Thursday

English 8
We completed our last lit circle! We'll be finishing up by Tuesday when we hand in our complete DEJ for the lit circle novel. You may use your TCCs as a resource when writing out your DEJ.

For your presentations, here is the criteria:
1. Present a brief overview of the novel. Do not spoil the plot! Don't read from the back of the book.
2. Present your groups opinion of the novel. One person may present an opinion of the group, or each member may present their opinion during the presentation. Also, rate the novel. You could give it a ranking out of /5 or perhaps a number of stars.
3. Provide a critique of the novel: present something that worked well in the novel and something that didn't work so well.

Remember, to get full marks, everyone in the group needs to present and it should fit within the time limit of 5 - 10 minutes!

Homework:
Make sure you have your presentation ready to go for Monday! The big DEJ for your novel is due on Tuesday.

English 11
We've now taken a look at our upcoming lit circles. One item of concern: if your entire table hands in exactly the same novel preferences (all the way down to rank 10!) many of you will not get your preferred texts.

Homework:
None. Take a break now that your essays are complete.

English 9 SPECTRUM
Our first essay will be on Tuesday. Make sure you bring your Walter Mitty outline!

Wednesday

English 8
We'll be finishing our novels on Thursday with our final meeting. Don't forget to fill in your role sheet and TCC. 9 Entries for each TCC!

Homework:
For Monday, we have our group presentations on our lit circle novels. For Tuesday, hand in your DEJ for the novel. 8 Entries and responses for each one. No need for questions on this DEJ.

English 11
Finished our essays today. Starting lit circles and a winter assignment tomorrow!

Monday

English 11
Today we took a look at our individualized feedback for our literary theory essays. By the sounds of it, we're going to need another 2 classes to complete the good copy. Make sure at least 2 other students have gone through your editing checklist before you proceed to write a good copy. For those of you looking to add a paragraph or a few sentences here and there, be sure to include those changes on your essay draft so I can see your editing process.

English 8
We took a look our lit circle presentations. They'll be short: 5 - 10 minutes tops. Tomorrow, we'll be going over our clause worksheet (first side) and start work on the 2nd side. After that, we'll meet in our lit circle groups and start planning our presentation.

Friday

English 9 SPECTRUM
Today, we finished watching Walter Mitty, and started forming thesis statements for a compare and contrast essay. The enthusiasm around a good thesis is excellent, but we have a lot more work to do!

*edit* No class on Monday (duh!). Tuesday, we're going to revisit thesis statements, and learn about essay outlines for compare and contrast essays. We'll take another look at two approaches for compare and contrast essays.

English 8
We had our lit circle meeting today. Our final lit circle meeting will be on November 26. On November 30, we'll have our novel presentations. I will be providing the details of this next week.

Homework:
Begin preparing your role for the next meeting. Don't fall behind!

English 11
We completed our Shakespearean Sonnets and handed them in. Several students wanted to make small revisions to their poem; please make sure this is handed in by Monday. Speaking of Monday, we'll be getting our essays back with feedback. Monday and Tuesday will be revision days. Come prepared to write!

One final note: A few of you asked about bibliographies for the essay. You can do this over the weekend if you want, but constructing an appropriate bibliography will be part of our workshop on Monday and Tuesday.

Homework:
Make the necessary updates to your sonnet if you haven't handed it in yet.

Thursday!

English 8
Today we wrapped up our sentence fragment practice. Tomorrow we have our lit circle meeting. Be ready!

Homework:
Fill in the rest of your lit circle meeting role so you'll be all set for tomorrow.

English 11
Editing day for our sonnets! Shakespearean sonnets can be tough, but you can see that with a bit of preparation, they're not too bad. The trick today was figuring out how to add some poetic devices and sound devices into the mix.

Homework:
Make your poem pretty. It should be on a 8.5" x 8.5" paper. You can use regular printer paper, and just cut off the bottom 2.5 inches. If you want, you may use the paper cutter in my room tomorrow. Put some graphics on it - be an artist, or borrow something from the internet.

Wednesday

English 8
More progress on our lit circles today. We have a meeting coming up on Friday. Today we did some of the old grammar book and learned about this new term - the "clause". No, not Santa Claus. This is a different kind of clause. More to come on this tomorrow!

Homework
Nada!

English 9 SPECTRUM
We'll be finishing Walter Mitty on Friday. For the 2nd half of the class, we'll be doing a compare and contrast planning chart. You'll see all about that on Friday :) We should have your journals back at some point mid/late next week.

Homework
Nada!

English 11
We made Shakespearean Sonnets today - or at least started them.

Homework
Finish your sonnet. Tomorrow we'll be adding a few poetic elements to spice up your sonnets.

Monday

English 11
I'm now knee deep in marking your essays. My feedback is generally about 200 - 350 words each, so it's taking time. My goal is to get these back to you by Thursday or Friday. Some of these essays are 10 pages long, so we'll see how long it will take.

Pat yourselves on the back for a job well done. With the rough draft done, a major step has been taking towards the completion of our LOTF unit.

For those of you who made a bibliography - excellent work. I was so entrenched in marking while you wrote that I didn't collect them! We will need a bibliography eventually, so if you made your bibliography for today, you'll be saved the trouble of submitting one with your good copy next week.

Homework
You deserve rest tonight. Do nothing - unless you have homework in other classes. Do that first, then do nothing.

English 8
Great job on the lit circles today! We move onward towards our big element of fiction: Theme tomorrow. Our next meeting is going to be on Friday.

Homework:
Be sure to stay caught up!

English 9 SPECTRUM
We started watching Walter Mitty today. Remember: we want to compare the role of his fantasies from the short story, as well as any other similarities you may find. The film and short story are significantly different. If you want to get ahead, you could reread Mitty in our short story book before Wednesday.

Homework
(optional) reread Walter Mitty in our short story book.

Friday

English 11
We made some major headway on our essays. It seems a project this big is going to take more than one class. Since most of you are using more than the novel and the handout for the literary theory, we'll need to put together a bibliography for the essay so that I know what you are sourcing. You may choose to come in for some extra writing after school today.  On Monday, we'll continue writing the draft to completion, and I'll have feedback prepared within the week.

Homework:
Create a bibliography for Monday to hand in with your first draft.

English 8
We caught up on our reading during silent reading, and focused on verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns. For many of us, there was some review, but as you might have discovered, there's much more to learn about these parts of speech than you might have thought.

Homework:
Finish the 20 questions from the overhead. Fill in the blank space with a letter symbolizing the part of speech. N, Adv, Adj, V for Nouns, Adverbs, Adjectives, and Verbs respectively. For those of you who didn't finish copying them down, here they are:

1. The ___________ left.

2. The __________ car was going too fast.

3. Cathy ____________ her wallet at home today.

4. ___________, she got stopped by the police on her way to work.

5. Henry was __________ tired after walking all afternoon.

6. The office ________ wrote a memo to all the employees.

7. The students ___________ their homework on time.

8. He gave good __________ to his wife.

9. The funny man spoke very ____________.

10. The bad weather made everyone __________.

11. The ___________ is in their eyes.

12. My sister sent the letter which I __________ yesterday.

13. Paul and his sister, Helen, _________ to the airport early.

14. She recognized the man who __________ the street.

15. The woman became _________ when the driver in front of her stopped for no reason.

16. They usually put the flowers on __________ in front of the store.

17. The radio blared __________.

18. John’s _________ broke down on the bridge.

19. The letter _______ on Tuesday.

20. I found a _________ envelope on the sidewalk.

Thorn Thursday

Does it feel like there are two Mondays this week? That's because there are. Only, one of them is a Monday is disguise.

English 11
Our last preparation day. Thesis statements are ready to go for the big essay day tomorrow. We used sticky notes to prepare our quotes and a few of us started organizing our introduction after completing the outline. Work should be kept in your folder at school.

We should complete our writing tomorrow and submit the drafts. Once I finish writing out formative feedback, we'll get our drafts back and revise them for a good copy submission early next week.

Homework
SLEEP. You need rest so you can write the best essay you have ever written.

English 8
Ms. Lee discussed a new literary technique today: Foreshadowing, and connected it to your lit circle book. We still have our meeting coming up on Monday, and we didn't have enough time to do much silent reading. Keep that in mind! Think about doing some extra reading this weekend to prepare for your role for Monday's meeting.

Homework:
None - but you may read your lit circle novel to get ahead.

English 9 SPECTRUM
We read Masque of the Red Death today. A hint: a popular allegory for this text has to do with inevitability.

Homework
Do #8 in the book if you didn't finish it in class. Describe how the author establishes the mood of the story.

Morbid Monday

I love the smell of block rotation in the morning.

English 9 SPECTRUM
Today we read Asimov's "The Feeling of Power". We discussed the plot profile briefly, and some problems it may have with short stories and other examples of literature.

Homework:
 Do #8, and chart the characters, setting, and symbolism.

English 8
We completed our first lit circle meeting today. Remember to keep track of the time as you go through your role.

Homework:
None! Hurray!

English 11
We performed our skits for the last half of Golding's Lord of the Flies. We then reviewed "Ye Olde Standard Essay" structure. Remember, you can use variations of it that fit your purpose. The most important thing is that you provide a thesis and evidence to support it.

Tomorrow we'll be working on our introductions. If you still need help with your thesis, I am available to help during class.

Homework:
BE HAPPY.

IT IS TIME FOR FUN FRIDAY.

English 11
We've finished reading Lord of the Flies. We're now going to re-examine our inquiry question: How does society influence character morals? Using the text during class, we created a 2nd set of descriptive ethics for society in LOTF. After we had a 2nd set of ethics, we broke off into our table groups and began planning skits we'll share to summarize the last half of the novel on Monday.

Homework
Write a paragraph - not more than a single page double spaced that compares the descriptive ethics of the island in the first 4 chapters, and the last 4 chapters.
Finish preparing your skit to present on Monday.

English 8
We made the final steps to prepare for our first lit circle meeting on Monday. If you finish your book early, please let me know and I'll give you another book to work on.

Homework
Make sure you're prepared for you role on Monday! Fill in your character role sheet so you're good to go.
Also, make sure you have at least 9 entries on your TCC. 3 entries for each reading day.

Thane Thursday

English 9 SPECTRUM
We read the short story, "The Lie", and took a look at the situational and dramatic irony within. After, we started working on the draft for a haiku about the irony in this story. Keep in mind that I will be collecting journals near the end of next week, or the week after for a midpoint journal check.

Haiku example:
Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense
refrigerator.

Homework:
Complete a good copy of your haiku. The haiku must:
1. Demonstrate the irony in "The Lie".
2. Be on 8.5" by 8.5" paper.
3. MAKE IT PRETTY (or ugly) - Put some design on it; a graphic that reveals the irony, or at least supports the theme of the poem.

English 11
We finished up the remaining mobiles for the symbols of Lord of the Flies, then we went back to the film.

Homework:
Finish your final DEJ for Chapter 10, 11, and 12 for Friday. That's ONE (1) DEJ that covers 3 the last 3 chapters of the book.

English 8
Today we continued our lit circles and had a short lesson on conflict!

Homework:
Nothing tonight!

Wow Wednesday!

That was a fast day! On a side note, marks a done for the first term. If there are any questions about your evaluation to this point, feel free to ask before/between/after classes on Thursday. Note - this is a marks cut-off for term 1.

English 11
We made our mobiles and hung them up. They are no longer hanging on dental floss. This would have resulted in a tragedy. They are now hanging on thick twine. Much better!

Homework:
Read chapter 12. DEJ for Friday.

English 8
We started our lit circle assignments. We went over the 4 big roles and students determined their reading day goals. Remember, I'll be collecting your TCC (text code chart) and your role sheet after each meeting. You should have roughly 3 TCC entries for each day that we read in class.

Homework:
SMILE AND BE HAPPY. You have no homework.

Tangible Tuesday

English 9 SPECTRUM
Today we read Frost's "The Road Not Taken". We did some discussion and learned that the narrator isn't exactly pleased (or all that upset) about his choice. Be prepared to write on this for Thursday!

Homework
Use your poetic devices guide to find poetic devices in the poem. Write them directly on the page. We'll be using them first thing on Thursday.

English 11
We read an article that introduced Lock and Hobbes. We discussed good and evil briefly - we'll revisit this tomorrow when we return to The Lord of the Flies.

Homework
Read chapter 11 for tomorrow. Don't forget to bring in your six symbols and coat hangers!

It's Monday!

English 11
We went over allegories today and our LOTF mobile project. Check homework below for details!

The symbols are:

The Conch
Signal Fire
The Beast
Piggy's Glasses
The Island
The "Scar"

Homework:
Read chapter 10, no DEJ yet.
Create visuals for our coat hanger mobiles. If you have a coat hanger you can spare, bring it in. The visuals should be a piece of paper with 2 graphics - one on either side. On one side you'll have the symbol (Conch, for example), on the other side, a visual of what it symbolizes. When they're done, they'll look something like this (with very different visuals, mind you!):