High School Prompts Archives - Page 17 of 21 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

How to Use Commas in Compound Sentences with Coordinating Conjunctions

Okay, so the title of today’s article isn’t the most exciting. In fact, you might find it downright boring—or intimidating.

I’ve been known to zone out when my husband tries to explain football lingo and rules to me. My eyes glaze over. My ears stop working. The same might be true for your students and the subject of commas.

Commas, Compound Sentences, and Coordinating Conjunctions

You can use the infographic below to teach students when to use commas in a compound sentence that is joined by a coordinating conjunction.

In this tutorial, you’ll find the following goodies:

An infographic to teach the material
A free, downloadable exercise
The answers

That’s a Commercial?

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

When is a commercial not a commercial?

When it’s written to look like a movie trailer, complete with spies, secret missions, and a plot line.
The Ford Motor Company’s latest commercials for their cars and trucks resemble movie trailers, which you can see on YouTube here and here . Other elements that aid in the “movie” look are the colors (blues and grays), lighting, and the spy-movie music.

View at least one of the commercials and then come back here for more thrills and excitement.

A Real Science-Fiction Town

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

This real-life news report is just too good to pass up. I had to share it with you.

What would you do if most of the people in your town moved away, disappeared, or died?

According to Chuck Sheppard’s News of the Weird—and this qualifies—an older woman moved back to her hometown in Japan to find that it was no longer thriving. In fact, it was down to about 37 people.

What did this intrepid woman do?

A Book Every Christian Should Read

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Aside from the Bible, what book should every Christian read?

The Huffington Post has an article titled “Spiritual Classics: 25 Books Every Christian Should Read.”

In their slide show, they feature classics from the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Here are six titles from their list:

How to Avoid Plagiarism

SHARON’S BLOG

Today’s article comes to you from my friend Lily Iatridis of Fortuigence.com. Her article is a tutorial on plagiarism and how to avoid it. You’ll even find helpful links your students can use to create those pesky citations.

In addition, Lily shares a solid method for taking notes and for keeping track of all the sources. And check out her handy anti-plagiarism checklist at the end!

This is well worth the read. I won’t be surprised if you use this article often as a reference for you and your children throughout the school year.

You can find Lily’s online writing course Essay Rock Star here.

Your Brain and the 10-Percent Myth

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You may be familiar with the movie Lucy. While the rest of us use only ten percent of our brain, the protagonist Lucy goes beyond the bounds of biology and uses more than ten percent of her brain, giving her extra powers the rest of us only wish we could have.

The movie’s original tagline (which has since been replaced) is this: “The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.”

Great premise. It’s the stuff of exciting and sometimes provocative stories.

You’ve heard it before—that we use only ten percent of our brain. How true is this assertion?

Your Job in the Circus

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

“What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. Look at us. We run a tightrope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!” -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Anne Morrow Lindbergh knew what she was talking about. Married to the highly popular aviator Charles Lindbergh, Anne balanced marriage, social obligations, motherhood, learning

Choose Your Own Team

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Soccer. The FIFA World Cup. It’s a major worldwide sporting event that draws huge audiences and viewers.

You can learn more about it here.

Is this prompt about soccer?

Proofreading: Three Methods to Make it Easier

SHARON’S BLOG

Proofreading is never easy. Anyone who says it’s easy is trying to sell you something or has never actually tried it.

If we can’t make it easy, at least we can make it easier for our troubled, weeping students. In fact, with these three tips, you can change it from a job that requires the strength of a backhoe to one that uses a garden trowel.

Many professional writers use the first two methods in their own writing, and so can your students. The third one is exclusively for students.

The Talking Shoes

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

When was the last time your shoes talked to you?

Anthropomorphism is a word for “in the form of a human.” It’s close to the term personification, and if you mix them up, it’s okay by me.

Anthropomorphism means giving human attributes to something that is not human. For instance, the Toy Story movies use anthropomorphism to give life to the toys, as do all the Transformer movies and any other movies or stories in which animals or objects talk, laugh, plan, and do other things humans do.

An example of someone’s shoes taking on the human characteristic of speech occurs in Alexander McCall Smith’s Blue Shoes and Happiness. This passage comes just after the character believes she has made a terrible mistake with her fiancé and might have lost him: