Monday, 12/7/2009

MODERN PROSE

• We added up how many pages we've read so far this term.
• We wrote our Mid-Term Reflections on our mid-term grade reports.
• We read for about seventy minutes.
• Some people worked on book reports.

AP
Animal Farm

• We discussed chapters 8, 9, and 10.
• We got into small philosophy groups and discussed any of the twenty questions on the handout our groups wanted to tackle.
• We listened to a clip of Tom Brokaw, then Greg orated part of Old Major's speech in his best Brokaw voice.
• We listened to five minutes of Malcolm X's "...Afraid to Bleed..." speech, and then Nick performed Old Major's speech modeled after Malcolm X.  We talked about not only the content--the actual arguments he's making--but also the delivery, the things the speaker does with his voice that make him an engaging orator.

Vocabulary

• We reviewed for about ten minutes as a class.  I was shocked and horrified to see that the majority of the class has not studied the vocabulary at all.  :-(  Get after it, people!  Greta has been on the review website, and she says it is very helpful.  Everyone should be using it.

Homework

• Check the wiki.
• Study your vocabulary on the review website.

CREATIVE WRITING

Homework Due

• Musical Memory

Reflection

• We took the Unit 2 Final Quiz as a class (p. 31).  We reviewed what we learned in this unit.

Showing, Not Telling

• We got the pages for the new unit (orange).
• We look at page 51 to get an idea about the big picture for this unit.
• Least Vivid to Most Vivid--class discussion and notes on page 52
• Cisneros sentence--showing, not telling--class discussion and notes on page 52.

Resource Pages

• Vocabulary Variety--pages 60 and 61 have all kinds of powerful words to help you be more precise, vivid and descriptive in your writing.  We dog-eared those pages, and we will return to them throughout the rest of the term.

Writing Assignment

• Sense Poem--I showed how the poem can be written, and I read four models from previous years.
• We had about fifteen minutes to type up our first draft.

Sharing

• I continued reading people's wishes, and we continued trying to guess who they are.

Homework

• None