English 8: Blocks 3/4

Silent reading and notes on 'adverbs'.

To continue with our assignment, the Letter to Ms. Jones,  I paired up students for a peer-edit. I also gave a bit of time to work on the good copy of the letter. The assignment is due Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015.

We finished discussing the short story "Catch" and completed corresponding questions. We ended the day with notes on elements of short stories (types of characters and irony).

Reminders:

• "Catch" questions: due Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015
• Letter to Ms. Jones (plan, rough copy, peer edit, and good copy): due Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015

English 8: Blocks 7/8

Silent reading and notes on 'adverbs'.

To continue with our assignment, the Letter to Ms. Jones,  I paired up students for a peer-edit. I also gave a bit of time to work on the good copy of the letter. The assignment is due Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015.

We finished discussing the short story "Catch" and completed corresponding questions. We ended the day with notes on elements of short stories (types of conflict and point of view).

Reminders:

• "Catch" questions: due Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015
• Letter to Ms. Jones (plan, rough copy, peer edit, and good copy): due Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015

English 11

Have fun this weekend! I hope "The Lottery" doesn't give you nightmares!

We started off class reviewing "The Lottery" and going through a literary analysis of the story (using Powerpoint). We mainly talked about the importance of the setting, the dynamic of the characters, the transformation of the mood, symbols, and the main protagonist. We also focused on the main themes: the inequality of choosing scapegoats, the dangers of conformity, the evils hidden in life, etc. Thereafter, students completed questions for the story.

We also watched the movie version of "The Lottery", which took up most of the class. Students have a movie-analysis sheet to complete for Monday.

Reminders:

• Literary paragraph for "The Black Cat": OVERDUE
• "The Doll's House" questions: OVERDUE
• "The Lottery" questions: due Monday, Feb. 23, 2015
• "The Lottery" movie questions: due Monday, Feb. 23, 2015

English 8: Blocks 7/8

Have a great long weekend!!!

Students started off class with notes on adjectives and worked on questions for the short story "Thank You Ma'am". After that, students were introduced to their first writing assignment; based on the story "Thank You Ma'am", they must write a letter to the character Ms. Jones. Students were given time to fill out the planning sheet and write a rough copy. The rough copy is due Monday.

We then went to the library and students picked books for their Independent Novel Study Assignment.

During the second period of class, students read silently for ten minutes before we moved onto an activity on 'themes'. We watched four Pixar short videos ("Twit Twit", "Presto", "For the Birds", and "Partly Cloudy"), then students split up in groups of four, and wrote out the types of conflict and  themes for each video on chart paper. We then went over the ideas as a class. To finish, we read the story "Catch" in Sightlines 8. 

Reminders:

• Finish ROUGH DRAFT of the letter to Ms. Jones: Monday, Feb.  23, 2015

English 8: Blocks 3/4

Great brainstorming session today!

Students started off class with notes on adjectives. We then went over questions for "The Veldt" and "Tell-Tale Heart". After that, students were introduced to their first writing assignment; based on the story "Thank You Ma'am", they must write a letter to the character Ms. Jones. Students were given time to fill out the planning sheet and write a rough copy. The rough copy is due Monday.

We continued the class with additional notes on elements of short stories (conflict and point of view). We then went to the library and students picked books for their Independent Novel Study Assignment.

During the second period of class, students read silently for ten minutes before we moved onto an activity on 'themes'. We watched four Pixar short videos ("Twit Twit", "Teamwork", "For the Birds", and "Partly Cloudy"), then students split up in groups of four, and wrote out the types of conflict and  themes for each video on chart paper. We then went over the ideas as a class. To finish, we started to read the story "Catch" in Sightlines 8. Finish this story for homework.

Reminders:

• Thumbprint Profiles:OVERDUE
• Finish reading "Catch": Monday Feb. 23, 2015
• Finish ROUGH DRAFT of the letter to Ms. Jones: Monday, Feb.  23, 2015

English 11

I hope you enjoyed one of the most controversial stories in history!!!!

We started off class with a small discussion on "The Doll's House"; we talked about themes of status, material values, superficiality, and the division of social classes. Students then worked on questions for the story.

After that, we read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and discussed its history/significance. We will continue the literary analysis of the story next class.

Reminders:

• Literary paragraph: due Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015
• "The Doll's House" questions: due Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015

English 8: Blocks 7/8

We started off the day with notes on verbs (passive/active and verb tenses).  After that, we finished our worksheet for "Tell-Tale Heart" and watched a short animation of the story.

Moving onto our next short story, we read the article "Doing Time", which is about a teenager conflicted with jail time. We then had a discussion on motivations and stereotypes of criminals (students submitted a worksheet for this). Finally, we read Langston Hughes's story "Thank You Ma'am".

Reminders:

• Thumbprints due today!
• Make sure you submitted you 'Motivations/Stereotypes' worksheet