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Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Homework:
- - OR - autobiography - due Dec. 18 - no book conferences this six weeks
- - Unit 9 voc. quiz Dec. 3 - that's tomorrow!
Your slides are super! It will be great to see all of them together.
Today we had voc. quiz Unit 8 and finished the autobiography assn. I will
take two grades on your interactive notebook: pp. 12-20 will be one grade,
mainly completion and p. 21 will be a separate grade.
The myths an legends assn. you will do tomorrow for Mrs. Adams is not
homework. If you don't finish, you will have a chance later next week.
1st and 2nd will go to the play Friday, 6th will finish the myth assn.
So, that is all until next week when we will spend 3 days in the library
researching the Kiowa Indians M-W. If I don't update this until next
Wednesday or Thursday, you'll still know everything that's going on.
Chicago was amazing!! I attended a lecture on New Deal art that was
fascinating and useful for 7th grade. I'll be sharing that with you all at
some point this year. I enjoyed live music - classical, ragtime and jazz. 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.
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.
About OR next six weeks which starts Nov. 17....
For the third six weeks, the kids will be reading an autobiography of their
choice. I wish I had a good list to get you started, but I looked for
several days and couldn't find a good list. It seems that all the
autobiographies are lumped with the biographies, and the lists don't tell
you which is which. Since I want you to pick an autobiography that you will
enjoy, I suggest using the public library (and their librarians) and maybe
just sifting through at a bookstore. You might think of a hobby, sport,
leader, or career interest; find out the name of a famous person from that
field and then see if they wrote an autobiography. Although it may be
difficult and I might approve a few, try to stay away from autobiographies
where they had a named writer. The cover will usually say "with" or "as
told to." I know it will take commitment and effort to find an
autobiography, so I am giving you almost 3 weeks. I want to approve them by
Nov. 20. Because you need to read the whole book to engage in a meaningful
discussion, you will most likely read more than 150 pages, but most of you
are doing that anyway. The other normal rules of OR still apply: nothing in
an anthology, nothing you've ever read before, nothing assigned for a
class. Also, we will not be doing book conferences for the 3rd six weeks.
Instead, I want you all to complete a writing assignment about
autobiographies and/or perhaps some kind of group discussion. Maybe
something along the lines of a coffeehouse informal conversation. Anyway, I
trust this will be a rich extension of our study of heritage, myth, and
autobiography.
The voc. quiz has been moved back a week due to rescheduling of MAP tests.
Today we started our intro. to Unit 2. The intro. allows the students to
consider different types of biography and autobiography....portraits both
painted and on postage stamps, autobiography, and fiction. We are
considering two authors, Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott. Since one
element of Unit 2 is autobiography, this is a good way to begin thinking
about how and why people tell their own stories.
Another thing about autobiographies...I am compiling a list of
autobiographies for OR for the 3rd six weeks. I would like for everyone to
read an autobiography this time around. More details later, but if you know
of any good autobiographies for young people, please e-mail me the title and
author.
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.
Notes about OR and next week:
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.
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