as a Google Doc or you may email it to each other. EVERY student must turn in a rubric (and a shared document from the group is fine). This will be due on Tuesday next week.