The blog is back! Ah, it feels good too. It was great meeting all the parents and celebrating the progress being made, but now that they are over, I'm free to enlighten you with some LA blog wisdom.
First, let's give a language arts Hoorah! to the sages today. Peter Rutkowski, Isabella Gianesi, Topher Peck, Conrad Adams, Allie Mason, Nuha Zackariya, and Grant Brenner all shared their C.A.P. papers in class as their peers circled around them. While listening, the students took notes on the papers' strengths. Several similar themes kept coming up: an abundance of detail on the individual selected; thorough development of the authors views; strong explanations offered on how the authors and the individual selected connect; smooth transitions throughout the papers; cohesive writing. We didn't discuss this in period one and five, but in period six the students were impressed that Grant had five additional sources beyond the three I had given everyone while Nuha had ten additional sources. That represents a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a big reason why they were both able to be so successful with their papers.
You should be bringing in typed reflections in the next day or two, showing the reflections to me, and then filing the papers. Remember, if you care to discuss the paper with me further, you are free to do so. Just have your discussion topics carefully thought through and written down so that you can present the best argument possible.
We've been spending a chunk of time going over agreement errors in your writings. Ouch! There are plenty to choose from, but hopefully you are becoming more aware of the issue. While the errors can be in tense or gender or number, we've seen the errors that we are making most often (since I lift the sentences right from your papers) deal with number and our abilities to select the correct pronouns. We'll hit it for a couple more days, but you can definitely expect a notebook quiz on this topic in the next week or so. I'll give you a shout out on the blog so keep it close.
We have dived head first into our book group presentations. Methods of presentation are being locked down and topics of discussion are being identified and supported. As a reminder you need to see how the authors used fantasy to make statements about humanity and society. Thus, when looking for ideas, you need to start with the fantastical elements of your stories. Then try to decide what the author could be saying about society through his use of those fantastical elements. We'll be doing those presentations next week. It'll be the only homework you have from me over the next few days, so hit it hard.
"Harrison Bergeron" that wacky, unique, confusing, stimulating story definitely had us talking on Tuesday. Plenty of likes. Plenty of dislikes. Plenty of questions. We'll be revisiting it tomorrow for at least half the class. In addition to addressing some of those questions, I'll be asking you to think about Harrison himself and these two questions.
What did Harrison hope to accomplish by rebelling?
Was Harrison successful?
As always, I'll be looking for you to support your thinking with evidence from the text. Can't wait to hear what you have to say. I'll sign your Archer card if you identify my agreement error in the writing above. Have it written down. See you tomorrow.
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