Poetry test week!

Poetry test this coming Friday!!! We will go over our study guide Wednesday, review Thursday, and test on Friday.

Monday and Tuesday we will be finishing up how to TP-CASST a poem and how to look for and identify figurative language.

For extra practice you can TP-CASST this poem, "maggie and milly and molly and may", by E.E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

No more roses are red....

We are starting POETRY! I love teaching poetry because usually my students are terrified at first but end up being very confident in writing and understanding it. We started last week by creating heart maps full of ideas and looking at the importance of vivid details, using "I", and making sure their poems have a point. Students are having a hard time understanding that poetry does not have to rhyme and is not always exactly about whatever the title is so we are changing it up this week (Jan. 23).

This week we are redirecting our focus using the TP-CASST system. This is a structured system to help students learn how to understand the title of a poem, paraphrasing, connotation, attitude, speaker, and theme.

We will have a quiz this Friday and a test next week.

Our newest project!

Writing a Greek Myth

Now that you’ve learned about different Greek myths and the elements of a story, your goal now is to create your own illustrated Greek Myth to depict each of the story elements we’ve talked about in class.  Your stories will be typed and bound in a book format, and you will be able to share them with the class.

·         You will be creating your own Greek myth to share with the class

·         Your myth must explain an event or thing in our world today that can be explained through your gods/goddesses
·         You will create your own Greek god or goddess to be the main character in the story.  This character must display characteristics that help explain the natural occurrence.

·         Your final written paper must have a cast of ancient Greek characters, a Greek setting, a problem or situation, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a final resolution.

·         Each of your pages should include a minimum of four sentences. There is a minimum of three pages for your story and a maximum of ten pages for your story.

·         What you will turn into me:

-          Brainstorming

-          Purpose description

-          Main character sketch

-          Setting description

-          Plot outline

-          Rough draft with peer edit

-          Final copy

Welcome back!! Jan 2-6

Hope everyone had a wonderful Winter Break! We are coming back strong with myth vs. legend and getting ready for semester exams. Exams start MONDAY!!! Please study all weekend and next week. I will be going over the study guide with students and uploading it to the blog Friday. The exam schedule for next week is as follows...

Monday- 2nd period exam, 9th period exam
Tuesday- 3rd period exam, 7th period exam
Wednesday- 6th period exam, 8th period exam

Please make sure you get a good night's rest and get here in time for breakfast!

Until our exam review on Friday we are comparing and contrasting myths with legends and working on writing our myths. I have attached the myth writing sheets we have started. Tomorrow we will be focusing on researching the event in our myth. Students had to figure out this sentence in order to write their myth: My myth explains why we have _________. We read the myth of Persephone which explained why we have seasons. We also read Pandora's Box which explains why we have hate, crime, disease, and hope in the world. Now it's thier turn to create a story that explains why we have something.

This website is great! The two we used to compare and contrast were "The witch in the bottle" (legend) and "Pandora's Box" (myth). http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/

Homework: Read and log twice this week. Total of an hour with parent signature. I always check them on Fridays.

*I let students make up missing reading by reading over break. If you see anything below 100 when looking at their reading log grades then they chose not to make it up. I spoke to each student individually and told them how much reading they had to make up.

Twas the WEEK before Christmas...

English classes: Last Thursday each class broke into reading groups. We did this so that each group could read and cover a different chapter. When we read individually or as a class (which we do sometimes) it takes a long time to get through a book. This way we can cover a lot in a short amount of time.  Each group was given 4-5 different tasks and they had to create a summary of their chapter.  Their summary and individual work was presented.

After presentations, we are diving into vocabulary. Students will be using the book to develop a good comphrehension of context clues. Their vocabulary organizer has been designed this time to make them use context clues to write the definition instead of using a dictionary. Not only will this skill be tested on their benchmarks and standardized tests but it is also an important life skill. Context clues help everyone figure out words they don't know the meaning to. Here is a website that explains it well.
http://scc.losrios.edu/~langlit/reading/contextclues/intro1.htm

HOMEWORK: Read and log 30 minutes twice this week. You MUST have a parent signature for me to count it.

Morning SSR: We just finished Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie. It was a hit with most of the class. :) Since we only have a week before break we are spending it on Twas the Night Before Christmas. We looked at the original and now we are going to read the Gullah and Hillbilly versions. After break we will start a new novel on tape.

 

Nov. 28-Dec. 2 The Lightning Thief

Here is what's happening this week:
- Progress Reports went home Monday
- Started reading The Lightning Thief on Monday
- Spending the week making predictions, inferences, conclusions, and learning about our characters. We are also looking at elements of author's craft, especially foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing- a hint of something to come in the future

**Quizzes on chapters read on Fridays. 

WELCOME!

Welcome to my new blog! I am so excited you stopped by to check in! This blog will be an amazing tool for me to use to tell you what we are doing in our classroom. Please continue to check in to find out our plans for the week or unit. Grades that are coming up...etc.

For now, here are pictures of our classroom so you can envision where we are learning!!