I was out ill Thursday and Friday, hence the lack of progress reports.

First period completed The Giver. We began a culminating project: a newspaper from Jonas’s community. Our publishing date will be approximately one week after Jonas leaves. We finished the day’s lesson by brainstorming possible topics.

• The search for Jonas.
• The effects of the memories being released on the community.
• The effects of the community seeing color.
• Interviews with Jonas’s friends and family.
• Reports from the meetings of the community’s council of elders.
• An interview with the Giver about what could have gone wrong.
• An investigative journalism piece that asks the question, “Did the Giver encourage Jonas to escape?”
• The effect on the number of requests for Releases (would it go up or down?)

Second period began with a quick vocabulary quiz. Students finished up Antigone in class Friday. We’re working on the final lesson, finishing up tomorrow. We’ll spend a couple of days working on the culminating activity (a comparison/contrast of Lord of the Flies and Antigone using elements of sociology as an analytical framework), then we’ll begin the Beast: Great Expectations.

Fourth and sixth periods continued working on Algernon. We’re just about done — we’re tying up loose ends. We also worked on prepositions today.

Homework

• First, fourth, and sixth periods: none.
• Second period:
  • quiz three Wednesday;
  • “breaking the law” rewrites Thursday;
  • read the project overview (to be posted here and at courses.ourenglishclass.net this evening).