The students received a Final Exam Study Guide for next Monday’s exam. They were given the class period to begin searching for the information they need. Hopefully, we will be able to use tomorrow to fill in any of the gaps or difficult-to-find items.
May 30, 2012
Today was a pretty simple day. The students completed their spring school writing prompts. The was the second time this year, the classes worked on this prompt. If everything went according to plan, there should be some improvement since the last time back in January.
May 29, 2012
Today is the day for our Unit 5 Post Test. With the time remaining, we reviewed the final exam review sheet given last Thursday.
May 24, 2012
Today we began reviewing for the final exam coming up soon. Starting with grammar work from last fall, the students were given a practice exercise. Depending on time, we will wait to review the answers until Monday. In the mean time, the students also need to prepare for the Unit 5 post-test which is on Tuesday.
May 22-23, 2012
During these two days, the students are using persuasive essays to practice creating introductory paragraphs using one of the three methods from the previous day’s notes.
Each student will be writing a persuasive essay on the topic of school uniforms. Because the focus of the assignment is on the intro paragraph, I decided that every student will support the idea of school uniforms and gave each of them a list of reasons why it is a good idea. This way the students won’t be spending more of their time focused on the rest of the paper. Besides, an important part of writing a quality introductory paragraph is knowing what you want to say in the rest of the paper. I simply provided that part.
Remember, each student is required to write the WHOLE paper, not just the intro paragraph. Unfortunately, the copy machine is preventing me from scanning the list of reasons. If you lost yours, you’ll just have to come up with them on your own after all. This is due tomorrow.
May 21, 2012
Sorry I was gone last week. I decided to take some time with my new daughter. A big thank you to Mrs. Doane for taking my class for the week. The students were certainly in good hands.
Today the class went back to writing. But before we look at persuasive writing, we took a look at an Introduction to Introductions. Writing a quality introductory paragraph is dependent on creativity, critical thinking, and knowing your audience. Although the three methods mentioned in the notes aren’t the only three ways to write an intro paragraph, they certainly are something off of which to build.
Some hours need to finish up the notes tomorrow. Although all of the notes can be found here, the students will be provided a copy of the example slides tomorrow.
May 9, 2012
After a nice relaxing (and sun burnt) day at the Lugnuts game yesterday, the class is back in action with our Drama unit. Having just completed Act One of “A Christmas Carol” (yes, we may skip to Unit Five earlier in the year next year), the students are using it to complete a few exercises on interjections and writing. Both assignments can be found on pp.770-771 of the Literature book.
The interjection assignments are on p. 770. Be sure to complete both practice exercise A & B including the “Challange” for both.
The writing assignment is found at the top of p. 771. Be sure to read directions carefully, especially those pertaining to what should be included.
Sorry for the short disappearance of the blog for awhile. But this little bundle of joy would like to say “thank you” for allowing me to be gone.
May 1, 2012
Brand new month! Brand new unit!
Today we started our discussion introducing the “Big Unit Question” which is, “Do others see us more clearly than we see 
ourselves?” Clearly, this is a complex question that is not only useful for our unit conversations but outside of the classroom in everyday life, as well.
The unit itself deals with Drama (not the cat fight variety…the performance kind). Tomorrow, I will assess what the students know about the topic already. In the mean time, the students were introduced to our mentor author, Laurence Yep, and a brief excerpt from his novel Dragonwings. Tomorrow we will look at Yep’s conversion of that excerpt into a drama format and note the complications and skill needed in doing so. In other words, those screenplay writers earn those Oscars.
For homework, the class needs to complete a Unit 5 Vocab worksheet provided during PowerUp time.
April 23
Today we talked about the elements of propaganda during World War II. This is our lead-in for our next project of creating propaganda posters of our own! Since this covers the same idea of persuasive writing, just in a different format, we decided to try a more interesting, fun approach to the same concept.
April 20, 2012
Today we took a MEAP style test on “paraphrasing.” When that was completed we continued our discussion on “denotation” and “connotation.” Denotation is the definition right from the dictionary. That’s easy to remember DEnotation is the DEfinition. Connotation is the general feel of the word that adds meaning in itself. Is the word generally seen in a positive or negative light.
For homework, the students have to complete a worksheet on Connotation and Denotation.
