Monday, 3/9/2009

AP

Homework Due

• RJ for "Close Reading
  

Philosophy

• I handed out an essay written by a high school teacher about why philosophy should be taught in high school.  Everyone read it silently.
  
• I handed out some basic information on philosophy, wisdom, and suffering (definitions; quotations).
  
• We split into groups of five-six (what I'm calling our Philosophy Discussion Groups), and we had about half an hour to consider the following questions:
  

Why study philosophy?

Why not?

What is wisdom?

What is suffering?

Is there anything to be gained by suffering?

Philosophy Group Discussion Expectations

• One person speaks at a time.
  
• Comments should include references to previous statements by other group members, (a) so they know you're listening to them, and (b) so the discussion has continuity and flow.
  
• Each group member should take personal notes, and one person should record a list of future discussion questions.
  

Debriefing

• Everyone did a few minutes of journaling about what went well in the discussion groups, what could improve them, and what overall impressions were made.
  

Literary Terms

• We had about fifteen minutes to play Slap It! with the purple and orange vocabulary cards.
  

CREATIVE WRITING

Writing Workshop

• Show me Revised Prose #2 (minimum of ten changes marked) for homework grade
  
• Fill out gold peer conference sheet (using page 83) for Revised Prose #2
  
• Peer Conference over Revised Prose #2 (new partner)
  
• Revise Prose #3 to second draft by end of block
  
• Fill out gold peer conference sheet over Revised Prose #3, and trade it with a partner
  

Homework

• Peer conference over Revised Prose #3
  
• Portfolio
  

TACW

Organization

• Miranda passed back the graphic memoirs and the Russian tailor poems, so we read comments and did a folder log-in.
  

Short Story

• I went over the rubric again, mainly as a way of reminding people what the expectations were, and to give people ideas of what to peer conference about.
  
• We filled out gold peer conference sheets, and we traded stories with a partner and did a peer conference.
  
• Some people created their final drafts of the story, then took them down for copying.
  
• Others are still working and will need tonight to finish.
  
• We'll start reading stories tomorrow!  :-)
  

Homework

• Nature Poem (due when you come in tomorrow)