Continue writing rough draft for paper "Being Famous: Good and Bad". Go over notes and explain how to write those ideas as complete sentences. Then explain the order to make the paper "flow" (logical order). Will almost finished with the rough draft and will start typing the final copy tomorrow. Good session!
Clay had written a paragraph for his Mom, so we started by having him re-write it and correct his mistakes. He did much better with this than last week. We then went through it sentence by sentence and identified where he could have improved and why. For his homework, he has to write two more paragraphs, and have them edited and typed by friday.
final edit of BCS paper
verb tense agreement worksheets
Clay did a pretty solid job with the BCS paper. He's recognizing a lot of his mistakes, but still has problems with the structure of his sentences. He needs to work on being more concise and keeping things simple. We then worked on verb tense agreement worksheets, which he had very little trouble with once he got the hang of it.
Read/add to ideas written yesterday - "How Does a Person Become Famous?" Go to computer to find additional ideas/information. Begin writing the rough draft. Will chose the topic, but he seems uncertain as to how to proceed. I know that writing is not his "favorite" thing to do, but he is doing a good job!
Select topic for writing assignment then begin brainstorming ideas. Will decided to write about "What Makes a Person Famous?" We also talked about the the good/bad aspects of being famous. Today he was really interested in talking about Justin Beiber egging his neighbors' house.
Clay did a pretty good job revising the first paragraph of the BCS paper, but seemed to have a lot of trouble with splitting the second one into two fully developed paragraphs. We went through it step by step, and I talked about the importance of staying focused on the rules while writing. His homework is to write a conclusion, which needs to be done by Friday.
I've noticed that one of Clay's biggest problems is with verb agreement. He constantly changes tense, and has trouble with subject/verb agreement. We went over his BCS Bowl paragraphs, and edited the introductory paragraph with complete sentences, and proper verb tense. His homework is to edit the rest of it. We then did a couple of worksheets on subject/verb agreement. It took him a while, but he got the hang of it.
Introduce ideas for new writing assignments - We discussed a variety of prompts, but Will was not able to decide which topic he wanted to write about. We only had 30 minutes today, but hopefully he will decide and can begin writing tomorrow. He seemed very "serious" today.
paragraphs about BCS game
-introduction/how to start
-body paragraphs
Clay is definitely a little rusty after the break. He kind of abandoned sentence structure for the introduction, which I immediately had him address. His biggest trouble at this point is getting started. He has a lot of trouble thinking of what to say, but once he does, he focuses on the information more than how he's writing. From now on, he's going to write a paragraph summary of each chapter he reads, on top of working on the 5 paragraph essay format.
