The Spring 2024 class will meet online with Mrs. Moss, through Zoom, every Wednesday afternoon, from 3:30-5:30pm, on the following dates:

• 3/27/2024

• 4/03/2024

• 4/10/2024

• 4/17/2024

• 4/24/2024

• 5/01/2024

• 5/08/2024

• 5/15/2024

• 5/22/2024

• 5/29/2024

Course Description

LitQuest’s Reading/Writing Combo course merges Ms. Moss’s Writing Workshop and Critical Reading core disciplines into one seamless package, allowing students a new avenue through which to build the same study habits found in the Core courses. The reading portion of the course involves literacy training, will engaging students in learning strategies for analyzing texts. Each week, both individually and in small groups, students will receive rotating reading roles/missions to guide their discovery of important elements of the text, direct their purpose(s) in taking active reading notes, facilitate group discussion, and help them lead class seminar-debate-oral presentations.

Focusing primarily on the analytical genre, the writing portion of the course will prepare students to accurately articulate the themes derived from their chosen text – increasing their knowledge of analysis, generating and judging thesis statements, formulating topic sentences and integrating direct quotes, and building complex commentary, ultimately demonstrating their mastery of comprehension and composition.

What to Expect?

In the course of a Reading/Writing Combo term, students will actively annotate a short novel in addition to developing their analytical writing skills. After an introduction to active, annotative reading on the first day of class, students will continue to practice building annotative habits each week; students will not only practice annotating for various elements of literature, including, at minimum, a bullet-point summary at the end of each chapter and labeling of key quotes for character, setting, conflict, theme, and style, they will also incorporate the Six Traits of Writing into each of their analytical tasks. Aside from their annotative responsibilities, students will complete analytical reading charts for character and theme as well as short analytical writing prompts, each pertaining to their specific text.

6 Traits of Writing for Revision

• Ideas: Coherence, Avoiding Redundancy, and Applied Critical Thinking

• Organization: Body Paragraph Development

• Word Choice: Verbs, Vague Pronouns, Variety

• Sentence Fluency: Sentence Structure Variety, Transitions, Syntax, Dangling Modifiers

• Grammar: Proper use of Commas, punctuating for style and individual voice

• Voice: Genre Specific Diction & Tone

NOTICE: On Monday, March 18th, LitQuest will send a “Welcome Package” that contains a set of files to help prepare your student for their class, including a “Zoom Access” file that will grant entry to the online classroom throughout the course of the term.