Cal was extremely tired when he got here and very resistant to any writing or worksheets. (He had apparently done 5 hours of science, including a 5 paragraph essay in the morning.) In the future, I asked him to bring all of his writing with him so I can look over it and help him improve. So, instead of working on writing, we read a short story to work on reading comprehension, retention of details, and writing about literature. We finished the story and had a nice discussion about it, and he will write an essay on it on Friday.
I wanted to work on verb tenses today, but Cal was not in the mood to do grammar worksheets. I started out by having him write a paragraph about his weekend, but ended up extending it to a full 5 paragraph essay. Cal's focus and effort has greatly improved. He's communicating better, and actually writes with minimal complaints. We'll keep working on it.
Today we worked on editing and revising the 5 paragraph essay Cal wrote on Wednesday. We spent a lot of time on the introduction, as that seems to be an area that gives Cal trouble. He tends to write with short and very direct sentences, which hurts him in his intros. He needs to work on keeping them as general as possible and saving his specific statements and examples for the body paragraphs. His spelling is solid, but definitely could improve, but I was very pleased with his attempts to use different kind of sentences to improve the flow of his writing.
Cal came in today and was definitely in a better mood. I told him on Monday that we would be writing today, and while he stalled at the beginning, once he got started, he whipped out 4 pretty decent paragraphs. On Friday, we're going to work on proofreading and editing what he wrote.
Cal was very quiet and lethargic to start the class. But as we discussed on Friday, instead of trying to avoid doing work, he communicated with me that he wasn't feel well today, and didn't want to write. This was a step in the right direction in two regards: first, he's communicating, and two, rather than trying to get out of work completely, he was willing to work on grammar instead. He did very well and seems to have verb agreement down solidly.
Cal was a half hour late for our session today. This is indicative of the focus and effort he's put into this class. Rather than have him write, I decided it was time for us to talk about where he is as student, and what he wants to accomplish with this class. It was a very productive conversation and Call committed to communicating with me better, and putting more of an effort into the class.
We crafted a solid introduction and started to work on the body paragraphs. As I've said many times before, Cal definitely has the ability to improve his writing.
I had Cal write two paragraphs about his favorite show and movie. After proofreading, I had him re-write it and focus on fully developing his details and avoiding using choppy sentences. The second draft was very strong.
Cal was still complaining about his wrist, and although I wanted him to write today, I gave him the choice between writing and worksheets. His attitude in class has gotten much, much better over the last couple of weeks. He's focused, and hasn't been trying to avoid working as much. He's done a great job with the work we've done on verbs. He has a solid grasp of the different tenses, and scored perfectly on the irregular verb worksheets. Getting him to write is still very difficult, but he agreed to work on a 5 paragraph essay on Friday.
