English I students began the centerpiece of the whole year’s curriculum: Romeo and Juliet. We began with the prologue, looking for some patterns and repetitions as well as a few surprises.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the opening lines contain a spoiler, which seems to ruin the ending of the play, telling long before the young lovers’ death that they will indeed die. We looked at how that spoiler is created, the role rhythm and balance play in the passage, and the odd way the play breaks the fourth wall in having the chorus refer to the actors themselves and address the audience in the second person.

English 8 students began working in earnest on their research project, looking at how to create good inquiry questions for their research.

We covered two basic characteristics of good inquiry/research questions:

1. They should be open-ended (i.e., no yes/no questions).
2. They should lead to other questions

After looking at some examples, students worked on their own inquiry questions.