English 9 Honors Update
Dear parents and students,
As the year is winding down, I felt it was the perfect time to give students the opportunity to have more latitude with our current assignment. This past week students have been writing quite a bit in preparation for their last writing assignment of the year.
Monday and Tuesday I gave students lists and prompts to get them thinking about all the important people, places, events, objects, conversations, conflicts, likes, dislikes, about their lives. They spent time writing in class on these various topics, and continued their freewrites at home for homework.
On Wednesday, I asked students to narrow their focuses down and try to come up with the topic they would focus on for this last piece of writing and the form in which they would write it. (The written assignment can be an essay, poem, editorial, song, piece of fiction etc.) We took advantage of the gorgeous weather and students spent the period writing outside.
Yesterday students were put into writing groups where they shared their essays and received feedback from group members.
For next week, I have asked students to revise these drafts according to the feedback they received from their peers. I will check in with students next week to see how they are progressing with their essays and I will provide them feedback as well.
Since students will be taking the math MCAS next week, I will not see them on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. When I do see them again on Friday, they will have yet another revision of their paper which will go through one more edit with their writing groups. The final draft will be due Monday, June 7. My hope is that with all of these revisions, students will hand in a paper they are proud of and feel really good about their last written assignment of the year.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please comment below.
It looks like the holiday weekend will be an enjoyable one. I hope you all have the chance to get out in the sun and relax!
Best,
Mrs. Gillis
