Reading Progress

Today we jumped right into class with reading our books.  Each class is making progress with the reading.  In all classes we have been keeping notes about what happens in the book, but also looking deeper at what inferences can we make about what is happening and how that might help us understand what comes later in the reading.  We are analyzing characters and making predictions based on what we read. a key skill in literary analysis.  In each class we are writing every day, making connections to what we read and making the text come to life for us as readers.  We have had great discussions in each class.
In first block, as we reviewed chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby, we discussed and wrote about what forces were accelerating a specific character and what forces were decelerating the character.  We talked about forces like fear, jealousy, money, greed, love, and power.
In second block, with The Metamorphosis, we learned a real life fact about the author Franz Kafka, that as he knew he was dying, he asked a friend to destroy his writing after his death.  The friend decided not to honor Kafka's wish and had the work published, several novels and other publications.  We talked and wrote about if this was an honorable decision or not and gave our reasons.  There is a lot that we don't know about that situation, but we had a lively discussion today.  Second block also took a vocabulary quiz today and has another coming up on Thursday.  The tenth graders have one IXL standard due today as well, G.1, on capitalization.
In fourth block, we talked about a time when someone convinced us to do something and a time we convinced someone else to do something.  We tried to decide if the other person changed our mind or if we just gave in.  Then we read Chapter 3 in Of Mice and Men, where there is some convincing going on.  It gave us a nice connection when we read about Carlson trying to convince Candy to shoot his dog because it is old and smells bad.  Also, a lively, interesting discussion that I wish we'd had more time to pursue!
We have testing coming up next week, so our schedule will vary to accommodate our test taking week. Have a great week!