May 19

Computer Lab work period:
The K-W-H-L chart was due today at the end of the period. Keep researching your topics, more deadlines are rapidly approaching!

Tomorrow is down at the lab again.

May 19

The class met briefly in the classroom so that a couple handouts could be distributed. One of the handouts was the K-W-H-L chart, which will be due tomorrow at the end of class. The other handout focused on the four written articles of research that each student is responsible for in the education report. It was a way to have all the research in one place to easily reference when it comes to writing the report.

Tomorrow we will be meeting in the computer lab. M126

May 15

Opinionnaire Journal Write!
The beginning of class was spent writing about some themes in Romeo and Juliet. The themes were listed as statements that required an answer of "agree" or "disagree." Some examples include:
1. No one is ever too young to fall in love.
2. Love is more powerful than hate.
3. Teenagers cannot experience "true" love.
4. Opposites attract.
etc...

The remainder of class was spent reading. We ended class with Romeo pronouncing his love below Juliet's balcony.

May 13

The beginning of class was spent going over a checklist that gives an overview of the Position Paper. The checklist lists all of the various assignments leading up to the final draft, the due dates, and the points each is worth.

The second half of the class was spent reading. Tonight's homework is finishing the first four questions focusing on Queen Mab. We will talk about the fifth question during class tomorrow.

HOMEWORK: finish the first four question on the Queen Mab handout.

May 11

Being the last day before the STAR tests, we spent the majority of the period looking over released questions that would give a feel for the type of material on the test.

Start thinking about choosing a focus for the position paper on education. Topcis are due this Friday.

Be sure to check PowerSchool for any missing assignments.

May 7

The STAR tests are just around the corner so we did some review work where we focused on identifying, and correcting, run-on and fragment sentences.

May 5

Today we warmed up by looking at our prologue worksheets. To get a better understanding of the events of the story we also did a quick activity where students contributed a line (and a corresponding gesture) to a summary of the story. Then, we jumped into our reading of Romeo and Juliet.

Due Tomorrow: Poems- the Haiku, one dream variation, and your sonnet!

Dream Variation Poem: (Copy/Change)

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Following Langston Hughes structure make your own:

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams_______
___________________
___________________

May 4

We began looking at some of Shakespeare's work today: his prologue from Romeo and Juliet. The prologue was written out of order and without punctuation, so we put it back into the correct sonnet form. If students didn't finish in class it is homework. Tomorrow we will begin reading the play and make sense of the prologue.

Due Wednesday: Final drafts of the Haiku, Dream Variation (only ONE), and the personal sonnet- On one piece of paper.

April 24

To cap off the week we had our second pressure comp. Make-ups will be offered Wednesday during lunch in room 218.

Enjoy the weekend!

April 23

The beginning of the class was spent quickly reviewing our notes in preparation for the quiz. The quiz ended up taking much longer than what was anticipated and only a very brief comment or two was made to prepare the class for the pressure comp tomorrow. Hopefully the class will buckle down for a few minutes before writing to listen to a few pointers.

April 22

We watched the last 10 minutes of Speak today and addressed some of the differences between the movie and the book. Tomorrow we will take a quiz on the book and start preparing for the pressure comp on Friday.

The last 10 minutes of the short period was used to talk about our impressions from the two-day "every 15 minutes" presentation.

Notes from the movie will be due tomorrow.

April 21

We continued with the movie. Tomorrow we will finish it and prepare for our quiz to end the unit on Speak.

Due Tomorrow: Notes on the differences between the movie and the book

April 20

Welcome back!

To refresh our memories and get reacquainted with the book Speak, we started watching the movie in the lecture hall. After the movie is finished we will be completing our unit on the book by taking a test.

Tomorrow meet at the Lecture Hall to resume the movie.

April 10

Today we heard four more Speaking Out presentations. Afterwards, we jumped into Speak and finished the book. The discussion following the book was decent, there were a few very insightful comments that extended ideas and themes in Speak and related them back to our own lives, but, thought of the approaching break from school made the majority of the class less than receptive. We will try to pick up the thread again when we come back.

See everyone Monday, enjoy the break!

April 9

Similar to yesterday, we continued with the next batch of Speaking Out presentations and read with the remaining time in the class. We finished our reading on page 186.

April 8

The class time was split between two activities: the first presentations of the Speaking Out project and reading Speak.

We finished our reading on page 171.

Tomorrow we will be hearing presentations from students 7-14

April 7

Rolling with it...

Today's focus was on our presentations which will begin tomorrow. In small groups we practiced giving the oral component of the project.

After this practice session we spent the remainder of the class period reading. We finished on page 162.

DUE Tomorrow: The Speaking Out writing

April 6

Today's activities were focused around the "Speaking Out" assignment. Disappointingly, not everyone had their drafts ready for the peer review planned for the day and the day's lesson was bogged down. Tomorrow we will see how far we get with practicing our oral presentations.

Homework: come to class with note cards or an abbreviated script to practice the Speaking Out presentation.

April 3

Computer Lab

DUE Monday: A draft of the "Speaking Out" biography

April 2

Today we briefly met in the classroom to go over the next couple days at the computer lab for our "Speaking Out" project. The rest of the time was down in the lab starting our research.

NO HOMEWORK

March 30-April 1

Plugging away...

As of April 1st we have read up to page 155 in Speak. Next week we will be finishing the book in time for our Spring Break!

Currently, we are working on our "Speaking Out" assignment and will be spending Thursday and Friday researching and typing our focuses for the project.

March 24-27

It has been an interesting week of Speak activities. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will basically follow the same pattern: we will begin each class with our Speak Dialogues and then focus on reading and taking notes.

As of Thursday, March 26, we have read up to page 111

March 23

We eased into our Monday by chatting at the beginning of the period about the activities of the weekend.

Speak Dialogues are due tomorrow, so we went over the requirements for the project and the rubric that Mr. Chan will be using to grade them.

We ended our day with some reading. We got to page 86 today.

DUE Tomorrow: Speak Dialogues (2 copies!)

March 20

Final drafts of the Process Analysis are due!

Starting off the class today we talked once again about the theme of communication and tried to relate the ideas back to our lives. This was the warm-up for our third Speak Journal entry:
Explore a moment in your life when you were introducing yourself to someone and your thinking at that time. Try to relate to the issues of communication.

Following the journal entry we once again read Speak. We stopped on page 80 for the day.

Enjoy the weekend. No homework.

March 19

The first draft of the Speak Dialogues were due today. With a partner we did a peer review, answering specific questions that will be used in the grading process for this assignment. The main components of the peer review are as follows:
Introduction- Situation, Characters, and Topic
Dialogue- Verbal and Non-verbals
Conclusion- Meaning and Reflection

After working on the drafts, class time was spent to practice the dialogues with our partners. Time slots for the presentation of the dialogues were given for next week. Projects are due next Tuesday!

The remainder of the class was spent reading. Today we read up to page 73.

DUE Tomorrow: Process Analysis!

March 18

Working on our conversation...

Today was a productive day and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone has for tomorrows class. We spent the majority of the class working on our Speak Dialogues which are due tomorrow. Whatever was not finished in class is homework!

DUE Friday: Process Analysis Writing!

HOMEWORK: finish the Speak Dialogue

March 17

Today's focus was on the Speak Dialogues and the required elements. An example of a dialogue, written by Mr. Chan, was superbly performed with the aid of Harrison. The first draft will be due this Thursday with some time tomorrow to work on them in class.

The rest of the class was spent reading. We finished on page 65.

The process analysis papers were handed back today with comments on them by Mr. Chan. The final draft will be due Friday.

HOMEWORK: start working on revising the process analysis paper

March 16

A reading day...

The process analysis papers will be returned tomorrow. The final draft will be due Friday!

Characters for the "Conversations" were assigned in class today. If you do not have one see Mr. Chan immediately!

We learned a little more about a couple new characters in our reading of Speak today. We stopped at page 57.

NO HOMEWORK

(Accelerated Sophomore English forms are available- see Mr. Chan if you are interested)

March 13

Today we turned in our drafts for the process analysis papers.

Our lead-in to the day's reading of speak was a journal write addressing the prompt: Write about a time when you were unsure of the "rules" of communication (a time when you didn't know what to say). I was impressed with the ideas that students shared with the class in our discussion after the write.

Today's reading: up to page 41

The last act of the class was submit our top three characters from the book that we would want to have a conversation with. On Monday we will begin looking at the "Speak Conversations" project in more detail.

NO HOMEWORK- enjoy the weekend

March 12

I was impressed with the discussion quality yesterday and the ideas about communication that were raised.

Today we started the class with a little recap of the events in the story and listed some of the characters we have been introduced to. The rest of the period was mostly devoted to reading and talking about the book.

Today we read and took notes up to PAGE 30.

To finish the class we began talking about the "rules" of communication in different situations. For example, we alter how we are in the presence of different people or in various places; we would not act and talk (hopefully) with the same mannerisms in the presence of an authority figure as we would with our best friends. This was a lead-in to a journal write that we will complete tomorrow dealing with the prompt:
Write about a time when the "rules" of communicating were unclear- when you were unsure of what was expected of you...

HOMEWORK: continue working on the process analysis (DUE TOMORROW!)

March 11

Speak

Before we began reading from Speak again, we went over some of the activities:
Notes- We will be keeping tabs on the various characters of the book as they reveal themselves.
Conversation Project- Next week we will begin to focus more on this project. Essentially, we will be writing a dialogue between a character in the book and yourself. I am interested to see how this turns out...

Today we read up to PAGE 20

HOMEWORK: continue working on the process analysis revisions for Friday

March 10

Starting the class off we looked once again into the process analysis paper in small peer response groups. A draft will be due FRIDAY.

Next, we returned back to our journal write of the previous day and talked about some of our personal encounters with situations where "speaking" was difficult.

For the upcoming week, the "Speak Conversations" were outlined, more to follow in the next couple days as we get farther into the book and establish the characters a bit more...

We finished off the period by reading the first small chapter of Speak.

HOMEWORK: continue working on your process analysis paper.

March 6

In preparation for the next year, the councilors came in and gave a brief presentation at the beginning of the class.

We took the vocab quiz

... almost

Mailing party!
We turned in the final drafts of our Business Letters... let's see if we get any responses...

HOMEWORK: 1st draft of the process analysis due MONDAY

March 5

Hard at work...

The week started off a little slow but I am impressed with the work we have done in these last few days.

We started off with another vocab word. We will be having our bi-weekly quiz tomorrow!

The final draft of the business letter is due tomorrow as well, so today we looked at our drafts in peer review sessions.

Another peer review! The introductions for the process analysis papers were due today and we stayed in our groups to look at those as well.

DUE Tomorrow: Final draft of the Business letter and... VOCAB QUIZ

March 4

The primary focus for today was on the process analysis paper. We began writing our introductions for tomorrow's peer-review. If it was finished, no homework!

Some important days ahead...
Thursday- Introduction for process analysis
2nd draft of business letter!

Friday- Vocabulary quiz
Councilor coming into class
Mailing the business letters!

Monday- 1st draft of the process analysis
Begin looking at a new book!

Busy, busy, busy...

March 3

Tuesday means Vocab, yeah!

#41 Rancor. Good one...

The two focuses for this week are the business letter and the process analysis paper. Today we looked at the B.L. format once again as well as an example. The rough draft that was peer-reviewed and looked at by myself was handed back.

Moving onto the process analysis paper, we looked at the overview of the project and talked about the "paper airplane example" from Monday. Afterwords, an example of a process analysis essay was read out loud while the class listened for transition words and organization elements. Most were not very receptive to this activity; being read out loud to was too closely associated with nap time in their minds...

DUE Tomorrow: Another draft of the Business Letter
AT LUNCH: a chance to have a peer review on the first draft!

March 2

Writing to the "real world..."

Today's focus was on the business letter with a dash of Process Analysis.

The first draft of the business letter was due today and after a brief chat of the weekend (and a surprise visit by another SED apprentice teacher) we divided up into peer groups and took a look at what we had written. The particulars of the assignment were once again hit upon by looking at some block style business letter examples.

Following the work with the business letters we turned our attention to the next writing assignment, the Process Analysis Paper. To get an idea of the importance of clear, organized writing, I read an example while the class tried to follow the directions. Disaster! Many found that it was extremely hard to arrive at the correct end result. But, we learned a few important lessons...

HOMEWORK: have an idea for the process analysis paper by tomorrow!

Feb 27

Coming soon...

Feb 26

Coming soon...

Feb 25

One more piece of the Mango...

Today was another work day finishing up the writing portion of the Mango project at the computer lab. We turned in the 5 Mango writes, the future write, and the Author's page.

Mango Project due Friday!

Feb 24

A looming deadline....

Today was a work period at the computer lab. Tomorrow will also be a work period.

Due this week:
The writing portion of the Mango project will be collected at the end of class Tomorrow.
Friday, the creative project will be due.

Let's be productive!

Feb 23

...and we're back!

After handing back the vocab quiz from Friday, as well as the three Mango writes, we covered what will be happening in the next couple of weeks.

This week:
Wednesday- all writing for the Mango project is due. This includes the 5 Mango writes, the Future write, and the Author's page.
Friday- the creative Mango project is due.

Next week:
A letter to a business of your choosing and a "process" paper... more on these later in the week.

Homework: Finish the writings due this Wednesday, do not leave it to the last moment!

Tomorrow we will be meeting at the computer lab!

Feb 13

Friday the 13th...

The first vocabulary quiz of this new semester was today. For those that absent today, we will be taking the make-up Wednesday during lunch the week we return back from break.

To round out the rest of the class we read small sections from our revised Mango Writes, looked at the specifics for the Mango project, and once again showed examples of past projects. We have a lot to do upon our return- start thinking of project ideas and start developing your Future Write and Personal Introduction...

Enjoy the break!

Feb 12

Let's get our type on...

Another day at the lab to finish our five writes to be used in the Mango Final Project. I was quite impressed with our productivity these last couple days, but it seems that having all five, revised writes was too much. Therefore, only THREE writes will be due tomorrow. Yet, just so we are not resting on our laurels, a FUTURE write will be due that focuses on our wishes for the future: both physical wants (house, car, giant statue of yourself), and personal qualities (emotional, intellectual, spiritual).

Future write: Write on what you wish for in the future; try to focus on the kind of person you want to be and the way you want your life to turn out. Be specific with physical and personal desires.
-about a page in length
-does not need to be typed

DUE Tomorrow: 1. Future Write
2. 3 revised Mango Writes

Feb 11

Tippity-type...

The first drafts of the Mango Writes are due this Friday! In preparation for this we spent the class period at the computer lab working on our writings.

Tomorrow we will be MEETING at the computer lab to continue our work.

Feb 10

Representative writing...

We are up to our 39th vocabulary word and the next quiz is this Friday (the 13!). Better start studying...

With the President's week break just around the corner, the focus today was on our Mango Writes once again. We looked at some examples of student projects to give us some ideas and then focused on the writing portion of the assignment by doing a peer review session using a rubric created yesterday during class. Tomorrow we will be meeting at the class as usual and then walking over to the computer lab to begin typing our M.W.'s.

To finish off the class we returned back to its beginning and took some time to look at our vocab.

NO HOMEWORK

Feb 9

"Slowing things down..."

Mango Write 6 was returned today and some brief comments were made- remember to focus on a small "window" of a larger event and go into detail! These writings focus on you and should give some insight...

Rubric ideas:
As a class we listed all the required elements of a Mango Write so that a rubric could be created for the peer review sessions tomorrow.

Creative Mango Write:
To highlight the parts that we will be looking for in tomorrow's peer review, we wrote a Mini-Mango Write having pairs create a topic, situation, "window" and conclusion. We will read a few of these creations tomorrow.

HOMEWORK: start thinking of which Mango Writes you want to use in the final project (5 total).

Feb 6

Mango Street in the rear view mirror...

Sadly, we came to the end of The House on Mango Street today in class. After finishing the book we briefly spent some time with themes from the book.

Moving on from there, we once again spent some time thinking about our Mango Writes. We looked at an example done by myself and explored it's strengths and weaknesses. Some interesting points were raised and discussion was certainly in abundance... oh, the splendid thing of Fridays.

HOMEWORK: Mango Write #7 due Monday

Feb 5

Almost at the end of Mango Street...

Today we read a few more examples of Mango Writes. I'm looking forward to reading some of the final products; the quality of the writing is increasing with each write.

We are almost to the end of the book; today we left off with only three more short chapters to go.

DUE Tomorrow: Mango Write #6

Feb 4

Another slice of Mango...

Charging right along, we talked about the Mango writes (after collecting #4) and started reading. We finished Section 6 and started on 7. Some of today's focus was on language- instead of "talking points" we looked for quotes of effective, creative language. Hopefully this will provide inspiration for the Mango writes...

DUE Tomorrow: Mango Write #5

Feb 3

Marching down Mango Street...

Keeping with the norm, we added one more vocabulary word to the list.

A little behind on the reading schedule, we tried to fit in a few extra chapters today. We ended up finishing section 5 and getting about halfway through section 6.

DUE Tomorrow: Another Mango write!

NOTE: Remember the correct format:

Top left corner should have:
-Name/Date/period
-Mango Write (MW #)
-Topic (ex. "love")

Include an original title, about a page in length, written in ink, and try to use creative language.

Feb 2

Welcome to a new month!

A matter of business: today we passed back some old assignments from the previous semester and briefly addressed some issues pertaining to essay format. The majority of Of Mice and Men pressure comps lacked a discernable structure and neglected to address all of the prompt questions! Careful now...

Onwards to Mango.

Doing a little catch-up, we finished up section 4 and began the first few chapters of section 5. Two more Mango writes were collected and will be returned tomorrow.

Jan 30

More Mango, please...

Mango writing 1 was checked today...

The tail end of section 3 was read and we then charged right ahead into section 4. Similar to yesterday, there were some good discussions following the chapters.

For the assingments due Monday, some of the requirements were once again addressed:
-typed or in pen
-autobiographical/biographical
-at least one page in length
-create a unique title
-try to emulate the style of Cisneros (experiement with words!)
-write on a separate piece of paper (not in the journal)

DUE: 2 Mango writes

Jan 29th

Keeping true to form, the 36th vocabulary word found its way into the journal...

Rolling right along with book, we looked into section III today (pages 28-42). For each of the 6 chapters we wrote down one "talking point" again, which led to some good conversations and comments. Partly due to these class discussions, the first Mango Write will be checked tomorrow!

DUE MONDAY: 3 Mango writes (sections 2-4)

Jan 28th

DUE TODAY: Signed syllabus and video form

Living on Mango...

We jumped right into Mango Street today by reading Section II (pages 14-27).
Aside from the usual "talking point" from each chapter we wrote a total of 2 examples of creative language- similar to the previous day's example of "...a red balloon tied to an anchor..."

The remainder of class was spent responding to the next writing options for section II.

DUE THURSDAY: 1st journal for section I

Back to the grind

Welcome back to a new semester!

Jan 26th:

To open the class there were some business issues to attend to:

-Welcomed two new students to the room
-Checked the Journal assignment from last Friday (JW #10)
-Briefly talked about the Martin Luther King speech
-Addressed the new syllabus (Mr. Chan's)

As a lead-in to the new book that we will be reading, we started a conversation on CULTURE, listing ideas of what it is...

HOMEWORK:
1. Have the new syllabus signed by parents as well as by students by Wednesday.
2. Show the Video Release form to parents and return by Wednesday.

A new start

Welcome to the Freshman English Blog! This site will be an on-line supplement to class activities. I look forward to our semester together- see you in class...