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!

Leap Day, Essays, and Playlists

We started this week in English class, with Leap Day.  To commemorate this day, we started by looking back at where we were four years ago and how far each student has come since the 5th or 6th grade.  Then we looked ahead to the next four years to make predictions of where we might be.  After that, we were ready to write to inquire and explore this topic.  Each student worked independently to consider what might be happening for them in four years and what may have already happened.  It's pretty exciting to think about!  We shared some plans and agreed that even if the plans change, having a plan is a really good way to have a direction in life.

In other class activities, the tenth graders worked on writing an interesting thesis statement and worked on their compare/contrast essays.  Those are due tomorrow and as always, I have loved seeing the depth of ideas evolve throughout the writing process for them.  We have some excellent writers in this class and I'm glad they are pushing themselves to improve!

In ninth grade, we started working on Protagonist Playlists today.  This was really a fun way to bring in character analysis, theme analysis, plot analysis, and comparing a text with a song, which is a form of poetry.  The students are each responsible to find three songs and then will put them in order of the events of the book with their group.  They will add a visual element tomorrow and be ready to share their work on Wednesday in class - a fun way to wrap up our reading on the theme of courage!

We are ending the third quarter, so make sure your child keeps reading and keeps working hard on these last few assignments of the quarter.  Everything counts!  Have a great week!  

Tests this Week

This week in English class, both 9th and 10th graders have tests on their books.  Actually, this is a big week for grades for all classes.  Especially as we are near the end of the third quarter, these grades are important.  All classes will have the February book report in class on Thursday, Feb. 25.  In ninth grade, we will have a figurative language quiz, a book club essay test, and the Book club comprehension test.   The essay test will be done largely in class, but can be completed at home.  The  tenth graders did a great job on their Animal Farm presentations to the eighth graders.  They presented to our class today and we had some time to play the games, which was  a nice review for their test on Wednesday.  They also have their Compare/Contrast essay due next
Monday on Feb. 29. So all in all, there are a lot of important grades coming from this week.  Please be ready for these assignments.  We have gone over the calendar of assignments in all classes, so hopefully no student will be surprised by these assignments.  Have a great week and make time to read!  

Book Projects

This week in English class we are working on tasks related to books we are reading.  In tenth grade, we finished Animal Farm and we selected group projects today.  We will work on these and share them with the middle school students next week.  Each group chose either a written, creative, or dramatic way to share information about a topic relating to the book.  Some of the topics are themes of leadership, literacy, rights and oppression, or historical information about the author, the elements of the plot, or how this book is an allegory for the Russian Revolution.  We generated questions before choosing topics and projects, so we have some real interest in the information we will gather this week.  We also had a great first day as a combined sophomore class, with 26 students.  It allows for many ideas to be shared and more variation in student groups.  I'm excited about working with this wonderful group of students all together!

In ninth grade, we practiced character analysis by writing bio poems for the protagonist of our book.  We actually started by writing them about ourselves, then moved into writing about the character.  It warmed my heart to watch every student in the 4th block class consult their book to find character traits as they wrote their poems!  This is the time of year when students exhibit growth, as I saw during this learning activity today.  Bio poems are due on Wednesday and we have a vocabulary quiz on Wednesday as well.  We will finish our books at the end of next week, then we will have some culminating activities before taking a final test on this book.

Upcoming Reading Assignments

This week in English the tenth graders finished reading Animal Farm.  They will read some different texts to compare to the book and begin a comparative writing assignment.  They will also select a project to extend their knowledge of the book.  We will have a test on this book after the writing and the project are complete.

The ninth graders continue to read The Red Badge of Courage or Iron Thunder.  We have focused on eight types of figurative language and we are searching for examples of each type in the book as we read.  These figurative language examples will be on their final test.  We are also selecting new vocabulary words for a quiz next week.

All classes will need to select their February book for their in class book report.  This will be on the last Thursday in February, Feb. 25.  Keep reading this week!