國中生取得寫作成功：第一學期課程

This course is a combination of Achieving Writing Success: Improving Sentence Writing for Middle Schoolers and Achieving Writing Success: Creating the Paragraph for Middle Schoolers.  We will cover foundational topics like parts of speech and functions as we lead into understanding, building, and identifying grammatically correct simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.  Emphasis will be placed upon accurately punctuating all sentence patterns and being able to explain why sentences are punctuated the way they are.

Paragraph writing topics that will be covered are writing topic and concluding sentences, employing descriptive language and sentence variety, and using logical connectors and transition words.  Descriptive, narrative, and process writing will be studied and emulated.  Exercises and homework will involve practicing what is modeled by the teacher in class.  Class time will involve 25-30 minutes of instruction and 25-30 minutes of practice. 

The course schedule is as follows:
Class 1:  Introduction + Parts of Speech
Class 2:  Parts of Speech: Noun, Pronoun, Verb, and Conjunction Identification
Class 3:  Functions:  Subjects, Verbs, and Objects
Class 4:  Sentence Pattern:  Simple Sentences
Class 5:  Sentence Pattern:  Compound Sentences  
Class 6:  Sentence Pattern:  Complex Sentences 
Class 7:  Complex Sentences Revisited + Review 
Class 8:  Topic Sentence + Descriptive Paragraph
Class 9:  Concluding Sentence + Descriptive Details 
Class 10:  Narrative Paragraph + Descriptive Details 
Class 11:  Process Paragraph + Organization  
Class 12:  Logical Connectors and Transition Words
Class 13:  Editing and Review

This class is interactive by nature and all learners will be expected to participate by answering when called upon.  Learners will also be expected to work together with their classmates for specific in-class assignments.  Learners will be given multiple opportunities within each class to ask questions.  Note that this class does have homework assignments and that it is important for learners to do these in a timely manner (due the day before the next class) in order to maximize their learning and demonstrate that they are grasping and applying concepts well.