| Monday, December 1, 2008
homework:
- - voc. quiz Unit 2 Wednesday
- - Harlem Renaissance presentations Wed. and Thurs. - 3rd period A
lunchers bring a sack lunch
- - Test Friday over phrases, poetry analysis, Glory Field through "1930"
- - read "1964" by Dec. 9
The rubric and the schedule for the presentation is on the documents section
of this site.
Today we worked through a couple of Langston Hughes's poems, reviewed
phrases, and students received the answers to Unit 2 voc. exercises.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Homework:
- - OR - due Jan. 9 - let's sign books into the log when we return from
Thanksgiving
- - Unit 2 voc. quiz Wed. Dec. 3
Today we....
gallery walked around the room to see all the vocab. triangles.
analyzed a passage in Glory Field for imagery.
gave out the rubric for the Harlem Ren. presentation after Thanksgiving.
The presentations will be Wed. Dec. 3 and Thurs. Dec. 4.
3rd period A lunchers will stay for lunch both days...bring a sack lunch!
Have a great week! Gobble gobble!
Today, we took voc. quiz unit 1. And we read an article on ragtime music.
We listened to ragtime music. We added notes on p. 19 about how music
evolved from Negro spiritual to ragtime. Tomorrow and Friday, you all will
conduct your "1900" literature circles. After your group is done, you will
read "1930" and prepare for the literature circle on it which will be Thurs.
next week. M,T,W next week we will be researching people of the Harlem
Renaissance. You will pretend to be your your person in a presentation of
his/her work and life the week after Thanksgiving. If I do not update this
site until late next week, you now know all you need to know for a good long
while.
And on a personal note...
Chicago was amazing!! I attended a lecture on New Deal art. I learned that
several of the people you may research next week were supported through the
WPA during the Depression. I enjoyed live music - classical, ragtime and
jazz. Did you know that ragtime is still being composed, recorded and
performed?I also attended sessions on modern art and creative writing. And
I heard a panel of experts talk about the Great Books Foundation. That
session left me with more questions than answers; I have a lot to learn!
Someday I hope some of you will go with me. I could be a good tour guide
now. I walked all over Chicago - up and down both State Street and
Michigan. I know where the CVS is and the Starbuck's - what more would we
need? Ha.
Today we did a little of everything....notes/reflection on music and
religion evolution, quiz, voc. review
Renzulli is a go! Get online at home - www.renzullilearning.com - log in
with same username(first intial, middle initial, last name, house #) and
password (2014) as you set up today. Click on the pawprint and start
exploring. The more you explore, the more ideas you will have for your
independent project. We start picking those by the end of March.
Today we finished our first 4 level analysis of a sentence from the first
section of Glory Field. You all did a fabulous job connecting the
grammatical elements to the meaning of the sentence!!!
We also studied slave/white cultural evolution in music and religion. We
discussed the difference in the Muslim vs. the Christian names of the
novel's characters; we found out how the slaves converted from Islam to
Christianity, and we learned about negro spirituals, the "slave scale", and
the white spiritual "Amazing Grace" written by John Newton, a former
captain of a slave ship. Wentley Phipps is one of my favorite singers with
his rich tone and powerful voice. If you enjoyed his singing, you can find
his recordings online and in stores.
Today we studied the words culture and evolution. since our theme for this
unit is "Cultural Evolution" it helped us to define and explore the words
and their meanings.
We also read part I of Glory Field.
Tomorrow we continue with 4 level analysis on page 18 of IN and introduce
part II of Glory Field.
Notes about grammar:
You can look at the
books on 4 level analysis by Michael Clay Thompson. Just google Royal
Fireworks Press and go to Michael Clay Thompson's link. The books are
called 4Practice 1, 2, 3. The end result is a student who can analyze what
the author is doing to create meaning. The student can also analyze an
author's style.
With the Socratic Seminar last week, we ended the first unit -
yay!!! The only remnant will be getting the Tempest papers graded and
returned, which I will do as fast as I can. Our next unit is centered on
The Glory Field,the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement with
the concept of cultural evolution at the crux.
As noted above, get your OR done asap. There is limited time since
I am going to be traveling home from the Chicago Humanities Festival on Nov.
10, and I will be at the Texas Gifted Education Convention on Nov. 13, 14.
I hope I will have lots of wonderful ideas to share from both. If you are
interested, visit the Festival website at www.chfestival.org. The theme
this year is "Big Ideas." I will be attending seminars/lectures on art,
history, music, literature, and the Great Books program which is a
literature program used in this district and across the country in gifted
programs. Apparently, the Great Books program started in Chicago. Who
knew? Well, now we do - ha!
My dream is to take a student group to this Festival. The Dallas Institute
for the Humanities is beginning to copy Chicago this year. Their festival
is only a one-day event on Nov. 8, but if any of you could go, I know it
would be a good experience. The Chicago Festival is a month-long event with
lectures, seminars, and performances all over the city. I hope some day the
Dallas one will grow to be as big.
Merriment abounded at the Renaissance Faire! Her Majesty would like to extend
her thanks to all of you for making the event such a success! Our
distinguished guests the Lady Pat Watts, the Lady Janice Rowlands, and the
Lady Rene Morris all enjoyed the celebration very much. Carroll-upon-Trinity
was a delightful place indeed!
Your Tempest papers are due next Tuesday. I will be gone for jury duty
Monday. If no one reminds you and if I'm not here even on Tuesday, your
papers are still due on Tuesday. See the rubric for the paper on the
documents section of this website. It's a major grade.
And finally - here's the skinny on Vocabulary Workshop. Level D is
the 9th grade book. Keep the workbook at home and use it to study with. We
will not be assigning or grading any of the exercises unless I copy it as a
class activity. Remember that you can download the words to your ipod, hear
them, play games on the internet. I will give you the answers to the
exercises before the quiz. The quizzes will be cumulative probably just
from the unit right before. Quizzes will continue in the same
format. I don't know how long we will use the Vocabulary Workshop, but if
it goes well, we might use it all year.
Directions for rough draft:
If you used google docs and need to finish typing in your rough draft, go
ahead if you can without your prewriting which I took up. I will give it
back Tuesday. You can print at home or at school. If you saved it on the
school computer, we will work on getting it
into google docs Tuesday or getting you a print out to finish handwritten.
Directions for prewriting:
Choose three characters who want to rule. Prospero plus two others -
Gonzalo, Antonio or Sebastian(but not both), Caliban or Stephano(but not
both).
Write for each:
- motivation - why he wants to rule
- what kind of ruler he would be
- what society would like under his rule
- quote - original text - proves what you said about the character
Then write a thesis - a sentence that tells what Shakespeare was trying to
say through presenting each of these characters as a possible ruler. What
does the exploration of different kinds of rule and rulers tell us about
society, human nature, justice, change, utopia?
So, for the rough draft, you should have three paragraphs - one for each
character - and a quote for each. Three to four sentences plus the quote
for each paragraph.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Homework:
OR - one week left - everyone should have signed up for a time this week if
you haven't done your conference yet
Voc Quiz Oct. 2 - tomorrow!
Renaissance research due tomorrow.
Today we had a stompin' good time pretending to be pirates - arrrr! I think
we all got a physical feel for iambic pentameter - at least I did. I'm glad
I don't have a peg leg, but if I did, I could drag it around while reciting
Shakespeare, I guess!
The votes are in and you have voted YES to the Renaissance Faire! Yay!! I
love to dress up and eat! Think about how you can make your topic come
alive for us. I will pick a date for this merrye event soon.
I estimate that it will be at the end of this unit in couple of weeks.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Homework:
make sure your Google docs account is ready to use - know your username and
password
voc. quiz is Oct. 2 - next Thursday - you can find the list in the documents
section of this website
OR - one more week left!
read Act II scene ii by next Wednesday
Today we discussed computer use at school. Also, we learned about the
pieces of a website address, discussed search engines and the different
kinds, and reviewed evaluating websites. All the information from the
packet is at the link in the links section of this website.
Monday, Sept. 22
Homework - due next Wed. Oct. 1 - read Act II scene ii
We enjoyed creating and performing short skits based on sections of Act II
scene i. Tomorrow, we will read a story about a dystopia "Harrison
Bergeron." Mrs. Adams will be with you while I am at Renzulli training.
See you Wednesday!
Friday, Sept. 19, 2008
We finished Act II scene i today. For the end of the scene, we looked for
parts that could match three different captions on sticky notes: Top
Secret, You Should Know, and Blah, Blah, Blah. This will be part of a
cumulative grade on the interactive notebook for next week. Monday, the
kids will create a mini scene based on a part of scene i. And new voc. is
coming next week too.
I am grading tests this weekend - should give them back and input grades
into Skyward on Monday.
Have a great weekend - no homework except for OR.
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008
We started Act II today. It's hard to catch how funny the scene is when
you're working hard to understand the language, but we tried! And it is
funny - Renaissance sarcasm - what a hoot!
We will go to the Book Fair tomorrow...bring $$$ if you would like to
purchase.
The plan is to finish scene i of Act II by Friday and make our own skits of
scene i on Monday to act out on Tuesday.
OR due by Oct. 3 - time is wasting...get your book conference done before
it's too late. At this rate, I should be averaging 5 conferences a day.
Don't wait until the last day. If you are one of many you may end up with a
zero. Come do your conference asap...after school, before school, lunch.
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