After a quick review of the expectations (Semester Paper on F451 is due at end of class), I begin to arrange students in differentiated pairs. Some were ready to begin a quick and final grammar edit (L.9-10.2 and W.9-10.2d); some were still completing the final body paragraph or conclusion (W.9-10.2f). The goal is to put students together in pairs to help each other revise and refine (W.9-10.5) that will be right-sized for the tasks that they have to do.
I fully expect that the students will be down and busy, hammering out their work and trying to elaborate on their thoughts in a polished way that focuses on clear topics, transitions, and language (W.9-10.2, W.9-10.2b, W.9-10.2c, and W.9-10.2d).
Students will publish their work (W.9-10.6) on turnitin.com, which will provide a plagiarism check and also will provide me with the chance to review the students' work with an online rubric. I have selected this rubric because it seems quite complete and because we are using turnitin.com already in my school for both plagiarism check and as a means of beginning to keep an online portfolio.
I am excited to move about the room today, help students to polish their essays by making sure they're including precise vocabulary and adhering to grammar rules (W.9-10.2d), challenge others with content and evidence (W.9-10.2b and W.9-10.2a), and generally bring this to completion (W.9-10.5).
This paper is a final summative grade for the students. I plan to use it to assess their understanding of their knowledge of the effects of figurative language (RL.9-10.4), character (RL.9-10.3) and theme (RL.9-10.2). I also plan to review the students papers to determine continued writing goals for second semester.