A small Grinch-y request

Dear students:

I am happy to accept electronic submissions from you. Unfortunately, I do not read and/or grade your work on my iPhone; therefore, please do not send me screen shots. More specifically, I am happy to read writing assignments that are formatted in either MS Word or Google Docs. That’s it though. Please choose one of those two options. If you are able to scan a document or if you can convert a file, please select PDF format. Again, this is the part where I am asking you not to take a picture with your phone’s camera. My eyes have reached middle age, so please be kind to them.

Happy writing!

Mrs. Ford

December break, end of semester, etc.

Hi all.

I’m grading papers today, and I wanted to formally notify everyone that next Monday is the deadline to turn in late assignments. In CP Writing, a number of students did not submit the grammar homework on dangling and misplaced modifiers, and a couple of students are still finishing their dialectical journal entries. Please know that unless we have corresponded about special circumstances–such as illness or scheduled travel–all assignments are due on Monday, December 9.

Accordingly, students in both classes should be completing homework assignments for next Monday. In Intro to Shakespeare, students are writing their final Contemplation Question response–phew!–and completing the Acts 3-5 test for Twelfth Night. We will begin Henry IV, Part 1 in class, but there is no scheduled reading assignment this week.

In CP Writing, students are working through a packet on President Kennedy’s inaugural address. This week’s lesson centers on parallelism as an additional rhetorical technique that writers/speakers sometimes use. Students should also complete Grammar Evaluation #2.

ACTS will not meet for three weeks, and I am not assigning homework over Christmas and New Year’s weeks; however, I will be sending home course work that students will need to complete before we return in January 2020. Please look at your vacation schedules and decide when and how you should complete this work. Shakespeare students will be reading the Act 1 of Henry IV, Part 1 and keeping a reading log. CP Writing students will be reading Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and will be drafting part of a rhetorical analysis essay; they will also be adding to their dialectical journals.

After the first eight weeks of class, I sent home grade reports with students. Towards the end of January, I will send home first semester grades.

On a very final note, no student informed me that s/he would be missing class for the Holiday Bazaar–I think that’s the correct name–next week, and I do intend to teach full lessons on Monday. If your student is a creative entrepreneur with plans to sell his/her wares, please make every effort to attend class. Additionally, if your student is absent for any reason, please make arrangements to submit assignments and pick up hard copies of handouts.

And I think that’s enough for now! I look forward to seeing everyone soon, and I know we’re all looking forward to a pause in our schedules to celebrate a gift far more precious than the writing left behind by Shakespeare, Kennedy, or King–

Laura Ford