Meditation 17

• HERE is the link
• We watched "Glorious" by David Archuleta & compared it to Mediation 17.
• We also watched "I am a Rock" by Simon & Garfunkle.

Trifles

We have been reading Trifles by Susan Glaspell. The audio version of the play is here. The text of the play is here. You can also watch it as a play on youtube.com here.

Today we had a literary elements quiz. 

All late work is due before fall break.

Story of an Hour Essay

Students who have not turned in the "Story of an Hour" essay, here is an outline for the essay.

Story of an Hour & Article of the Week

This week, we are reading this article for the Article of the Week. Students are asked to 1. Read the article and mark any observations and confusion. 2. Show evidence of a close reading by marking the text with questions and comments. 3. Write a one-page reflection on your own sheet of paper. They should use the questions at the back of the article to respond. Keep in mind, the article was written August 12, 2014, and things change quickly, so there is more to know about any subject. Students can find more at this link from the NY Times.

In class, we are reading "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin available here. We are looking at figurative language, irony, suspense, and the way the story was crafted. Students will write a one-page argument paper with two large supporting paragraphs.  

Thursday & Friday

On Thursday (9/18) and Friday (9/19) we discussed the poem of the week "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. We also started reading "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Students who have a missing poem or article of the week need to get those turned in!

Literary Terms, part 2

Today, we had a quiz on "A-ha" moments. This was based off of the lesson we had last time on "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli. Students watched a video and identified the "A-ha" clue words, what the speaker realized, and how it changed the speaker.

Then we defined the following literary terms:

• Foreshadowing
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Characters
• Suspense
• Chronological order
• Plot

We used this prezi to demonstrate the concepts.

Poem of the week: 

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes is due tomorrow.

Monday & Tuesday

Today, students received Poem of the Week "Harlem" by Langston Huges. It is located here.
Students should annotate the poem. They should write a 1/2-1 page paper about their thoughts, feelings, personal reflections on the poem.  Here is a Nike commercial that uses the poem.

We discussed "A-ha" moments and did an assignment in class. This is a walk-away. I will be grading these and talking to students who didn't pass the first assignment or the follow-up test.

Parent/Teacher conference is on Thursday 9/18.

Article of the Week

Today we had our first article of the week! It is located HERE. Students should read the article. As they read, they should annotate. Then, they should write a 1 page paper answering these 3 questions: 

• What should be done with the immigrant children who are flooding the US borders? Explain.
• What should be the future policy regarding illegal immigration?
• Select any passage and respond to it.

We also wrote an essay about "There Will Come Soft Rains" using a claim, 3 pieces of evidence, a counterclaim, and a conclusion. Students turned this in today before they left class.

Friday & Monday

We discussed the poem of the week. Students should not have simply summarized the poem, they should have written a response to the poem. They should have annotated the poem. Annotation is where students underline, mark, highlight, and write in the margin of the poem so that what they are thinking and feeling makes sense. They should have been looking at 1. Setting, 2. Theme, 3. Author bias, 4. Mood of the poem.

In class, we read "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. The link is here.
We discussed this Prezi and wrote the first part of an essay.

Picture Day & Homework

Today in class students received a copy of "Incident" by Countee Cullen. It is HOMEWORK. Due next time in class. They should follow the directions on the top of the Poem of the Week, and also look at the poem we did in class called "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale. Link here.

We also read the short story called "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. Students were asked to mark contrasts and contradictions, and they were asked to mark questions, items they wanted to talk about, and anything that seemed odd for 1950. We discussed part of the story today and will discuss more next time.

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

Today we discussed the poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale. Video.
We talked about how science fiction always has a CURRENT event as its conflict, so it's important to know when the text was written because that will help you to narrow down the event at the theme.
We discussed the elements of a good argument paper which are
Author/speaker CREDIBILITY
Audience EMOTION
Logic EVIDENCE.

Contrast & Contradiction Quiz

Today we had a quiz on Notice & Note: Contrast & Contradiction
Then we went over literary terms. See this Prezi.

Notice & Note

Today we had silent sustained reading. If you did NOT bring your book, you read out of the text book. DO NOT MAKE THIS A HABIT. You will lose points.

Then we had the first Notice & Note lesson on Contrasts & Contradictions. It is located here. This lesson is pass/fail. Students who did not pass this lesson the first time will be required to redo the lesson.

Students should also have their composition books for next time as we will be doing literary terms.

Power Standards and 50 Book Reading Challenge

Day 2 = August 21st (A day) August 22nd (B day)

Today we talked about what was essential/vital for students to know to succeed in class. We looked at the 9th grade Power Standards (located here).

We looked at the 50 Book Challenge. PGJR has been participating for the last 3 years. 

We added the Reading Log to the composition/writers's notebook.

We had a book talk. Please see this link for all the books we discussed.

Students wrote a "Letter to My Future Self." The directions are here. They will get this letter back on the last day they come to this class at the end of the year.

Bring your composition book, highlighters, core binder and your Silent Sustained Reading book NEXT TIME.

Welcome Back to School

Today we went over procedures. The power point is located here.

I handed out the disclosure document. Students are NOT required to print it. It will be mailed electronically to parents. Here is the link.

We talked about post-apocalyptic literature, and we talked about The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner.  See this link. We watched the movie trailer for The Maze Runner.

Don't forget to get your composition book, 2 different color highlighters, and your core binder with your planner!

Wednesday (A) Thursday (B) This week

On Wednesday, classes are shorter because of the On Board party. Students who work with me need to be working on remediation work or their current composition book.

A note on composition books: If you are turning your composition book in, you must have it complete. It is your job to have it be as complete as possible. I will grade it once. I will not regrade composition books for more credit. Make sure it is complete when you hand it in.

Today we will have a Bell Ringer Activity (link here)
Then we will read. You will have a pink reading log to put in your composition book.
We will then discuss the Prezi/Presentation.
After that, we'll read Juliet's soliloquy in Act III scene ii.

Almost to Midterm!!

1. Today, you will start with the bell ringing activity (see link here)
2. Then we will have silent reading. In your composition book for today, your reading log should have the date, the title of the book you are reading, and the page you are on. Then after reading time, you will write a 1 paragraph summary of what happened in what you read today.
3. Then we will marry off Romeo & Juliet. (It's about time, right?!)
4. You should receive Act III study guide for your composition book today.

Term 3: New Term, New Needs

All students should have a composition book OR a spiral notebook. 

       This should be where all notes and assignments are kept. I will collect them every couple of weeks. We started keeping these 2 weeks ago when we started the Romeo & Juliet unit.

Students should have notes so far for

• Day 1: Notes on Shakespeare. PLEASE come to Flex to make these up. You may look at mine! Here's a video that will help.  
• Day 2: Notes on this video. We also talked about Old English, Middle English, and "Shakespearean English" or Early Modern English. We looked at this video about Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare's English. We watched the National Endowment of the Arts' Shakespeare in our Times
• Day 3: Notes on The Globe Theater and the beginning of Romeo & Juliet. For the Doctor Who clip of The Globe click here. Here is what we watched in class of the movie (velvet version).
• Day 4: Article of the Week on "Your Brain on Shakespeare": read & annotate. See these directions. We read Act 1 scene 2 and answered the questions.

I will be grading your composition books next week. HAVE THEM UPDATED.

Bring an outside (for pleasure) reading book with you to class. You receive points for this every day. You have been required to read every day since you started school at PGJHS. Don't tell me you "forgot."