Been a little quiet around here...

So here's a fun thing for you to look at while I catch up on end-of-semester stuff:

The Fox

Happy Friday! (Homework info below)

Today, we practiced placing commas, discussed Day 1 of OMAM, and some classes took notes on Day 2 vocabulary.

Homework is Day 2 Reading and Log, vocab sentences for periods 2 and 4, and to pose/answer a question in your period's blog post.

Periods 3 and 7 will finish Day 2 vocab on Monday. :)

-Mrs. L.

Theme and Symbolism

Happy Monday everyone! I don't know about you, but this is what I felt like doing when my alarm went off this morning:

Today in class, we talked about theme and symbols. Pairs identified symbols and thematic concepts in the poem "Wild Asters" by Sara Teasdale:

In the spring I asked the daisies
  If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
  Always knew.

Now the fields are brown and barren,
  Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
  Not one knows.

Homework is to write a half-page response in your journal to answer these questions:

o   How can a person know what is most important to focus on in life? What might happen if someone focuses on the wrong thing? 

-Mrs. L.

Sheltered Fifth Period: Characterization and Peer Feedback

Today, we looked at the mood paragraphs of a partner, and circled and labelled for:
1. Context
2. Quote
3. Commentary
4. Signal Phrase

We also talked about what characterization is:
It can be direct or indirect
There are 5 elements:
1. Appearance
2. Speech to Others
3. Inner Thoughts
4. Actions
5. Others' Reactions

We practiced talking about these elements by looking at Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" in the scene below.

Homework is to read through the bottom of page 4, and look for new words, literary devices, and make predictions.

-Mrs. L.

So Little Time, So Much to Know!

In the words of "The Nowhere Man," Jeremy Hilary:

Busy day today! We had so much to get through: starting our first story, "A Sound of Thunder," practicing annotations, learning about the "quote sandwich," and hearing from representatives from the student literary magazine, Vertigo.

For those of you who would like to review the "Quote Sandwich" information (or for my seventh period students who had the privilege of experiencing the glorious fire drill...), you can check out the powerpoint here.

Homework for tonight (not for period five):
1) Finish reading "A Sound of Thunder".
2) Write a "quote sandwich" paragraph, in which you describe the mood at the end of the story, and use one quote from the story.
3) Write two discussion questions that we can use for our whole-class discussion of the story tomorrow. Think about what you'd ask the class if you were the teacher!

Homework for tonight (for period five):
Make a plot chart using details from what we read today.

-Mrs. L.

Food For Thought on Your Day Off

Words We Love

Check out these quotes from Marilyn Chandler McEntyre:

“It is hard to get people to look at words instead of through them.”

And sometimes words become objects of interest in themselves. Suddenly we notice them. We see and hear them the way poets do, as having vitality and delightfulness independent of their utility.

We talked about words a lot today, starting with an article entitled "Mother's the Word." If you'd like to read it, you can find it here. 

What does it mean to look "at" a word, instead of "through" it? I used the analogy of a window: usually, words function like a window, to show us something beyond. Like the quote says above, I want us to sometimes pause and look at this "window" itself. What happens when you look at a word as something vital, something delightful? Maybe what the guys in this video do:

Most classes then thought of their own favorite words, and we created a "Word Wall" with them. Some classes even had time to answer our essential question for this unit, which is, "How do we use words to communicate who we are?"

Have a great weekend!

-Mrs. L.

Bodie the Galumpy Puppy

Don't worry, he's fine now.

-Mrs. L.