WEEK 1

Welcome to our first Monday Morning Meeting!

The format for this course is simple: every Monday check in here and over the next five days do whatever I tell you to do, and then turn it all in on Friday. How you manage your time over the week will be up to you. 

Here's what I'm telling you to do for this week. Read every word...

1. Watch this introduction video. Ignore the "Labor Day" remarks. It's from a couple years ago.


2. Read "The Course" under PAGES on the right side of the blog.


3. Watch this video on the course syllabus if you haven't already. Pay special attention to due dates! ATTENTION: All back and forth between you and me needs to happen through GOOGLE DOCS. You can ignore the part of this video that refers to email attachments.  


4. Write four topic sentence paragraphs (watch this video for examples and instructions for the assignment; one of the examples cuts off--don't worry about it). This is also the video that explains your LIT SOURCE! 


5. Complete two descriptive writing exercises. Here they are:

I. Find any one-square-foot, flat surface and in 250+* words, describe it in close detail. (It might look like this: "The desk top in front of me is of a tight, dark brown and black grain running horizontally [from my perspective as I sit and type]. This particular square foot is well used; the varnished has rubbed away in tiny spots which creates a light-brown speckled effect. One such spot is an eighth of an inch in diameter and resembles a football. Next to it are two smaller specks, and running through all three is a thin line of light brown where the varnish is missing from a deeper grain in the wood..." Notice the writing involves CLOSE DETAIL. That's the idea.)

II. Using your lit source, put yourself (pretend to be a character) anywhere within the plot and describe it using the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. (250+* words) Sorry, no example for this one. You'll just need to take a deep breath and plunge in on your own.

* The + signifies a minimum; writing more won't necessarily improve your grade, but writing under the minimum will definitely hurt it.



6. Proofread your writing (all six paragraphs) carefully. 


7. GOOGLE DOCS FYI:   Over the weekend I created a google document for each student and shared it with you (unless I don't have your gmail address yet!). This is where you will put all of your work. You can draft the actual work however you want as long as the final work that I see and grade (the work you'll turn in by Friday at 5pm) is IN YOUR GOOGLE DOC.

You don't need to "send" your work to me. You don't even need to save it. In google docs it happens automatically. However, you DO need to email me if your work is going to be later than 5pm Friday. I don't want to open your portfolio and look for work that's not there.  

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT LATE WORK: I know you home schoolers are busy people. If you let me know in advance [48 hours or more] that you'll need more time to get something done, I'll work with you. If you tell me the day it's due or after the fact, it will be counted late and will affect your grade for that work. DON'T WAIT UNTIL MID-WEEK to look at the assignments. I post them Monday at 6am. Managing your whole week is up to you, so take into account the whole week, not just how much English you can cram in on Thursday or Friday.  [I'm not wagging my finger at you. I just know how procrastinators work. I am a recovering one myself.] 



DUE DATES: All assignments (unless I specify otherwise) from the Monday posts are due at 5pm Friday.



HAVE A GREAT WEEK!