Friday, September 27, 2013

AGENDA 9/27

Grammar Quiz over Verbs
Independent reading

HW: Complete 300 pages of independent reading and have a book conference with me before next Thursday!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

AGENDA 9/26

Grammar: Verbs 9.6
Independent reading 15 minutes

HW: Poem packets for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Identity" due tomorrow. Nothing needs to be typed--handwritten neatly in ink or marker is fine so long as it is "bulletin-board worthy." Rough draft, peer revision, and self-reflection are all due tomorrow along with the final draft. Study for tomorrow's grammar quiz over verbs. Refer to the "Problems with Verbs" sheet and your half-sheets from Grammar Fridays.

Friday, September 20, 2013

AGENDA 9/20

Grammar Practice: Verbs 9.5

Reteach how to brainstorm for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Identity" poem: start by listing emotions/tone words in front of class, e.g., joyful, frustrated, sad, lonely, nervous, etc. and then think about someone or something in your life that might view you with that tone. For example, "irritated" might describe the view of another driver on the 405 freeway, like the guy in the gray Nissan probably felt toward me when I cut him off this morning. Or "excited" would show my cat's viewpoint when I come home each day, and he's waiting by the door meowing and ready to pounce me because he's so glad I am home.

Begin work on stanzas or continue to revise.

HW: Eight stanzas drafted for Monday. Continue to make progress in independent reading books--I recommend being at page 175 or farther by Monday.  Grammar quiz over verbs (parallelism, verb tense, and subject-verb agreement errors) next Friday.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

AGENDA 9/18

Vocab activity: quickly revise one sentence in your vocabulary notebook to give it more context. Share out 5 responses from the class. Reminder: fixed vocabulary packets due Friday!

Review paraphrases of stanzas from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Then, examine Stevens' craft in a few of the stanzas together. What choices does he make, what tone does he create, and what literary devices does he use? Find a favorite stanza--what "work" does Stevens put into that stanza in terms of tone, word choice, and literary devices? Share out.

Introduce "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Identity" poem assignment. Students should consider themselves and all of the "roles" they play--how might you be viewed from myriad perspectives?

Each stanza needs to be from a different perspective and convey a clear tone (feeling: e.g., sad, proud, frustrated, mysterious, joyful, etc.).

In addition, your poem (somewhere in the 13 final stanzas) must include these Special Requirements:

  • One stanza needs to include a simile, metaphor, or personification.
  • One stanza needs to include a repeated sound (rhyme, consonance, assonance, or alliteration).
  • One stanza needs to repeat one particular word or phrase to create an effect.
  • One stanza needs to ask questions.
  • One stanza needs to include sensory details (sights, sounds).
  • One stanza needs to include a reference to a famous book, poem, song, movie, fictional character, or real historical person.
HW:  Begin drafting the first two stanzas of your poem, due at the beginning of class tomorrow. Continue to make progress toward 300 pages of independent reading, due 10/3. Revised vocabulary packets due Friday.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

AGENDA 9/17

SSR - independent reading 15 minutes

Continue to work in groups and paraphrase stanzas from Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

HW: Finish paraphrasing stanzas if not finished in class. Continue to make progress toward 300 pages of independent reading by 10/3.

AGENDA 9/16

Period 4 Only: Introduce TPS-FAST method for analyzing poetry and apply to Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Discuss each element of TPS-FAST and model along with the class

Period 6 Only: Library visit for YA author presentation - Sonya Sonyes and Ellen Hopkins

HW: Continue to make progress toward completing 300 pages of independent reading by 10/3

Friday, September 13, 2013

AGENDA 9/13

Grammar Practice: Verbs 9.4

Return vocabulary notebook packets for  the words from The Fault in Our Stars  for revision: check synonyms and antonyms, and make sure that sentences convey the meaning of the word through context. Revise and resubmit before next Friday to earn full credit.

Independent reading (300 pages completed by 10/3!). Track progress on your Reading Record sheet. Some students need to fix #bestbookever Tweets in class today.

Continue to revise The Fault in Our Stars further research paragraph
F - Focus (what is the author's main idea or argument)
A - Author's Name, capitalized and spelled correctly
T - Title or "Title," of the text (short works like articles, essays, and poems go in quotation marks; long works like videos, pieces of art, and books have the title underlined/italicized)
T - Text type (is it an article? video? photograph? poem?)

Here's a picture of the informal notes I wrote in class about this video

Here is my sample paragraph writeup that includes a "FATT Claim" and an MLA-format citation that you can use as a model. NOTE: I used the fake name Joanne Wilson as a student name so as not to confuse you with the MLA format, which requires that the instructor's name appears on the second line.
HW:  Revise and submit  The Fault in Our Stars further research paragraph to Turnitin.com before 6pm on Sunday.  See pages 34 and 35 in Binder Reminder for help with MLA formatting.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

AGENDA 9/10

Silent Sustained Reading - 20 minutes. Get closer to our goal of 300+ pages each grading period (deadline for book conferences: 10/3). Track progress in your Reading Record and refer to the instructions for independent reading as needed.

Review FATT claims:
F - Focus (what is the author's main idea or argument)
A - Author's Name, capitalized and spelled correctly
T - Title or "Title," of the text (short works like articles, essays, and poems go in quotation marks; long works like videos, pieces of art, and books have the title underlined/italicized)
T - Text type (is it an article? video? photograph? poem?)

 and MLA formatting (pages 34 and 35 in Binder Reminder) for The Fault in Our Stars further research paragraph. Final draft will be due electronically to Turnitin.com on Friday.

HW: Study for tomorrow's vocabulary test by reviewing the words from The Fault in Our Stars and completing/reviewing your vocabulary notebook.  As you study, make sure that you know how to spell each word, how the word is pronounced, how to provide synonyms and antonyms, how to construct a sentence that defines the word's meaning in context, and how to illustrate the meaning of the word with a brief picture. Your vocabulary notebook is due tomorrow, right before the quiz.

Monday, September 9, 2013

AGENDA 9/9

New Seats

Vocabulary practice: Review warmup #3 for The Fault in Our Stars vocabulary words. Work on Word Search and warmup #4 for additional practice. Vocabulary quiz on Wednesday!
Review MLA formatting (pages 34 and 35 in Binder Reminder) for The Fault in Our Stars further research paragraph. Final draft will be due electronically to Turnitin.com on Friday.

HW: Study for Wednesday's vocabulary quiz and revise formatting of Further Research paragraph as needed.

Friday, September 6, 2013

AGENDA 9/6

Grammar Practice: Verbs 9.3

Model how to approach The Fault in Our Stars further research paragraph -- view this video on infinities, jot down notes, and transform notes into a paragraph using a "FATT" Claim to open the paragraph:

F - Focus (what is the author's main idea or argument)
A - Author's Name, capitalized and spelled correctly
T - Title or "Title," of the text (short works like articles, essays, and poems go in quotation marks; long works like videos, pieces of art, and books have the title underlined/italicized)
T - Text type (is it an article? video? photograph? poem?)

Here's a picture of the informal notes I wrote in class about this video

Here is my sample paragraph writeup that includes a "FATT Claim" and an MLA-format citation that you can use as a model. NOTE: I used the fake name Joanne Wilson as a student name so as not to confuse you with the MLA format, which requires that the instructor's name appears on the second line.

HW: Continue to study vocabulary words from The Fault in Our Stars using your vocabulary notebook. Quiz will be pushed back to next Wednesday, 9/11. Complete a draft of your further research paragraph (typed) for Monday, like the sample I modeled in class.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

AGENDA 9/4

Tweet revisions: please review the #bestbookever handout and correct any mistakes in formatting. Bring a new revised copy on Friday (or email it to jpust@smmusd.org before class on Friday and I'll print it for you).

Review vocabulary warm-up #1 and vocabulary warm-up #2 for the words from The Fault in Our Stars

Introduce The Fault in Our Stars Further Research Assignment

HW: Revise #bestbookever Tweet if needed. Study for vocabulary test on Monday by reviewing your vocabulary notebook.  As you study, make sure that you know how to spell each word, how the word is pronounced, how to provide synonyms and antonyms, how to construct a sentence that defines the word's meaning in context, and how to illustrate the meaning of the word with a brief picture.  For Friday, visit one or more of the The Fault in Our Stars Further Research Assignment Study Links, take notes, and draft a handwritten paragraph that summarizes the source and includes one specific fact or detail. Please bring your independent reading book that I approved to class every day.