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!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Romeo & Juliet Banquet
This whole week seemed dedicated to two things, working out issues with novels and getting ready for the banquet.
We spent some time discussing our novels and hang ups we were having. I'm hoping for some strong finishes. Collectively we have written over half a million words in our pursuit of novel writing. It would be amazing to break a million words!
We also performed Romeo & Juliet in the most ADHD manner I've ever seen. It was a hoot. I would have liked less reading, but part of that is my fault. In an attempt to be as fair as possible in the distribution of parts, It took me longer than I would have liked to get the assignments out.
Then of course the end of last week I was out of the classroom. That being said, the videos of the performances are a lot of fun. Check them out!
Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for this year!
We spent some time discussing our novels and hang ups we were having. I'm hoping for some strong finishes. Collectively we have written over half a million words in our pursuit of novel writing. It would be amazing to break a million words!
We also performed Romeo & Juliet in the most ADHD manner I've ever seen. It was a hoot. I would have liked less reading, but part of that is my fault. In an attempt to be as fair as possible in the distribution of parts, It took me longer than I would have liked to get the assignments out.
Then of course the end of last week I was out of the classroom. That being said, the videos of the performances are a lot of fun. Check them out!
Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for this year!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Where in the World was Mr. Miller
First and foremost, I have to say that I hate to miss school. Maybe it's a control issue, maybe it's something else, but I cannot stand to be out for any reason. Unfortunately, there will always be times when it is necessary to be gone from school, whether it's because of illness or other obligations. I suppose that I am grateful that my lack of attendance this week had everything to do with a conference and nothing to do with illness.
Monday we went to the civic center to see a play, "The Red Planet." It was an interesting take on life on Mars in the future. My favorite part was the robot. The actress who played the humanoid robot did a fantastic job.
We had a short blitz schedule on Monday. I focused on returning assignments and trying to assign acting the Part roles in as fair a way as possible. I really wanted to get them assigned earlier, but I felt it was important for the students to have some say in what they were doing. Most got their first or second choice. I wish they all could have, but it just didn't work out that way.
Tuesday was a day off of school but not much of an off day for me.
Wednesday through Friday, I was in Hickory participating in The New Schools Project Symposium. Wednesday was a peer visit at Challenger, and Thursday and Friday were filled with a series of activities and conversations.
While I was gone, my classes got a chance to finish viewing the '96 version of Romeo and Juliet. They also had some time to work on either their acting the part assignment or their novel. I believe that things went well.
Friday was filled with preparation for our banquet next week. I hate that I missed any of it! I cannot wait to get back to school tomorrow!
Monday we went to the civic center to see a play, "The Red Planet." It was an interesting take on life on Mars in the future. My favorite part was the robot. The actress who played the humanoid robot did a fantastic job.
We had a short blitz schedule on Monday. I focused on returning assignments and trying to assign acting the Part roles in as fair a way as possible. I really wanted to get them assigned earlier, but I felt it was important for the students to have some say in what they were doing. Most got their first or second choice. I wish they all could have, but it just didn't work out that way.
Tuesday was a day off of school but not much of an off day for me.
Wednesday through Friday, I was in Hickory participating in The New Schools Project Symposium. Wednesday was a peer visit at Challenger, and Thursday and Friday were filled with a series of activities and conversations.
While I was gone, my classes got a chance to finish viewing the '96 version of Romeo and Juliet. They also had some time to work on either their acting the part assignment or their novel. I believe that things went well.
Friday was filled with preparation for our banquet next week. I hate that I missed any of it! I cannot wait to get back to school tomorrow!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
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!
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!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Debates, Prologues, and Novels!
This past week was full of fun things. We started Monday with our mock presidential debates. All participants did a fantastic job. The entire morning came across very professional and at the same time very entertaining. The student's did a fantastic job staying true to their invented candidates even when time allowed for unscripted questions to be asked. After lunch that day, we had a special presentation from a Argentinian educator. It was very interesting to learn more about that country.
Tuesday and Wednesday then became our first class of the week. We began with written and oral presentations of the Prologue to Act I of Romeo and Juliet. Overall, all four classes did very well. There were a handful of students who were not prepared and have had to or will have to retest to improve that score. As we finished with our presentations, we set up accounts on The Young Writer's Program side of the NaNoWriMo web site (both sites are overloaded right now due to the high volume of participants).
Although Friday was a little different, Thursday and Friday served as our second day of the week. We took care of some retests, but focused a lot of attention on where to begin our novels and Act I of Romeo and Juliet. I gave out writing handbooks that we will use to get us through our novel writing in November. We looked at several pages in those workbooks, and in our journals we answered some important questions about the characters we had created:
What does my character want?
What is in his/her way?
How can she/he get around that obstacle?
What could go wrong with that plan.
The workbooks are for the students to use as they need them; however, there will be times throughout the month when I go over areas addressed in the books directly. It will be okay if something we do together a student has completed on their own. The remainder of the class was spent reading the first scene of Romeo and Juliet. I tried to break it down for them and with their help so we all knew exactly what was going on. This upcoming week we'll work more on Romeo and Juliet and our novels.
Friday morning we had an extended assembly where I showed some videos from three of our Friday activities: Grandfather Mountain, The Renaissance Festival, and Shake-N-Bake Museum. After our regular first through third period A day, we went to the cafeteria to kick off our novel writing. We went over tips for success in November. We locked away our internal editors. And I showed the webpage I set up to get everyone excited about starting their novels on Saturday. All of the teachers helped to create survival packs that we gave out before we spent some time planning our novels more.
We took small groups upstairs to make caramel apples while the rest talked about their novels and used the workbooks to get a good start. I have been in touch with Joyce Moyer Hostetter, a local author who will be writing alongside us in November and coming to our December celebration. Joyce is also blogging about her experiences with this insane quest. I encourage you to check out her blog.
Remember during November, every student and myself have something to do everyday! Write, Write, Write! I just broke 6,000 words this morning!
Tuesday and Wednesday then became our first class of the week. We began with written and oral presentations of the Prologue to Act I of Romeo and Juliet. Overall, all four classes did very well. There were a handful of students who were not prepared and have had to or will have to retest to improve that score. As we finished with our presentations, we set up accounts on The Young Writer's Program side of the NaNoWriMo web site (both sites are overloaded right now due to the high volume of participants).
Although Friday was a little different, Thursday and Friday served as our second day of the week. We took care of some retests, but focused a lot of attention on where to begin our novels and Act I of Romeo and Juliet. I gave out writing handbooks that we will use to get us through our novel writing in November. We looked at several pages in those workbooks, and in our journals we answered some important questions about the characters we had created:
What does my character want?
What is in his/her way?
How can she/he get around that obstacle?
What could go wrong with that plan.
The workbooks are for the students to use as they need them; however, there will be times throughout the month when I go over areas addressed in the books directly. It will be okay if something we do together a student has completed on their own. The remainder of the class was spent reading the first scene of Romeo and Juliet. I tried to break it down for them and with their help so we all knew exactly what was going on. This upcoming week we'll work more on Romeo and Juliet and our novels.
Friday morning we had an extended assembly where I showed some videos from three of our Friday activities: Grandfather Mountain, The Renaissance Festival, and Shake-N-Bake Museum. After our regular first through third period A day, we went to the cafeteria to kick off our novel writing. We went over tips for success in November. We locked away our internal editors. And I showed the webpage I set up to get everyone excited about starting their novels on Saturday. All of the teachers helped to create survival packs that we gave out before we spent some time planning our novels more.
We took small groups upstairs to make caramel apples while the rest talked about their novels and used the workbooks to get a good start. I have been in touch with Joyce Moyer Hostetter, a local author who will be writing alongside us in November and coming to our December celebration. Joyce is also blogging about her experiences with this insane quest. I encourage you to check out her blog.
Remember during November, every student and myself have something to do everyday! Write, Write, Write! I just broke 6,000 words this morning!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
I'm Noticing a Pattern!
For the last three weeks the title of my blogs have all been about how fast the week went by...and I was ready to do it again this week! I guess it's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun!
This past week was a blast! I know for a fact that I freaked out quite a few people on Wednesday and Friday when we launched into Romeo and Juliet! And on Monday and Thursday, we got serious about our word counts. It was an adventurous week to say the least.
I saw groups A and B in on Monday and Wednesday, which is how it usually plays out. However, Tuesday and Thursday weren't quite so straight forward. Tuesday we had a guest speaker come to discuss endangered species, so we had a rotation in the morning. My part of the rotation was beginning the film version of The Odyssey.
The film was originally a television mini-series back in the 90's. The kids really got into it. They would beg to finish a scene before we switched. We watched more of it on Thursday before we headed up to the Fall Festival. Then we finished it on Friday afternoon.
We were in four rooms watching the end on Friday and each room was slightly off from each other. It was really kind of neat for me since it allowed me to stop by the different rooms to add something or draw their attention to something. Then right near the end of the film a "bad guy", one of the suitors, is killed. The cheers came in a round on the hall, and when the film ended, the applauds came in a round as well. It was really cool!
Finishing up The Odyssey was just a small highlight of the week. The first day we met, we talked a bit more about turning off our internal editors and getting ready for NaNoWriMo. We finished peer editing our essays and set our word count goals. We talked about how they will have homework everyday for the entire month of November.
The only way they'll reach their word count goal, or that I'll reach mine, is by setting aside time everyday to write. The lowest word count goal I allowed was 20,000 words. That breaks down to 667 words per day or about one typed page. This month should be fun and challenging. I know some of them are super excited about getting started and the others are coming around to the idea.
The second day we met, I carried a sword and spoke in a terrible British accent. I stood on the table pretty much the entire class, (the cause of much of the freakout). We talked about love and teenagers and then went into The Prologue from Act I of Romeo and Juliet. We took the 14 line sonnet to pieces looking at every detail of it. We added motions to it and talked about ways to memorize it.
They will write and recite the sonnet for two separate grades on Tuesday or Wednesday of this upcoming week. We'll also be getting ready for NaNoWriMo, setting up our accounts, and mapping out our stories and starting to think about our Shakespeare Banquet. It'll be a bit of a busy month, but rewarding in the end.
I'm preparing a bit of a send off for Friday since Saturday will be the first official day of writing for NaNoWriMo!!
Chances are good this week will disappear without much effort like the last several...
This past week was a blast! I know for a fact that I freaked out quite a few people on Wednesday and Friday when we launched into Romeo and Juliet! And on Monday and Thursday, we got serious about our word counts. It was an adventurous week to say the least.
I saw groups A and B in on Monday and Wednesday, which is how it usually plays out. However, Tuesday and Thursday weren't quite so straight forward. Tuesday we had a guest speaker come to discuss endangered species, so we had a rotation in the morning. My part of the rotation was beginning the film version of The Odyssey.
The film was originally a television mini-series back in the 90's. The kids really got into it. They would beg to finish a scene before we switched. We watched more of it on Thursday before we headed up to the Fall Festival. Then we finished it on Friday afternoon.
We were in four rooms watching the end on Friday and each room was slightly off from each other. It was really kind of neat for me since it allowed me to stop by the different rooms to add something or draw their attention to something. Then right near the end of the film a "bad guy", one of the suitors, is killed. The cheers came in a round on the hall, and when the film ended, the applauds came in a round as well. It was really cool!
Finishing up The Odyssey was just a small highlight of the week. The first day we met, we talked a bit more about turning off our internal editors and getting ready for NaNoWriMo. We finished peer editing our essays and set our word count goals. We talked about how they will have homework everyday for the entire month of November.
The only way they'll reach their word count goal, or that I'll reach mine, is by setting aside time everyday to write. The lowest word count goal I allowed was 20,000 words. That breaks down to 667 words per day or about one typed page. This month should be fun and challenging. I know some of them are super excited about getting started and the others are coming around to the idea.
The second day we met, I carried a sword and spoke in a terrible British accent. I stood on the table pretty much the entire class, (the cause of much of the freakout). We talked about love and teenagers and then went into The Prologue from Act I of Romeo and Juliet. We took the 14 line sonnet to pieces looking at every detail of it. We added motions to it and talked about ways to memorize it.
They will write and recite the sonnet for two separate grades on Tuesday or Wednesday of this upcoming week. We'll also be getting ready for NaNoWriMo, setting up our accounts, and mapping out our stories and starting to think about our Shakespeare Banquet. It'll be a bit of a busy month, but rewarding in the end.
I'm preparing a bit of a send off for Friday since Saturday will be the first official day of writing for NaNoWriMo!!
Chances are good this week will disappear without much effort like the last several...
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