Sunday, August 25, 2013

Monday, August 26th, 2013

AP English Monkeys






Welcome, AP English Peeps!  J
·      Happy Friday, August 23rd, 2013

When You Come In
Ø  Please initial next to your name on the clipboard.
Ø  Review your annotations for “How to Mark a Book”.

“How to Mark a Book” Class Discussion
·      What are the three most meaningful ideas/words you drew from the reading?
·      When we conclude our discussion, please put your name on your pages, and put them in your folder in the file cabinet.

Central Questions We Ask in This Class
1.      What does a good reader do?
2.     What does a good writer do?
3.     Are you talking to the text?
Ø  We’ve started answering these questions, and we will continue our work on these questions today.

Question Response
1.      Go to my blog, and create five well-crafted (You’re AP English, remember?) sentences for each of the two questions.
2.     Your answers will be visible to the class, although we will not look at them until tomorrow.
3.     When you finish crafting your tacos and your sentences, play free rice until we’re all done. (2:10-2:25)

“Good Readers and Good Writers”, by Vladimir Nabokov (p. 11-18)
1.      Why are we reading this piece?
a.     Well, c’mon—look at the title!  It kind of sounds like it’s going to fit into our grand scheme just fabulously!
b.    Nabokov wrote this lecture for (and gave this lecture to) his college freshman literature class.  You guys will be college freshmen next year—there might be a connection here!
c.     It is a challenging text, and you must grapple with challenging texts this year so that you are prepared to do the same next year.

2.     So, how do we approach an assigned reading?  Do we do anything BEFORE we start to read (pre-reading strategies)?  Let’s list our strategies here:
a.     See how long it is, so I know how much time it will take to read.
b.    Read the title, then come up with possible things story could be about (prediction).
c.     Read a preview, if there is one.
d.    Look at the layout—pictures?


Critical Approach:  Biographical
1.      I’m going to talk about one critical approach you can use on many of the assigned readings you get this year (and for the rest of your life):  the BIOGRAPHICAL approach.
2.     I’m going to give you five minutes to find out everything you can about the author of this piece.  How might this be helpful to your reading?
3.     Has a teacher ever taken you on a BIOGRAPHICAL approach to a text?
4.     How do you think some writers feel about readers taking a BIOGRAPHICAL approach to their texts?
5.     Will this approach be more helpful with some texts than others?
6.    Is it worth five minutes of your time to research an author before reading his/her work?  Let’s find out by using this BIOGRAPHICAL approach today.


Ø  Research (five minutes)—VLADIMIR  NABOKOV        (2:34-2:39)
o   Come up with three to five BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS about this writer that you feel are important, especially in light of the title of his work, “Good Readers, Good Writers”
o   Type a little list on your computer that we can compare in class discussion in a few minutes, please.
Ø  Compare notes as a class (five minutes)—max.  What did we discover?
o   …studied at Wessley, Harvard and Cornell.
o   …taught at those colleges.
o   …known for complicated plots and hidden messages.
o   …knew and wrote in many languages.
o   Lolita = 4th on list of 100 Best Novels of Modern Library Association
o   …knowledge of other countries.
Ø  Begin reading together and annotating individually.



Homework

Ø  Read and annotate pages 11-15, through the paragraph ending, “…the only instrument used upon a book.”
Ø  Due:  start of class Tuesday

*   *   *   *

Howdy, College-Prep Reading!
Happy Monday—August 26th, 2013

When You Come In
Ø  Please initial next to your name on the clipboard.225
Ø   
Ø  Please put your vocab cards in your turn-in folder in the file cabinet.  Thanks!
Ø  Get out your LeGuin ten-minute journal response from Friday.

Journal Response Explanation
Share with a NEW person today.  Write your partner TWO specific comments, and aim for academic language in your writing.
1.      At least two detailed sentences
a.     Agree.
b.    Tell him/her if the journal made you think of a new idea/or something you hadn’t considered.
c.     Add on to an idea he/she says.
d.    Compliment their vocabulary—diction!
e.     Disagree, respectfully. 
2.     Signed by you
3.     Make sure your name, date and “LeGuin Quote” are at the top of your paper.

Reading and Annotating:  “How to Mark a Book”
We read for ten minutes, because most of us were not very far along in the reading.  And then we did this.  (8:32-8:42)
Reminders:
Ø  Look up words you don’t know, and write their definition next to the word in the text you’re reading.
Ø  Wiki any references you’re unfamiliar with, so you have SOME idea what the writer is talking about.
1.      Pair-Share your annotations with a new partner.
a.     What is DIFFERENT about your marginalia?
                                      i.     marked more in text, as opposed to margins
1.      asked a lot of questions
2.     valued similes more
3.     focused on looking for main point
b.    What is SIMILAR?
marked main points
summarized every paragraph
marked metaphors
2.     What have we used most from?
comment when we agree
summarize each paragraph
underline important stuff, then write
# paragraphs
rephrase in own words
stars by main points
repeated words and phrases
circled words I didn’t know
3.     What new, creative ways are we annotating (add to page 6)?
a.     highlight important things
underlining = big
bracketed= the biggest!
4.     Continue reading and annotating on your own—please and thank you! (35 minutes of work time)

Vocabulary-Building
1.      Play free-rice when you finish your annotations.
2.          Go to my blog for the link, then sign-in, then play your guts out!


Question:  Why do we play free rice?
1.      Please put your “best level” in free rice in the subject line of an e-mail to me—no message necessary.  (We’ll use that as our baseline.)
2.     Bag your computer.

Homework for Tuesday

1.      Finish reading and annotating “How to Mark a book”.
2.     Donate at least 2,500 grains of rice.

*   *   *   *


Welcome to Creative Writing!
Ø  Monday, August 26th, 2013

When You Come In
1.      Please initial next to your name on the clipboard.
2.     Pick up the pink handout called “Poetry—Commenting, Revising and Editing” from the circle table”.
3.     3,500 grains of free rice were due by start of class—you don’t have to do anything, because I print a report for it.  I just wanted to make sure you knew I was taking that for a grade today.

Vital Information About Class
Ø  REMINDER:  The Blog:  www.kdubzclasses.blogspot.com
Ø  REMINDER:  Always access freerice from my link on the blog, to remind yourself to play in our class group.
Ø  REMINDER:  During classtime, use your computer as a tool, not a toy.

Big Picture:  Trust
Ø  ...the cornerstone of this class (page 1).

Writing Experiment #1—
Around the Block
Re-read, re-see, re-think:  (11:34-11:39)
1.      Re-read your first draft.
2.     Look at the following; make any changes to make your poem stronger:
Ø  Arrangement           (changing order of the lines)    
Ø  Alignment                 (…on the left? …centered?)
Ø  Spacing                      (..single?  …double?  What looks best?)         
Ø  Title                            (Does it add a dimension to the poem?)

During our five minutes on this, you must e-mail me if there is someone in class you would feel uncomfortable sharing this poem with today.  We’re going to trade it with ONE other person.  If there’s an issue between you and someone in class, I need to know now, so e-mail me.  All e-mails will remain confidential.  Thanks.

Peer Conference Preparation
1.      Take a look at a sample peer conferences--solid examples of excellent conferences.
a.     On paper (Come on up to the screen, and huddle around.)
b.    On computer
                                      i.     https://docs.google.com/a/washington.k12.ia.us/document/d/1Osyno86QnsdU_QnJGGgGETIZ0PKqXESKBlfSxWb_Fvw/edit
2.     Discuss how to COMMENT on google drive.
3.     Read the Poetry—Commenting, Revising and Editing sheet.
4.     Put a star by three questions you want answered about your poem.
5.     Type those three questions at the top of your Around the Block poem.
6.    Share your poem on google docs with the person I assign you.

Peer Conferencing
1.      Read your partner’s three questions, so you know what they most want you to comment on.
2.     Using the COMMENT function, make at least TEN comments on each other’s poems.
3.     When you think you’re done, count your comments in the right margin, to make sure you have ten.
4.     Finally, answer each of the questions your partner typed.  Type your answer underneath each question.
5.     Lastly, read the comments you received from your partner, then bag your computer, and grab an Earthbook.

Reading Assignment (page 5):  Earthbook
1.               Read and relax .  (This means you read for enjoyment.)
2.              If you’re reading a piece, and you stop enjoying it, turn the page!
3.              Fill out page 5 as you go—complete this page today.
Ø  If you finish early, play free rice—5,000 grains due by Monday (seven days from now)

Homework

·      Read the questions on page 6.
·      Read pages 7 and 8 to look for the answers.
·      Fill out all nine questions on page 6 for tomorrow (due in the turn-in cabinet when you come in tomorrow).

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