Friday, August 28, 2009

Happy Friday folks! Congratulations, you made it through the first week! Hopefully you are settled into your routine and ready to start Romeo and Juliet next week! Today we spent the period in the library for an orientation on their resources and services. We are SO lucky to have such a fantastic library (and librarians) with great technology and tons of wonderful resources. I want you all to get comfortable with using the library and all they have to offer, since we will be there often this year. Remember, the blog post assignment from yesterday (see the Thursday Webquest below) is due Monday by 10pm if you didn't finish it in class yesterday. Click here to download the Blog Cheat Sheet that contains instructions and guidelines for using and posting to the blog, and email me if you have any additional questions!

Have a fantastic weekend!!

Thursday WebQuest 8/27/09

Welcome to today's in-class webquest. This is designed to help you practice and become comfortable with using our class website for various assignments and activities. Be sure to read all instructions first! Complete your work in a saved Word document before posting.

1. Visit CNN.com. Choose a new item that interests you. Summarize and respond to the article in a well-developed paragraph which includes at least three (3) quotes. Be sure to provide the link to the article in your post.

2. Click here. Take the test. Have fun and tell me what you think. =)

3. Click here. Check out today's best photography from the Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" site. Select your favorite image. Provide a well-written, descriptive paragraph of at least six sentences which provides the reader with an image which rivals that of the viewer. Your paragraph must contain at least five nouns, five verbs, and five adjectives, and must be at least six sentences long.

4. Earn 1000 grains of rice on freerice.com. 500 must be vocabulary, 500 geography. Show me your monitor when you are done so I can give you credit.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Today was our first official day of integration with Geography. Both freshmen classes joined together and held our first Socratic Seminars on both A Lesson Before Dying and your international events assignment. The group was split into two discussion groups that were mixed with folks from both classes so you all could get a chance to get to know one another. After going over a power point on Seminar protocol and guidelines, we gave everyone some time to get notes together, consider some guiding questions (for a copy of these questions, see me or Ms.Cody,) and introduce yourself to members of the other class. The rest of the time was spent in your discussion group! Part of your grade for this assignment was turning in a total of three things: 1) you current events to Ms. Cody, 2) your quotes and questions from English that was assigned on Friday (turned in to me), and 3) and "exit pass" from the seminar that contained three comments you heard during the discussion that you thought were interesting and one or two comments that you did not get a chance to share during the discussion. If you were absent, please see me or Ms. Cody for a make-up assignment.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Today we did some creative writing to get us thinking about perspective and how geographic location influences our value systems. You responded to six different prompts (view the power point by clicking here) in your notebooks, followed by a brief discussion. This lesson was designed to supplement what you did in Ms. Cody's class with the Zoom activity, and to get you prepared for Tuesday's large group discussion on the summer reading novel, A Lesson Before Dying, and our unit essential question (How does location impact a person's life and beliefs?) Remember, you need to bring your six quotes and three discussion questions with you to class tomorrow!!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Today we got ready to start discussing A Lesson Before Dying by reviewing theme, mood, and tone, three concepts you need to be familiar with before we dive into the literature for this class. We worked on identifying theme in a poem, a photograph, a song, and a short story. After evaluating each piece, we discussed what elements (such as diction, mood and tone) in that piece lead you to deciding on a particular theme.

Over the weekend, to prepare for our discussion and activities on A Lesson Before Dying, I want you to think about the theme of the novel (hint: there are several possibilities...decide which one you think is most important!) Also, consider our essential question that we will be using to frame our discussion: How does geographical location impact a person's life and belief systems? Where we live has a lot to do with who we are and the values we have. I want you to think about the influence of location on the characters and events in the novel.

For homework, compile six (6) quotes from the book that could possibly address that essential question. Record the quotes with their page numbers on a sheet of paper. In addition, jot down three questions that you have about the novel - the characters, events, passages, anything you don't understand, etc. - to pose during discussion. Bring this to class with you on Monday.

Download the handouts below if you need 'em. Have a great weekend! =)

Poem, "On Turning Ten" by Billy Collins

Song Lyrics, "Time" by Pink Floyd

Short Story, "Big Boy" by David Sedaris

Day 1 - August 20, 2009

Congratulations on surviving you first day as a high schooler! Hopefully, today was pretty simple for you and you were able to find your way around and get situated in all of your new classes.

It was a breeze in here today - you filled out a student info sheet for me, we went over the class syllabus and policies, and I showed you this awesome class website which you are now feasting your eyes upon. You also have your first assignment, a Biopoem, which is due tomorrow in class. To get a copy of the syllabus and the Biopoem assignment sheet, click the links below and follow instructions for saving and downloading. Welcome to Mountain Range! =)

Click here for the Honors English 9 Syllabus **don't forget to get your parent's signature on this and turn it in to me by next Friday, the 28th. **

Biopoem Assignment

Summer Reading Information - One Book, One Mountain

In order to help students enter this fall with a common experience and to promote discussions across curricula, all students and faculty have read one book, A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines. Copies of the book were purchased for you by MRHS and mailed to you at the beginning of the summer.

Participation in the summer reading program is mandatory. All English classes, as well as classes from other disciplines, will be designing assignments and activities around the novel to start the school year, so all students are expected to have read the book over the summer and be ready to participate. In this class, we will be starting activities and assignments surrounding the novel this Friday, August 21.

For more information about the book, check our MRHS' Summer Reading blog at http://www.onebookonemountain.blogspot.com/. This website contains supplementary information, an author bio, and several discussion questions about each chapter to guide your thinking. You will be asked to visit this site in the near future for a classroom assignment. Take a minute to check it out and review the questions before we jump into our activities!

Introduction

Welcome to the 2009-2010 school year! I look forward to another fun and productive year here at Mountain Range and can't wait to get to know all of you over these next 180 days.

As an extension of our work in class, you will be regularly asked to consult and contribute to this blog. Learn it, love it. Every day, a summary of the class period along with any relevant links, notes, and homework assignments will be posted to this website. If you are absent or forgot something, this is where you go. Just come here, find the day you missed, and catch up. In addition, you will be expected to contribute regularly to the blog. Roughly every two weeks, there will be a question, prompt, activity, survey, links to check out, or relevant supplementary materials posted on the website that will require a constructed response from you. In order to do so, you must create an account so that you are able to sign in to the blog and post your responses and assignments. We will spend some time going over how to post to the blog and I will give you further instructions at a later date. Appropriate and respectful use of our class blog is absolutely essential, and it will be continually monitored. There are several important things to remember about using our class blog:

1. Never trust a computer. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE again and then back it up.
2. Always be respectful and appropriate.
3. Always proofread and spellcheck!
4. Avoid “webspeak” – if we continue to abbreviate everything, our language will dwindle and our individuality will suffer.
5. Extra credit to those of you who locate my linguistic errors first.
6. Please label every post fully and formally with your name, period, and date.
7. Have fun! =)