Grab and Go Exercises

 Right now, I’m on top of my composition lessons.  But, I know I’ll hit a wall and have no inspiration for a new lesson.  Let me help with several ‘Grab and Go’ composition lessons: Pruning Your Prose, Creating an Image, The Power of Pastiche, and Writing More Descriptive, Specific Sentences all from San José State University.  The advantage of ‘Grab and Go’ activities is that the entire lesson is outlined.  Each lesson has specific exercises to try. These activities are exceptionally well crafted.  I’m using Writing More Descriptive and Specific Sentences with my class next week as we craft the abstracts for our grant proposals.

How to Write a Grant: Apple-ka-dabra!

Let me share an example of a grant, Apple-ka-dabra, I wrote when I taught in a West Virginia public high school.  Teens from my Chemistry classes and WET club went with the kids in the Special Ed class to do 14 science stations with the kindergarten classes at a nearby elementary school.  The kids in the Special Ed class usually helped inventory all the materials, prep solutions, and box up supplies to take over to the elementary school.  Additionally, we saved hundreds of bottles, plastic bags, and t-shirts for the kindergarteners.  Below are pix from the program.  Here is the link to the spreadsheet shown below.

First is a brief letter or abstract I used to obtain funding.

Her

Here is a master list to the science activities we did with the kindergarteners.

Here are costs for materials at Walmart and Educational Innovations.

Below are a few photos from the event.

Writing: How to Write a Hook

 I think what may be helpful are examples of hooks, or limes which grab an audience immediately.  The line makes you want to continue reading.  Here and here are posts about hooks.  Below are two examples.  The second is about Coco Gauff by Jason Gay, written last week in the WSJ.  Try showing your teen good examples from literature, such as the opening paragraph from The Hobbit.  Best of luck teaching your teen how to write.

 

Composition: Introduction to the Five Paragraph Essay

 Today our goal was to talk about our grant ideas and start learning about  Five Paragraph Essays.  There are six kids in the Co-op class all have different, outside writing assignments.  Really.  (One kid can only meet Tuesdays and another only Thursdays.  Another kid had to meet remotely this week.  Every teen belongs to different online schools with different requirements.  Fun, right? I spend time immediately after class doing updates and posting extensively to Classroom.)  

The parents from the Co-op met and made suggestions for the Composition class.  They requested using the class to improve student writing across the curriculum.  For example, one mom asked for her son to learn how to write science lab reports and paragraphs.  Another student is writing speeches for competitions.  Another teen is writing an essay comparing Xenophanes and Jesus for his philosophy class.  All the kids are working on an introductory paragraph.  Today, we talked about a ‘hook’ and format.  Essays should be in the third person, present tense, active voice, and indicative mood.  For example, one student and his sister are working on a grant proposal about chickens: building a coop, incubating eggs, and selling eggs as produce.  His grant proposal, Chickens Run, begins with, ‘ Hens are great animals for children.’, correctly written in the third person, present tense, active voice, and indicative mood.  

We had a bit of a discussion about active and passive voice.  ‘Zoe is being beaten to a pulp by her brother.’ is passive voice.  ‘Her brother is beating Zoe to a pulp.’ is active voice—both are present tense.  Subjunctive mood often begins with ‘If I were…’, such as ‘If I were a rich man’, from Fiddler on the Roof.  

We spent quite a bit of time testing different ideas for a hook for each paper.  If you have no idea how to start, start with a quote.  One, young teen, was unfamiliar with citations.  Purdue OWL has information and explanations about citations in MLA, Turabian, and APA styles.  (APA is used broadly at colleges.  Philosophy is generally a college course.  So the student studying philosophy is using APA.  The other are using either MLA or Turabian, as their online schools dictate.

Whew!  I am challenged teaching this class!  However, I’m also having a blast.  I hope this information is useful.  Xenophanes should have an ‘s’ on the board.  He was a philosopher.  Here is the set of Socrates’ Children.

Edit the Newspaper

The students enjoyed editing the newspaper.  Each student marked up several editorials.  Let your child take a look at the letters to the editor; it’s fun!

 

How to Write a Grant: Step Two

 The kids have been brainstorming ideas for a grant.  A Montessori school has asked for my help as a grant writer.  Kids have great ideas.  After brainstorming ideas, it’s time to flesh out ideas.  Which idea resonates or is most practical?   Several students keep chickens.  The Montessori school might be interested in a coop.  Two of the kids are researching the costs to set up a coop with five chickens.  Another students is looking into goats.  How much land do they require?  Which plants are toxic to goats?  Another student suggested a produce stand.  Are there free plans to build a produce stand?  Would it be on an honor system?  How much produce should be on display?  What would the children learn?  We’ll use their ideas to craft proposals.

The second step in grant writing is to nail down details.  We are going to submit several proposals to the Montessori school for their consideration.  The students need to articulate their ideas, such as starting a chicken coop with five chickens and outline the costs.  They are considering lessons the children might learn.  

You could use this process for a writing lesson at home.  Are you planning a project?  Home-schooling friends were planning to build a shed.  The shed became a multi-faceted, home-school project.  The kids planned the location, researched free plans, calculated costs, etc.  Your family could add a writing component; each member might write their proposal for consideration.  I know I would lobby for a produce stand over a shed.

Google Classroom

What is Google Classroom? Classroom is a type of Learning Management System (LMS) Both private and public schools use LMS to record grades.  However, you can post homework assignment, links, and resources.  (Below are samples.)  I maintain separate classrooms for each class I teach. 

 Is Classroom useful for an individual family? Absolutely!  It’s free!  You do need a gmail account.  I home-schooled a teen during high school  I created a ‘classroom’ for each of her subjects.  I posted assignments and recorded grades.  I put in sample work.  In effect, Classroom was part of my digital portfolio.  I had sample work readily available to post into a slideshow.  In fact, I had a complete set of grades organized into a spreadsheet ready to submit to the online school.  When the teen I home-schooled finished a paper or took a quiz, I took a quick photo or scan, saved it to Google Drive, and posted it to Classroom.  High School level students could create and maintain their own Classrooms.  In my experience, parents or instructors document more consistently than teens do.  Take advantage of this free resource.