| Syllabus |
“Your Greatest Performance, Life! Write it!
Stream: “Your Greatest Performance, Life!”
Stream premise: The performing arts are an exploration of the human experience. Participation in the performing arts fosters self-understanding, development of a positive self-image, and concern and respect for others.
Goals:
- · Using online modules and a variety of tools and resources, students will practice the traits of writing.
- · Students will exhibit an average of a 0.5 increase in their narrative grade (scale 1-5) by the narrative at the end of the trimester.
- · Students will express an increase in enjoyment during the writing process, on a scale of 1-10, by 1 or more—determined by a pre and post trimester survey.
- · Students will have multiple opportunities for writing.
W.8.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
· Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
· Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
· Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show the relationships among experiences and events.
· Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
· Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.
(Common Core Standards Initiative, 2010.)
Pre-activity assessment: Circle the number that best describes your feelings for writing.
I hate writing. Writing is okay. I love to write!
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Objectives:
· Students will experience, practice and refine the traits of writing using inspiration and content related to the “stream” they are studying during trimester 1.
· Students will use online experiences and tools as inspiration and documentation for each step of the writing process.
· Students will initially work through the traits of writing with the teacher’s heavy involvement, until students who are leaders are able to step up and take on roles as peer editors.
· Students will practice prewriting until they are comfortable with the concept and are able to pre-write copious ideas, thoughts, and random details about a specific topic or experience in a short amount of time.
· Students will improve organizational skills in their writing, making it apparent that they understand the various methods of organization including, but not limited to the following: chronological, spatial, theoretical, conceptual, etc.
· Students will learn various tools and how to use them to organize their thoughts, such as color-coding, outlining, grouping, etc.
· Students will practice taking their writing from the prewriting stage to the drafting stage; learning to focus at this stage on overall organization and “big picture” writing—saving more detailed revision and enhancing for later in the process.
· Students will learn the art of revising for detail, elaboration, vivid language and other literary tools that make writing come alive.
· Students will fine tune and polish their writing, editing for grammatical, spelling, and other errors.
· Students will experience the satisfaction of a well-developed narrative, which they are proud to share with others in online formats.
Online Modules:
· Prewriting- inspiration, thoughts, brainstorming, organization
· Drafting- thoughts on paper, rough draft
· Revising- review organization, clarify, elaborate
· Proofreading- make detailed corrections, correct grammatical errors, polish
· Final Copy- create a clean copy, share in a blog or online platform
Directions:
PREWRITE
· Explore performance related sites, videos, and photos for writing inspiration.
· Brainstorm everything that comes to mind when you are exploring.
· Choose a topic to write about. This will be hard for some of you! I am giving you much more freedom than you have when you write a narrative.
· Organize your brainstorming ideas by grouping like objects, putting in chronological order, or some other logical method that works for your ideas.
DRAFT
· Look and think at your brainstorming ideas again and continue to organize into a group of ideas that you want to write about.
· Use a graphic organizer to bring order to your thoughts and ideas so that they are in an order for writing.
· Write your first draft considering the elements needed: introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and ending paragraph.
REVISE
· Focus on the big picture by paying attention to ideas, overall organization and voice.
· Focus also on word choice and sentences.
EDIT
· Polish your writing by thinking P.C.S.G. Please check for silly goof-ups. Punctuation, conventions, spelling, grammar.
RECORD
· Record each step of your work in a Google Doc.
PUBLISH
· Publish your work by creating a new Google Doc and putting a final, clean copy there.
REFLECT
· Reflect on your performance during this activity by using the self-evaluation rubric, and pasting it at the bottom of your final Google Doc.
SUBMIT
· Submit your work to me by inviting me to “share” in both of your Google Docs.
SHARE
· Share your work in our class blog.
Post-activity assessment: Circle the number that best describes your feelings for writing.
I hate writing. Writing is okay. I love to write!
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Expectations from Mrs. Pierce:
As with all Brown-Barge assignments, it is my expectation that you will manage your time wisely, approach your work conscientiously, and complete this assignment in a punctual manner. You will be graded in these categories.
If you commit to doing your best in the above grading categories, you will learn something and your future narratives should reflect that increased knowledge!