English 1

Today in class, students read their choice novels and then read three poems that all feature birds as symbols of hope and/or freedom: "'Hope' is the Thing with Feathers" by Emily Dickinson, "Sympathy" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou. To end class, students answered questions about and discussed the poems, and they drew a picture of the images the poems evoked for them.

Homework

• Finish your bird drawings

English 1

Today in class, students read their choice novels for 20 minutes. Next we talked about Shakespeare's poetry, and read a few of his most famous: "Seven Ages of Man", "Sonnet 18", and "Sonnet 130". We discussed the conventions of a sonnet, and talked about the two "categories" that into which Shakespeare's sonnets can be divided. Sonnet 18 is a "fair youth" sonnet while Sonnet 130 is a "dark lady" sonnet. Students also worked on learning to annotate poems, and for homework, they are also challenged with creating their own sonnet, making sure to follow all of the conventions we talked about in class.

Homework

• Finish writing your sonnet. Remember that sonnets must:

- Be 14 lines long

-Have 10 syllables per line (following iambic pentameter)

-Follow the idea of 3 quatrains and an ending couplet

-Follow the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg

-Be about love

English 1

Today in class, students received training on the 6-traits of writing using various scoring guides and and sample papers. Students learned how to recognize each of the 6 traits in others writing with peer grading, and they also learned how to improve traits individually in their own writing.

Homework

• Make changes to your narratives according to the suggestions from your peer graders

English 2

Today students started class by reading from their choice novels. Next, we went over the analysis of Cassius's persuasion in his speeches in Act One Scene 2 of Julius Caesar. To end class, students recapped Act One Scene 3 of the play and began reading Act Two.

Homework

• Bring your choice novels to class
• Keep up with your Quote Notes and Study Questions for Julius Caesar. You should be finished with Act One quotes and questions

English 1

Today in class, students went to the computer lab to begin typing their personal narratives. On the computers, they learned how to properly format their papers in MLA style, and they also learned how to correctly format dialogue in their narratives. Next they came back to class and students who needed to retake their parts of speech quiz got their second chance to do so before reading from their choice novels. To end class, students learned about the importance of powerful verbs in their writing through a demonstration by one of their classmates.

Homework

• Get rid of boring verbs and "be" verbs in your narratives, and replace them with powerful verbs
• Be good for your substitute on Friday!

English 2

Today in class, students read their choice novels for 20 minutes, and then continued to read Act One of Julius Caesar. In scene 2 we saw just how sneaky, manipulative, and persuasive Cassius can be. Next class, students will learn about persuasive appeals and fallacies and use the new information to analyze the quality of Cassius's persuasive speeches.

Homework

• Bring your novels to class

English 1

Today in class, students read for 20 minutes from their novels of choice. Afterward, we finished discussing the narrative poem we read last class, called "Autumnal Equinox", and we also read another catalog poem called "Daily". With both poems, we discussed the importance of imagery in writing, both in poetry and in the narratives the students are currently working on. To end class, students completed a dialogue activity for which they created a conversation between a horse and a bear who met on a deserted country road. Students learned two important rules for dialogue and practiced formatting it correctly in their writing.

Homework

• Add dialogue to your narrative