English 8 started working on standard L-4.1 (show knowledge of the function of gerunds, participles, and infinitives and their functions in particular sentences). We’re looking at how the author uses participles in Nightjohn.

English I students worked on poetry, looking at an initially confusing poem by Howard Nemerov:

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

We marked the poem extensively but my computer threw an error (“IRQL Not less or equal“) and crashed. It does this from time to time — usually about twice a day. It’s a problem from the latest update which Microsoft provided and the district pushed out at the start of the school year. We’ve been told the fix is just around the corner, so in the meantime, so in-class work might not make it here because the computer has crashed between the time we do the work (i.e., mark the text, usually) and the time I provide this update.

Homework

• English 8: complete 6-10 from today’s classwork.
• English I Honors: continue with short story analytic paragraph assessment.