Clay did not have his essay with him today, and instead whipped out a couple of paragraphs in a short time. He is supposed to email the paper to me over the weekend, and I'll go over it then. We broke down the two paragraphs he did have, and I had them re-write them, and work on developing his ideas.
Clay's computer had died and he didn't have the charger, so I didn't get to read the paragraphs he wrote for today. But we continued working on grammar with verb tense/agreement worksheets. Clay has very little trouble with the worksheets, but for some reason that's not translating to his writing, as verb tenses/forms are his most common mistake. We'll keep working on it.
I didn't expect Clay to be here today, so I didn't have the grammar workbook with me. I gave him an FCAT prompt to work on, and he had a very difficult time coming up with ideas and getting started. I think the rigidity and formality of the prompt were what troubled him. But he's developed a habit of talking out his ideas, which is something he has to break as there won't be anyone to bounce ideas off of when he takes the test.
As per our agreement, Clay wrote two very excellent paragraphs. I was really impressed with how well he used his tenses and different types of sentences. This was definitely his best effort to date. I spent the rest of the class trying to help him with his Algebra, which is DEFINITELY more difficult than a typical Algebra 1 class. I helped some, but Julie did a much better job of it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Clay finished up his essay on the rules of basketball. He did a solid job with the body paragraphs and only had a few mistakes. We spent today going over introductions and conclusions again, and I think the concepts are starting to sink in. Clay wrote two solid paragraphs, but didn't have time to type them up and make the editing corrections. He said he would have it done by the end of the day.
I gave Clay a new prompt today, this one discussing rule changes in the game of basketball. He got right to work and completed three paragraphs in less than 30 minutes. He had a few grammatical mistakes, but when I had him type them out, they will not be accepted. I assigned the completed paragraphs for Friday, so we can work on crafting introduction/conclusion.
