Short Week with Projects

Monday holidays make for a very short week for us.  We started the week off with vocabulary quizzes, which we always have on Tuesdays.  Despite the warnings of a quiz after a Monday holiday, the quizzes caught many students in a less than prepared state.  Ninth graders are finishing the Red Badge of Courage this week.  They will have an individual playlist project, complete with album cover art.  They will also have a group project to build a scene from the book, including a symbol as represented in the book.  We will have a presentation of these projects next week in a combined ninth grade event.  We will also have a test on this book next week, probably Thursday, March 2.

Tenth graders are starting a research paper that will include both Government and English content. This means that students will write one paper that will be major grades in two classes.  We have been preparing by learning about audience, tone and purpose.  We also have learned how to write  quality thesis statement and practiced ordering information from broad to narrow.  Of course we have covered how to avoid plagiarism. Because they will work in both classes, we have a tight timeline with the outline due on Monday Feb. 27.  Also, a reminder that tenth graders will take the PSAT exam next Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Reading and Test Prep

Ninth graders turned in a Strong similarity paper today, comparing a idea from a Walt Whitman poem with an idea from The Red Badge of Courage.  They shared ideas today and I was impressed with their depth of thought and analysis.  This week, they will have a lot of reading as we plan to finish the Red Badge of Courage by Thursday.  Keeping this pace will mean some will be assigned for homework, but we will have it finished by the long weekend.  Ninth graders also made our last vocab organizer with just ten words for the next quiz, Tuesday 2/21.  This should be a slam dunk, since they know the words and have over a week to prepare.  If you are at the school,come check out the character analysis Bio Poems hanging outside the classroom.  They are really fun to read.

Tenth graders are finishing an Anton Chekhov short story unit.  They have read and discussed some interesting short stories.  These stories don't have traditional endings, so they have been somewhat unsatisfying to some students, but the conversations we have had as we analyze and interpret the stories have been deep and interesting. We will take a comprehension quiz this week on Chekhov's stories, then we will do a little test prep for the PSAT that students will take at the end of this month.  It may not be the most exciting way to spend our class time, but because this is a National Merit Scholarship qualifying test, it could be a very profitable way to spend two days this week!

Have a great week!

Reading Assignments

Here's what's ahead in our week in English class.  Ninth graders are continuing on in The Red Badge of Courage, focusing on Figurative language.  They are also learning about symbolism in literature and learning strategies for identifying symbolism when they encounter it as they read. They will learn about other figurative language, such as allusions and euphemisms, with practice coming through IXL standards.

Tenth graders are learning about the Russian author Anton Chekhov and his unique approach to endings in fiction writing.  We will learn three types of endings used by Chekhov, reading a short story with an example.  We will also start learning some research writing skills for an upcoming research paper.  We have focused heavily on the reading knowing that we would shift to writing soon.  Tenth graders will have IXL standards due for homework this week in conjunction with that.

All students have a book report on March 8.  This should be on a self-selected book at their independent reading level that they are reading at school and at home.  Have a great week!

Reading Literature

Tenth graders finished their College Prep unit by making a Testive.com account so they can practice for the ACT or SAT at home.  This site will give them targeted practice with clear explanations for concepts they don't understand.  We watched a TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell about preferences in food variety and applied that to our writing and to people in general.  Tenth graders will be starting on a brief unit on the short stories of Russian writer Anton Chekhov.  We will focus on his endings and how he changed the traditional ending.  These are pretty quick reads and found online, I recommend reading The Bet if you are interested in Chekhov's writing.

Ninth graders will continue reading The Red Badge of Courage this week.  They took a vocabulary quiz today and began a character analysis of the protagonist in the form of a Bio Poem.  These are due Thursday.  Because of the writing style, this book at times requires students to back up and reread the text to really discover what is happening.  Students should take advantage of the group reading process to discuss and clarify what is happening as they read.

All students will take their first book report of the second semester on Wednesday.  Most students have finished their books so they should be planning for the next one, which will be in March 9.  We are half way through the quarter.  Students are having graded assignments regularly.  Please encourage your student to keep up on all assignments.

Graded Work

Since coming back from break, we have been learning a lot of new material and practicing that in class, resulting in not as much homework.  However, this week students will have additional homework and more graded assignments.  Please check the homework tab if you wnat to follow up on student assignments.  All students will have a book report in class on Wednesday, Feb. 1, so books should be complete by that date.

Ninth graders are starting to read The Red Badge of Courage thihs week.  They made a vocab organizer with 12 new words from chapters 1-5.  All students should finish organizers Monday and study thi sweek to be prepared for the quiz on Monday Jan. 20.  They should also be prepared for possible comprehension quizzes each day after reading. Ninth graers will have IXL standards on figurative language assigned this week and due in a week.

Tenth graders are completing a college prep unit.  They are working on writing to respond to typical college essay prompts with word limits.  A word limit enhances different limitations on a writer, so this experience is beneficial for them to try out before they are filling out college applicaitons.  They will also gain experience with challenging reading passages as they will find on college entrance exams.  They are practicing annotating those and reading for comprehension and accuracy.  Tenth graders have IXL standards due this week and will have more assigned.

Have a great week!

Poetry and College Prep

Where did this week go?  With that Monday holiday, this was a very short week; nevertheless, we accomplished quite a bit in all classes.  In ninth grade, we read Walt Whitman poetry.  We focused on Whitman's Drum-Taps poems, a collection written about the Civil War.  This will tie into our next book, The Red Badge of Courage, which we will start next week.  During class we focused on annotating with a broad to narrow approach, determining the overall tone and message before we look for specific literary devices like metaphors or alliteration. We will be ready to learn some new vocabulary and start reading the book next week. It will be very valuable learning experience to draw comparisons between Whitman's poetry and The Red Badge of Courage.

Tenth graders are in a College Prep unit.  In a college experience, sometimes students have to write without much time (not for assigned homework, of course, but for timed testing situations). We spent time learning how to plan and write and essay response quickly.  We also learned how to write when you are limited on words, like for a college application or scholarship essay with a word limit.  Both present challenges to students that can be improved with practice.  We also learned some strategies for attacking ACT reading passages.

It was only three days but we accomplished quite a bit, with bigger plans for next week.  I appreciate the effort of all of these students!

Welcome Back!

It's the first day of the third quarter and the second semester.  We started the quarter off with new reading logs and a reminder of our next book report, coming up Thursday, Feb. 2.  All students should select their book by this Wednesday, Jan. 11.  The tenth graders started today with learning about the research of Carol Dweck, Ph.D, on Fixed and Growth mindsets.  We learned about this before getting semester finals back, and wanted to view them with the idea of growth, not frustration. Having a growth mindset is critical to learning, so it is worth the time we will spend in the next few days on it.   We will use this for a springboard for a College Prep unit of study we are starting, where we will have some training on reading and writing to succeed on college entrance exams and college applications.  It may be a while before students are actually doing these, but preparation is a key to success.
Ninth graders learned about setting SMART goals and set two goals, one academic and one non-academic.  They will do some writing to inform and explain about these goals and their plan to achieve them.  Ninth graders will also start reading some Walt Whitman poetry this week, as a companion text to The Red Badge of Courage, a classic by Steven Crane set during the Civil War.  Students will have opportunities to read and also to write about courage and challenges and how we and changed by them.  It's an exciting topic to read about and I look forward to exploring these themes with the ninth graders. So far, 2017 is off to a strong start in the English classroom.  Have a great week!