The end of the semester is rapidly approaching, and I'm just not sure where it went. We've done so much, and yet I still feel like I have a lot to cover.
This past week was eaten by the County Writing Test and wrapping up loose ends. We started the week reflecting on the second nine week grading period and working more on the parts of speech. My students can tell me what the definitions are but have trouble identifying them in context.
So we used the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll to help see how the parts of speech work in a sentence. They had to look at what the nonsense word was doing in the sentence to figure out what part of speech it would be. I hope it's helped to make sense of the parts of speech so that we can move on to parts of a sentence.
The second class of the week consisted responding to a prompt. The ninth grade writing test is a county wide assessment. Students are given a prompt and a series of related quotes to work from. Overall, I think they did well. Some were better than others, but that is to be expected.
Friday we did a morning rotation that focused on giving and then watched The Ultimate Gift in the afternoon. It was a really good movie and day.
One week to go...
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Novels, Romeo & Juliet Speed Round, and Burger King Crowns
Well I didn't blog last week since we only had one actual class day. We spent our time reflecting on our Shakespeare banquet, performance and film, and we wrote a 32 second script for Romeo and Juliet. We didn't get time to make use of our scripts on the day we wrote them, but we did use them this past week.
At the beginning of the week, we turned in our NaNoWriMo novels, reflected on the experience, and designed covers for our books. During Friday's celebration, we displayed our covers in the cafeteria. It was fun watching everyone who came through, including culinary students, checking out the novel covers.
Later in the week, we journaled a little about things we were grateful for and things we'd like to thank a soldier for. We will be writing letters to Marines currently stationed in Iraq. My baby brother is a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps and will act as a distribution point for our letters and other care package type items.
We also tried to perform our 32 second versions of Romeo and Juliet. It was a lot of fun trying to get the performances down to 32 seconds. The videos from the attempts are on my YouTube page. Most groups started out over a minute. On a couple of occasions we had to cut a few lines to make it all work out. We even performed some of them backwards. The idea is a tribute to The Reduced Shakespeare Company, whose play/film we watched at the banquet.
Friday we spent the morning celebrating our noveling experience! Joyce Hostetter, a local author, came to speak and join in our fun. We all had Burger King Crowns, which the sophomores and juniors were begging me for in the morning. (I wouldn't let them have them until lunch.) We got to hear about ten novel excerpts. Every one was fabulous! It was a great morning! We got finished a little earlier than I had planned, but that gave us time to enjoy a HUGE cake that Dolly's parents made for us and cookies Cady brought in to share.
After the celebration, we took a brisk walk before lunch. After lunch, we went caroling at the Share Center. The kids had made Christmas Cards that they gave to the residents as we went up and down the hall singing. I have to admit that if the though is what counts, we did great. But if the sound is at all important, not so much. We had a couple great singers in my group, but overall, we were rough. Nevertheless, we brought smiles to many a face!
I can't believe that first semester is almost over already!
At the beginning of the week, we turned in our NaNoWriMo novels, reflected on the experience, and designed covers for our books. During Friday's celebration, we displayed our covers in the cafeteria. It was fun watching everyone who came through, including culinary students, checking out the novel covers.
Later in the week, we journaled a little about things we were grateful for and things we'd like to thank a soldier for. We will be writing letters to Marines currently stationed in Iraq. My baby brother is a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps and will act as a distribution point for our letters and other care package type items.
We also tried to perform our 32 second versions of Romeo and Juliet. It was a lot of fun trying to get the performances down to 32 seconds. The videos from the attempts are on my YouTube page. Most groups started out over a minute. On a couple of occasions we had to cut a few lines to make it all work out. We even performed some of them backwards. The idea is a tribute to The Reduced Shakespeare Company, whose play/film we watched at the banquet.
Friday we spent the morning celebrating our noveling experience! Joyce Hostetter, a local author, came to speak and join in our fun. We all had Burger King Crowns, which the sophomores and juniors were begging me for in the morning. (I wouldn't let them have them until lunch.) We got to hear about ten novel excerpts. Every one was fabulous! It was a great morning! We got finished a little earlier than I had planned, but that gave us time to enjoy a HUGE cake that Dolly's parents made for us and cookies Cady brought in to share.
After the celebration, we took a brisk walk before lunch. After lunch, we went caroling at the Share Center. The kids had made Christmas Cards that they gave to the residents as we went up and down the hall singing. I have to admit that if the though is what counts, we did great. But if the sound is at all important, not so much. We had a couple great singers in my group, but overall, we were rough. Nevertheless, we brought smiles to many a face!
I can't believe that first semester is almost over already!
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