iiWriting Lab Assignments Page
Assignment No. 10
The Career Essay (+30)
Overview: Over the course of the last few sessions, you have participated in a career interest profile which led to your further research of at least two careers.You've even completed some preliminary writing on these jobs and other personal results.
For Starters: Now is the time to do more intense research on three careers, focusing on such topics as the nature of the work, the earnings, the environment in which you would work, the salary you'd likely earn and the education/training you would need to perform this job, just to name a few areas. You'll need to keep track of your sources for a works cited page.
The Essay: Now you need to put all of this together in the form of a personal, reflective essay in which you discuss the merits and / or concerns you have of each of these career choices. In each body paragraph, focus on one career, but you very likely may compare parts of it to another career. This personal, reflective essay will require a great deal of thought on your part
For Example: While teaching would be a career that would enable me to have a family when I am ready to do so, it would not afford me the monetary security that being a lawyer would offer. Still, having time to myself and not having unusual working hours still makes this job seem more attractive to me.
Assignment No. 9
The Interest Profiler (+20)
(1) Login to the Choices Planner at www.bridges.com, click on "Home" and take the "Interest Profiler"
(2) Done with the profiler? Let's write about the experience and results
Writing Task No. 1: In MS Word, which you will later transfer to your blog, discuss your reaction to the restults of the interest profiler. Are your top two choices represent who you are? Provide examples or non-examples.
Writing Task No. 2: Check out careers matching your interests and select two which might be of interest to you. Then consider these questions in writing: (a) What is it about each of these careers that appeals to you? (b) What do these careers have in common that draws you to them? (c) Based on the results of your interest profiler, what might make you a good fit for these careers?
Assignment No. 8
Choices Setup
Overview: Choices is a college and career planning tool available online. We'll use Choices to begin making preparations for the future, starting with an interest profiler, which you'll complete as soon as you create a profile. Follow these directions to get started:
(1) Go to www.bridges.com
(2) Create a new portfolio in the student sign in section
(3) Enter your required information including your Site ID and Password
Site ID: 0100757
Password: F6p8d7J5 |
(4) Select Choices Planner from the "Your Tools" box
(5) Done with the set up? Move on to Assignment No. 9
Assignment No. 7
The Apology Letters (+30)
Letter No. 1: Write a fictional and humorous apology letter from a person of history, apologizing for events he or she created or was involved in. Spend time researching that historical person, so that you might make reference to specific events as you write the letter. Humor requires tact. Some events in history are a poor reflection on the human race. How will you remain tactful while trying to be funny? Rely on your social studies knowledge in selecting a historical figure.
Letter No. 2: Create a fictional family and write a fictional apology letter from one member of that family to another, apologizing for what happened at Thanksgiving dinner. Again, try to bring humor into the piece. What was the beef? Try to give personality to the letter writer. Help readers get to know him or her. Keep in mind that the family might have to get together at Christmas. How does that affect what your character writes?
Assignment No. 6
The Mini-Saga (+15)
Background: Writing anything is hard work. Writing a short story is really hard work. And writing a novel, a play, or a screenplay can take years. So go easy on yourself by writing a mini-saga. Mini-sagas are extremely short stories — just 50 words long ... no more, no less. Yet, like all short stories, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. London's Telegraph newspaper once sponsored an annual mini-saga contest — and the results showed how much creativity a person can pack into exactly fifty words. Try writing a mini-saga yourself. It's addicting. Here are two excellent examples to hook you:
A Life By Jane Rosenberg, Brighton, United Kingdom
Joey, third of five, left home at sixteen, travelled the country and wound up in Nottingham with a wife and kids. They do shifts, the kids play out and ends never meet. Sometimes he'd give anything to walk away but he knows she's only got a year and she doesn't.
A Dream So Real By Patrick Forsyth, Maldon, United Kingdom
Staying overnight with friends, his sleep was disturbed by a vivid dream: a thief broke in, stole everything in the flat—then carefully replaced every single item with an exact replica.
"It felt so real," he told his friends in the morning.
Horrified, uncomprehending, they replied, "But who are you?"
Assignment excerpted from:
Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Riverhead Books, 2005, pgs. 119-120.
Assignment No. 5
Session I, Part A of the English Regent (+30)
Background: Session I Part A of the English Regents requires listening to a passage, taking notes on that passage, and then completing two tasks: multiple choice questions and an essay on the listening passage. During the next few lab sessions you will start to work on completing the January 2009 English Regents Exam. Follow these directions for Assignment No. 5:
(1) At the English Regents archive, click on the January 2009 Session I Comprehensive English Examination PDF
(2) Print only pages 2, 3 and 4 (Session I, Part A) and staple them together
(3) Now print page 11, the multiple choice answe sheet
(4) Get a headset for your ears and plug it into the
earphones slot on your CPU
(5) Listen to Mr. Stratton read the Overview, Situation and Task. You can get to this audio file by following this path:
S: --> High School --> Student Shared Files --> Jan_2009_parta_task.mp3
(6) Now, at the top of your notes page, answer this
question: What is your purpose for listening? Be specific. Think about
your task. What do you have to listen for and take notes on in order
to complete this task well? What information do you need? Again, give yourself a purpose for listening at the top of your notes page to keep you focused
(7) Now listen to and take notes on the first reading of the passage.You should be mostly listening and taking some notes based on your purpose(s) for listening at the top of your notes page. You can find this audio file by following this path:
S: --> High School --> Student Shared Files --> Jan_2009_parta.mp3
(8) Listen to the passage a second time.
This time you’ll be writing much more, including...
• Supporting examples
• Words and phrases that catch the ear
• Other relevant supporting details
If you’re quick enough to get a whole phrase or even a portion
of a well-turned phrase (word for word), be sure to quickly indicate
you’ve done so by putting quotation marks around the direct
quote. Those quotation marks are like pats on the back for a note
taking job well done. Later, you can figure out how to use them in
your writing. For now, just be excited you captured something that
could be wonderful for your writing.
(9) Now that you’ve completed the note-taking
portion of this part of Session I, answer the multiple choice questions
(pg. 4) on the answer sheet (pg. 11) you’ve downloaded and printed.
Now for Your Essay:
(1) Using your notes page or another page, make an outline in MS
Word for the Part A essay, which asks you to write an article for a newsletter on nutrition for high school students. In your outline,
be sure to provide:
• Your funneled introductory paragraph
• Main and supporting ideas for each body paragraph
(2) write the rest of the essay, stopping to reread your writing very often
(3) Reread and finalize the introductory paragraph
(4) Reread and finalize each body paragraph
(5) Reread and finalize the concluding paragraph
(6) Visit the English Regents archive again, click on "Scoring Key and Rating Guide PDF" and find an appropriate example essay to read (Ask Mr. Stratton for help with this)
(7) Based on this example essay, make necessary revisions to your essay
(8) Post your essay to your writing lab blog. Remember that each paragraph needs a space between the previous paragraph when posting on the Internet
(9) Download and print How I Feel, complete the reflection and turn it in to Mr. Stratton before he reads your essay for a grade.
Assignment No. 4
A Moment of Reality (+20)
Imagine this: You are a fly on the wall. Nobody notices you. This is a good thing, because now you not only have dozens of eyes, but you have the ability to observe any conversation, any silent moment that you want to ... undetected. Use this to your advantage and write a 250-word “fly-on-the-wall” descriptive moment in which you catch a moment of reality in writing. Here are a few requirement for this written moment:
• Spend time taking notes of the moment, which you will later show to your lab teacher
• Write and identifiy 7 free modifiers (bolded)
• Use dialogue realisticly and correctly in writing
• Use a third person point of view
• Finish this assignment by the end of next writing lab session
Here is an example, although it doesn’t meet the 250-word requirement:
She looks like a pretzel without salt, curled up on a futon of the same color. This pretzel, however, is breathing and twitching her paws as if she’s chasing a squirrel or the neighborhood cat.
When a computer desk chair grinds on the hardwood floor in the office, her eyes thunder open. She’s been anticipating a walk for well over an hour now and her anxiousness is obvious from the pleading look in her eyebrows, a look so common of Red Bone Coon Hounds.
“Are you going to take her for a walk?” a voice booms from two rooms away. The lift in Audrey’s ears suggests she understands the key word in the question, and she looks toward the direction of the questioner. “I think my baby deserves another walk on her now leash tonight, don’t you?”
Assignment No. 3
Create
Your Own Writing Lab Weblog (+15)
Follow These Directions To Set Up Your
Writing Lab Weblog
Introduction: Today you will create a weblog for
the writing you will complete in this English lab. In fact, just
about everything you write in this class will be posted to your
Blog. It’s yours, which means you have creative and personal
choices to make about its layout and design, but it’s important
that you realize these three things:
(A) The written work on your Blog is what you will
be graded on, not its design;
(B) This Blog is for writing lab only. It is not
to be used for social networking;
(C) For now, only your writing lab teacher will
be invited to comment on your assignment posts, but later some of
your peers may be asked to join;
(D) You will provide your lab teacher with administrative
rights to your blog. Why?
1. To protect all
writing lab students from reading or posting inappropriate material,
and
2. To give the writing lab teacher
the ability to remove herself as a contributing author on your
blog at the end of the year or semester. |
Ok? Let’s get started!
(1) In an Internet Explorer, go to www.blogger.com and click on “Create Your Blog Now.”
(2) Enter an existing web-based email address as
your login (such as Yahoo! mail), followed by a password. Your DISPLAY
NAME should be your first name followed by your last initial, such
as Joseph_S. (See
Example)
Important: Write your username
and your password on the inside of your writing lab folder NOW.
(3) Your Blog title should be something like Joseph’s
Writing Lab Weblog, and your Blog address should be something like
Joseph_S_labblog. (See
example)
Important: Write down
your Blog address on the inside of your writing lab folder NOW.
Be sure to write the entire address, including .blogspot.com and the http://
(4) Choose your Blog template and click “Continue.”
(5) Click “Start Posting.”
(6) Click SETTINGS and follow
these important directions:
Under BASIC
(a) Add Your Blog to our listings? NO
(b) Save Settings
Under FORMATTING
(a) Change Show to 10 posts on the main page
(b) Change Time Zone to [UTC-05:00] Eastern Daylight
Time
(c) Change Language to English (United States)
(d) Save Settings
Under COMMENTS
(a) Who can comment? Change to Only Members of
this Blog
(b) Save Settings
Under ARCHIVING
(a) Active Frequency Weekly
(b) Save Settings
Under PERMISSIONS
(a) Add your writing lab teacher as a new Author. This allows Mr. Stratton to comment on your blog and even make a new post.
Ok?
(7) At the top right of this page, Click “Back
to Dashboard.”
(8) Click on Edit Profile.
(9) Uncheck “Share my profile.”
(10) For security purposes, DO NOT fill in any
of the profile information listed on this page.
(11) Save Profile at the bottom of this page.
(12) Go back to the dashboard. You are ready to
start your first post.
Assignment No. 2
Conveying a Mood from Still Images (+15)
For this assignment, you will be finding themed images on the web and writing a free-modifier-filled sentence for each image that you find. You will eventually post both the photos and writing to you writing lab blog (once we get issues solved). For now, follow these steps:
Image No. 1 — Excitement
1. Find an action-filled image on the web that conveys excitement and SAVE it to your MyDocuments.
2. You saved the image, correct? Copying and pasting won't work for this assignment.
3. Open up Microsoft Word and INSERT the photo into the document.
4. Write a free-modifier-filled sentence for this image that captures the feeling of excitement.
Image No. 2 — Sorrow
1. Find an action-filled image on the web that conveys sorrow and SAVE it to your MyDocuments.
2. You saved the image, correct? Copying and pasting won't work for this assignment.
3. Open up Microsoft Word and INSERT the photo into the document.
4. Write a free-modifier-filled sentence for this image that captures the sorrow of the image.
Image No. 3 — Joy
1. Find an action-filled image on the web that conveys joy and SAVE it to your MyDocuments.
2. You saved the image, correct? Copying and pasting won't work for this assignment.
3. Open up Microsoft Word and INSERT the photo into the document.
4. Write a free-modifier-filled sentence for this image that captures the joy of the image.
Here is an example for Image No. 1 — Excitement:
 |
| 2 With just 13 seconds remaining in Friday's game, |
1 Jessica, / , turned and drop kicked Megan's long cross,
| 2/ sensing the pressure of a 1-goal deficit |
| 2 firing the painful shot blindly toward the upper right post, |
| 2 the shot registering clean and crisp and true on the top of her right foot. |
|
Assignment No. 1
The Beginning or the End (+20)
Read David
Rossie's article about the end of summer and then
create your own article about the end or beginning of something
else. Use at least five Christensen free modifiers to weave
words together similar to Rossie's distinct style. Use the following examples
of free modifier types to refresh your memory.
Good luck and have fun with this first lab assignment — 20 pts.
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