Novels Away!

The first week of NaNoWriMo has been a huge success in my opinion. We spent time working on our novels this week as well as delving further into Romeo and Juliet. The beginning of the week we reviewed parts of speech again with a special emphasis on personal pronouns. We also worked on understanding how conflict and problems work to create tension in our novels.

Three of the four classes watched the first 25 minutes or so of the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. On Friday we saw all but the last 30 minutes or so of the 1996 version. It always amazes me at the different takes on each version. I've had classes in the past that didn't care for the newer version and other classes that found the older version cheesy. I'm looking forward to hearing what this year's classes think when we have seen both versions.

We also went over our Romeo and Juliet performance project. For the project, they can work alone or in a group of up to four. They will need to rewrite the dialogue or monologue to be included as part of a modern day adaptation of the play. The monologues and dialogues are relatively short, and I suggested that they check out No Fear Shakespeare and sparknotes for help.

They will be performing as part of our entertainment during our banquet on November 21st. We will rehearse earlier that week. I'm really looking forward to what this very creative bunch will come up with.

The latter half of the week we focused on our novels. Students worked on their novels for about half of the class and the rest of the time they worked on new blog or met with me to discuss the grammar and plot worksheets they worked on earlier in the week.

Well, this seems a little less detailed than my normal blogs, but I have a lot on my plate. I need to try and get grades into the computer for progress reports. I've been working on my national boards. Oh and I'm working on my NaNoWriMo novel as well....I'm wearing out my keyboard that's for sure!

I'm off to work on my novel, 21,000 words and counting!

P.S. I don't think I've ever linked this before but here is my youtube account. I've not posted everything I have, but there are quite a few videos from our Olympics earlier this year and from our Grandfather Mountain trip. Enjoy!