KCAI Group Writing
JLC1

Students are comfortable recognizing their names in Katakana and their major. Most majors are written in Katakana; only a few students have traditional words for their major.

Students explore different formats of business cards used by college students in Japan and choose the one the they prefer, then create their own business card that includes the following in Japanese: their name, their major, the name of KCAI. They must include their school email and social profiles to be used with interacting with Japanese artists. Their slide is shared on their portfolio and blog.

In this lessons students learn to use the google slides as a tool for building a wordbook. In breakout groups based on their majors, the students explore artist websites with bilingual vocabulary lists of tools and other terms regarding their major. Students choose only those words in Katakana (loanwords/cognates) and post the Japanese word with a corresponding image

Students are working in teams.

After a vocabulary lesson about family and a grammar lesson about basic sentence structure, students write about their families using a template with many examples of possible sentence structures. Some do not yet have an easy-to-use Japanese keyboard installed. Sentences are color coded so students can begin recognizing where particles and verbs are located. Each student has their own page and it is shared on their blog and portfolio.

This is a basic vocabulary review and wordbook creation activity. Categories include Food, Drinks, Vegetables, and Fruits. Students post foods the know in Japanese.

This is also a keyboarding activity. Students are practicing switching between katakana and hiragana words.

Students write about their favorite foods using the adjective "like" (it is an adj in Japanese). In addition they use adverbs to describe how often they eat or drink those items.

This is the first time a proofreading sheet is provided. After writing their essay, they read their partner's essay and give suggestions. The student slide is their final draft and included on their blog and portfolio.

Students explored the website Tabelog.com looking at restaurants in Tokyo. This is their first time looking at a Japanese website for class. The restaurants are categorized by types of food. Students are told to look only at those tags written in Katakana. After choosing the type of food they want to check out, they explore the restaurants listed, noting the star rating and what comments are left. Their slide includes their name, type of cuisine, restaurant name, and a description of the food/prices using adjectives. Students were paired up for proofreading. The slide represents their final draft and is posted on their blog and portfolio.

Nengajo cards are sent each December and are unique to the sender. Students explored a Japanese website for designing your own card. First they explored the different genres and noted the different elements, colors, and presentations on their note taking slide. Next students created their own Nengajo card that included the required elements for the annual AATJ Nengajo Contest. The final slide with their original Nengajo is posted to their blog and portfolio.