Clay hadn't typed his essay until this morning, and while there were some proofreading errors, for the most part I thought he did a solid job. He made more than a few mistakes with subject/verb agreement and verb tense. We spent the remainder of class reviewing subject/verb agreement, and working on verb tense worksheets.
Apparrently, Cal no longer has a computer to work on, and hurt his wrist over the weekend and couldn't write, which made class today very difficult. I decided to work on verb form worksheets, with Cal dictating the answers and me writing them out for him. This was not an effective system as it gave Cal plenty of opportunities to waste time with silly/frivolous answers.
Clay has done a great job with this essay so far. We finished up the last body paragraph, and then reviewed the essay for grammatical and content mistakes. Clay is getting much better at recognizing the grammar issues, but still needs to work on fully developing his topics. We then shifted our focus to how to write good conclusions. Historically, these are Clay's weaker paragraphs as he's rushing to finish. I emphasized that it is just as important as the introduction, and stressed this is the time to discuss the larger themes, rather than specific details. Clay did a good job and should have a finished draft by class on Wednesday.
Cal again did not have his computer today, so I didn't want to have him do any writing. Consequently, we continued working on verb agreement by focusing on tenses and verb tense agreement. Cal worked through 3 worksheets, and although he had a little trouble at the start, he quickly got the hang of it.
Clay did not have to babysit today, so we ended up having class. I had asked him to think of three topics for his body paragraphs, and he came in prepared. More importantly, he wrote three very solid paragraphs with strong topic sentences, good transitions, and only a few grammatical mistakes. Considering it used to take him 45 minutes to write one paragraph, I am EXTREMELY pleased with his progress.
Discuss possible writing topics - let Will decide a topic he is interested in, then brainstorm ideas pertaining to the topic. Will is interested in how special effects are used in movies. We looked at several examples using the computer. This is rather complicated, so he may need to choose a different topic.
I had Cal write the con paragraph about olympic hockey to start the class. He wrote a solid paragraph. We spent the rest of the class going over verb agreement, and Cal completed 3 worksheets with little trouble. HIs attitude and focus were good.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
He's definitely gotten much easier to work with over the last week, and got right to work to start the class with minimal complaints.
Clay was only here for 20 minutes before he left to go surfing. I assigned him a 5 paragraph essay about his day of escape with his Dad, and he wrote the introduction with me in class.
I had Cal writing paragraphs today, and for the first time, instead of trying to argue his way out of it, he pretty much got right down to work. I had him write about professional hockey players in the Olympics, and although the goal was to write a pro and a con essay, he only finished the former. But, finally able to talk about the content of writing, rather than the structure, which is something Cal needs to work on. He doesn't have an opinion about most things, or get excited about much, so his writing up till now has focused on getting to the end of it, instead of developing an idea. By the end he had written a solid paragraph about why the pros should still play in the Olympics.
