Thursday, April 29, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1 Same as Orange....see that blog

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Action Writing
-The Ledge by Stephen King-discuss sensory images in expanded moments
2. Bring your computers on Monday....we will be writing!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Term Paper
-"Rules" of the term paper unit...explanation of expectations....page limits, etc
-Go to library....short presentation by Mrs Lucas...."presearch" on your own....we will do more of this on Friday
-You will have your thesis due on Tuesday of next week
2. Vocab Test is Friday

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-collect/go over Dramatic Situation writing
-Film and discussion for Act 3 (take notes)
-There is no reading for Friday...we will continue on Act 4 on Friday

ENGLISH 12
1. The Longest WInter
-Chapter 2 study guide
-Summarize Chapter 3....do other notes on military terms
-Read "The Ghost Front" chapter for Friday
2. Vocabulary Test is Friday

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Read sections of 3.1...particularly the soliloquy Hamlet gives....analyze soliloquy
-Partner activity with reading ending of 3.2 (the rest of 3.2 was summarized by yours truly!)
-For next class, analyze a QUOTE (not one on which we focused in class) from 3.1 or 3.2...have it correspond to a theme we've gone over thus far in the play. This should be typed (about a page)

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Creative writing game....
2. Action writing
-"As I stared at him" writing and discussion...

Monday, April 26, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Vocab list for Friday test
2. CDW
-Quick review (although you should have it in your notes)
-Read "25 Things Every Mainer Should Know"
-Write: What is something every Mainer should know? Write your answer in claim, data, warrant format (type it) and give it to me on Wednesday

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Read 3.1 and do notes together
-Summarize beginning of 3.2
-With reading partner, read the rest of 3.2 and complete worksheet study guide
-For Wednesday, do a dramatic situation, in writing, that encapsulates a quote from 3.1 or 3.2 that we HAVE NOT spotlighted on in class. Be sure to tie it to a thematic element OR a literary term

ENGLISH 12
1. Vocab words for test Friday
2 The Longest Winter
-Intro notes to understand military terms
-Summarize Ch 1
-Read Ch 2 (19 pages) for Wednesday. There will be a quiz

Friday, April 16, 2010

BLACK DAY

**ALL CLASSES: See my OTHER post from today...it is an interesting essay all students should read!!**

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Notes on Act 2 Scene 2
-View/discuss/take notes on film for Act 2
-Read Act 3 scene 1 for after vacation!

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Character analysis through "The Office"

BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS.........

(One of two articles in "The Boston Globe" yesterday. Check it out....an interesting take on school as we know it......)



DOES YOUR son do community service?’’ my friend asks me. Her tone is demanding, frantic. “Because I hear the colleges are looking for community service now.’’

Another friend confides that she has hired a tutor to help her son with math. The boy’s PSAT math score was over 700, but the mother hopes that tutoring might bring it up some more.
Someone else is fretting because her daughter got a C+ in chemistry and, even though her other grades are good, “the colleges aren’t going to like that.’’
Our kids are in tenth grade.

When I hear these parents — my friends, who are otherwise sane people — talking, a big part of me wants to say, “Please shut up.’’ And another part of me wants to ask for the phone number of the math tutor.

Every year when college admissions season rolls around, I read articles about how the applicant pool is bigger and stronger than ever before. But are we really seeing better kids, or just slicker packaging? We think our children should be academically brilliant; musically and athletically gifted; and dedicated to serving, if not downright saving, humanity. Are there really a lot of people like this? Or are we creating Frankenstudents — artificial monsters, impossible composites of skills and achievements that rarely co-exist in real life?

I look around at the adults I know, and I don’t see anybody who resembles this glossy hyperachiever. I see a doctor who gardens, an architect taking care of an aging mother, a sculptor who plays tennis twice a week. I know someone who does relief work in Africa, and someone who gave a great deal of time and money after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami — but those same people don’t also play the tuba and win skating championships and dissect frogs. They have work, families, and friends — and even with that, no one gets enough sleep.
The pressure to have kids who are “outstanding’’ and “well rounded’’ is intense, and it starts earlier and earlier. Some friends took their kindergartener to Florida for a week last year, and not only did the school send a packet of homework along, but one evening, when the little girl sat at the table drooping over her crayons, the parents were appalled to hear themselves saying, “Hey! Wake up! Color.’’

This climate of parental anxiety is nuts. The way kids are being packaged for college is cynical and fake. (It reminds me of the old Miss America pageants, where contestants had to look good in a bathing suit, play the marimba, aspire to do brain surgery, and dream about world peace.) But opting out of it is nerve-wracking, too. If everyone else is playing the game, can your child afford not to?

The goal of education is to genuinely enrich people, not to make them merely appear enriched. By trying to manufacture Frankenstudents, we are distorting and cheapening a process that should allow people to experiment, question, take risks, stumble, and occasionally fail. We need to give people permission to spend time doing things that are not quantifiable and don’t show up on a résumé — things like daydreaming; reading for pleasure; learning how to cook a frittata; and studying a subject you’re not very good at, just because it interests you. We need to stop pretending that everyone peaks early. We need to prepare our kids for unpredictable lives and uneven careers, for bumps and jolts and ambiguities. In short, for real life.

I suspect that our kids are much more sane about the whole college admissions process than their parents are. When I asked my son if he was interested in getting some extra tutoring for the PSATs, he said, “Mom, I’m fine.’’

It’s the grownups, with our anxieties and ambitions, who are crazy.
The problem in Mary Shelley’s novel wasn’t the monster. It was the ambitious, egotistical scientist — Dr. Frankenstein — who wanted to create something that was bigger and stronger than any real person could possibly be. It didn’t work out very well. Maybe it’s time for us to abandon the myth of the Frankenstudent, and start admitting that our kids are just as real, and fallible, and human, and varied, as the rest of us.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Art Institute presentation with Jennifer Rogers
2. We will continue with CDW after vacation....DURING your vacation, start thinking of possible term paper ideas!

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Review rest of Act 2 Scene 2...listen to dramatic situations....go over soliloquy....discuss psychological association
-Collect Dramatic Situation notes
-View Act 2 of film

ENGLISH 12
1. Art Institute presentation with Jennifer Rogers

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Test on Act I
-Read 2.1 in class....Jordan and Paige WOW us with their theatrical antics
-Notes/reading on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and parts of 2.2
-For Friday, read the rest of the conversation between Hamlet and Polonius (we read part of this in class) and read up until Polonius enters the scene AGAIN (the first line is "well be with you gentlemen!") You do not need to finish the whole of scene 2....

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Teach "Expanded Moment" and "Sensory Images"
2. Various quick reads of expanded moments....expand the moment of "I take that first bite..."
3. On Friday, we'll continue with these short exercises, write short blurbs, and read a King story...

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Vocabulary Test
2. Claim, Data, Warrant
-go over "Maine" example
-go over paragraph structure of CDW writing
-View "The Office" episodes and collect data based on Michael

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Vocabulary Test
2. Hamlet
-Read 2.2-review what was to be read for today
-Explain the logistics of "Dramatic Situation"
-Go over handout on Dramatic Situation lines from conversation between R&G and Hamlet
-Complete 2.2, and do one dramatic situation web for a line in this reading section. Do a thorough job

ENGLISH 12
1. Vocabulary Test
2. Claim, Data, Warrant
-Go over examples (Maine, etc)
-Teach paragraph formation
-View "The Office" and make data observations...go over for a participation grade

Friday, April 9, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Vocabulary
-Test is on Tuesday...as a review we put words in sentences and used semicolons or appositives in each one
2. Claim, Data, Warrant
-view powerpoint presentation
-"Maine is the best/worst state in which to live" Be sure you come with your notes on three pieces of data and a reason (warrant) to believe each one

HONORS
1. Hamlet
-Act I Test
-Read 2.1 together
-Try to get the image of Sam playing Hamlet out of our heads forever.......
-For next class, you should read 2.2 up to when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come in AGAIN (I believe it is line 220 or so)


ENGLISH 12
1.Vocabulary
-test is Tuesday....we put words in sentences
2. Claim Data Warrant
-Powerpoint presentation...take notes
-For "Maine is the best/worst" state notes....come on Tuesday with your three pieces of data and one warrant for each one. This will be a graded assignment.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Discussion and notes on Act 1.5
-View Act I of film
-Be prepared for test on MONDAY

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Writing conferences
-check in about "themed writing" stories. The rest of class has "inspiration time" while I conference with each of youse. And I did say youse.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Vocabulary words for a test next Tuesday
2. Grammar
-"Aluminum" activity and go over sentence enrichment-In class/take home essay which is due in class Friday morning. The parameters of the paper are as follows:
  • At least 1 page minimum
  • Usage of 3 semicolons, 2 appositives, and 1 colon in your sentences (not knowing what one is is not an excuse....we have gone over these in class)
  • Write either "free choice" or "What is one thing you would do if you were not too afraid to do it?"

HONORS ENGLISH

1. View Act 1 film of HAMLET....there is a test on Act 1 on FRIDAY

ENGLISH 12

1. Vocabulary words for a test next Tuesday

2. Grammar: Read Stephen King's "Quitter's Inc" and respond in writing to "What is one thing you'd never be able to give up?" In your one page response, you must use semicolons and appositives.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Please see yesterday's blog for Honors English. You are finally on the same schedule! Finish ACt 1 and we will watch the film on Thursday

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Action writing
-Check out intro to Lance Armstrong's autobio
-Briefly discuss "expanded moment"which we will do next
2. Collect papers
3. We will conference on THursday...bring something on which to work for "I.T."
4. "What I learned from TV" podcast!

Monday, April 5, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP
1. Grammar
-Test on Prep phrases and Lie vs Lay
-Begin final installment of grammar unit: Semicolons, colons, commas, and appositives
-Lesson 75: correct run on sentences, etc
2. Be sure to bring computers on Wednesday
3. We will get a new vocab list on Wednesday

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Test on character matching Act 1.1-3
-Go over test
-Discuss "translation" worksheet guide as we discuss all of 1.3
-Read 1.4 as a class....you should read 1.5 for Wednesday!
2. New vocabulary words for test Friday

ENGLISH 12
1. See College Prep notes above!

Friday, April 2, 2010

BLACK DAY

HONORS ENGLISH
1. Hamlet
-Finish all notes regarding theme, literary uses, etc. If you have missed any of the intro notes, GET THEM!
-Begin the play together, reading parts for Act 1.1...take notes
-Read Act 1.2 and take notes....assign parts and discuss
-Read Act 1.3 for next class. Also, you should complete the 1.3 "translation" sheet I gave you.
-A character or note quiz is always to be expected!

CREATIVE WRITING
1. Theme writing
-Quick writes "the first time," "sissies," and "numbers." Discuss
-On own, stream some audio from an installment of "This American Life." Listen to it for about 15 minutes...enough for you to get the sense of what it is about
-For next class: Write/expound on a theme....this can be either one I have given you (the three listed above, "what I learned from TV," or "who do you think you are?") or one you get from the This American Life web site. This is due Tuesday!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

ORANGE DAY

COLLEGE PREP

1. Grammar
-Finish exercise 45 on prepositional phrases
-complete exercise 19 and "mad lib" style sentences for prep. phrase review
-Notes on LIE vs LAY and complete worksheet
-There is a TEST!! on Monday concerning prep. phrases, sub/verb agreement, and lie and lay

HONORS
1. Hamlet
-Students were to read 1.1
-Finish intro notes on theme, lit device, etc
-distribute handouts on 1.1 and 1.3
-Discuss 1.1 and read aloud/notes on 1.2
-For next class, please read 1.3, complete the "quote sheet" I gave you, and be prepared for a character matching (?) quiz...possibly....

ENGLISH 12
1. Grammar
-Lesson 45 on prep phrases
-Exercise 19 and mad lib sentences
-Lie and Lay notes and worksheet...go over to review for test
-Test on MONDAY on prepositional phrases, lie and lay, and subject/verb agreement