Shakespeare, Gatsby, and Background Knowledge

This week in English is the last week before spring Break.  We are completing all kinds of exciting tasks in each class.  The 10th graders and working on a Shakespeare soliloquy project.  They will present a soliloquy of their choice to the class, with the context of the play it comes from.  Students will read the soliloquy and are also finding a video clip of it as performed on stage.  We will enjoy learning more about these famous passages and watching these on Thursday in class.

The first block of 9th graders are reading The Great Gatsby.  We will read through chapter 4 this week and finish when we return from Spring Break.  We are enjoying the story and watching how the characters interact.  It is interesting to watch their actions and their intentions.  The fourth block of 9th graders presented their background information in preparation to read Of Mice and Men.  We will have a writing task this week and start reading the day we return from Spring Break.

On another note, I have several parent teacher conferences scheduled this week and I look forward to meeting with you.  Have a great week!

Book Reports, IXL, and Parent Teacher Conferences

We felt the effects of the Spring Forward time change today!  It's rough to lose an hour, for teenagers especially!  However, we worked through it.  In first block, we are creating group presentations about one aspect of the 1920s to share with the class before starting The Great Gatsby.  We selected topics last week, created our rubric today, and organized our research.  We will present on Wednesday, so this is a real quick project.  In 10th grade we are working on writing a clear, debatable, and narrow thesis as a claim in argumentative writing.  We are arguing the merits of reading Shakespeare in high school.  Believe it or not, the English teaching community is divided on this one, so we are all taking a stand on our position and backing it up with evidence.  This paper will be due next Monday, with a peer review in class on Wednesday.  In 4th block we are working on critical thinking skills as we read and going back to the text to find support.  We have read some interesting passages and are looking analytically at how to interpret the text as we read.  We will start this week to build background knowledge on Of Mice and Men, which will be our next novel.  

All classes will have the March book report on Wednesday, March 23.  Some of the students are not even half way through their books, so there should be some serious reading going on.

All classes also have IXL standards due on Wednesday, March 16. There will be no more class time given to complete these, so make sure your student completest them at home.  No late work will be accepted, even with an absence because of the length of time given to complete this work.

Lastly, this week is parent teacher conferences and I met with several lovely parents today.  I love sharing progress at this time of year because so many students have grown by leaps and bounds.  It is exciting to see the growth in the abilities and their readiness for the next year.  I look forward to meeting with the rest of you this week and into next week as well.  Have a great week.

Shakespeare and Reading Comprehension

This week in tenth grade English we are continuing with our interpretation of Shakespearean sonnets. As a class we have learned about the format of different types of sonnets and how to analyze them for figurative language and meaning.  Students have worked as a class, in large groups and in small groups to read, interpret, and analyze various sonnets, so they are ready for a quiz, coming this week.  We will also prepare for an argument writing assignment on the merits of studying
Shakespeare in high school, also coming later this week.

In ninth grade we turned in playlists and book cover art, sharing them with a Gallery Walk.  This week we are focusing on some solid reading comprehension testing strategies and written response question strategies for the testing we will have in a few weeks.  We are also preparing for a suffix quiz, coming up next week.  All students should complete their study guides to be ready for the quiz.  Those vocab quizzes should be a slam dunk, no surprises as to what is on them, but students often are unprepared, which results in far lower grades than they should have.  Please encourage students to prepare.  It often takes many nights of study to really learn the word parts.

Take time to read and write every day!  Have a great week!