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All classes took the English PASS test today. Since it’s a secure test, that is all anyone can cay about it.
Fourth period had class during the sixth period and continued research for their papers. Seventh period continued working on connotation and bias.
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Almost all classes today worked on PASS prep for tomorrow’s English test. Second and fourth periods continued their research for the Charles Dickens/Victorian England
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First period worked on the PASS practice, all of which will be due Monday. (The preceding link is to a zip file of all the practice tests that will be required for turn in Monday.) We also took a bit of a break by watching the film version of “Flowers for Algernon.”
Second and fourth periods continued working on research for the term papers. I’ve added to the courses site the resource I indicated in class.
(More images from second period available in the gallery.)
Sixth period began Monster; seventh period continued with connotation work on semantic scales.
None.
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First period completed “Flowers for Algernon.” They completed the reading and worked on inferring and point of view analysis.
Second and sixth periods worked on the research for their paper on Great Expectations.
Sixth period began a unit on the Walter Dean Myers book, Monster. We’ll be reading and analyzing it in class these final weeks.
Seventh period completed looking at connotations as part of their propaganda and bias unit.
None.
Homework
First period: read journal entries in “Flowers for Algernon” through May (page 335)
First period continued with “Flowers for Algernon.” We continued practicing with inferring, discussing the previous night’s homework.
Second and fourth periods finished Great Expectations. We saw three different endings: the published ending, Dickens’s original ending, and a highly altered film ending.
Sixth period had a test on The Giver.
Seventh period worked on connotation regarding bias. We examined the following word groups to order them according to connotation:
We’re beginning to wrap up a number of units — convenient since we’re nearing the end of the year. First period worked on “Flowers for Algernon” after a PASS review (page 402) and a bus evacuation drill. It amounted to little more than explaining the homework as the drill had taken a fair chunk of our time.
Second and fourth periods worked on Great Expectations, which we’re finishing tomorrow. We began as we often do: analyzing sentences to determine sentence type:
We made our own web of characters to look at the inter-related nature of the novel’s various story lines.
Second Period's Web
Fourth period completed the task with fewer variables and the results were clearer.
Fourth Period's Web
(A simplified version from a previous is here, password “done”).
Sixth period went over potential essay questions as a summary of The Giver. Student-created notes are below:
Seventh period shifted from propaganda techniques to bias. We had a review of connotation and then began looking at how words can take on positive, negative, or neutral connotations. We ranked some near-synonyms to determine the range of different shades of meaning.
We also went over some extensive notes about bias, available here.
First period continued with “Flowers for Algernon” after doing some more work with commas and apostrophes.
We also returned to our ABC-Rewrite of “Flowers.”
Second and fourth periods finished up the portion of the film of Great Expectations — the portion we’ll be watching, at any rate.
Sixth period finished up working on the “Most Important Word” engagement for The Giver. We’ll be using it Monday to review for a test on the novel Tuesday.
Seventh period finally got to do the propaganda technique identification work as intended.
First period began with more work on commas and apostrophes.
We also looked at more practice PASS tests, as did sixth period.
We made more progress on “Flowers for Algernon,” still focusing on inferring.
Second and fourth periods continued with Great Expectations. We’re dividing our time between reading and viewing the BBC presentation from 1999.
Sixth period finished The Giver. We looked at three options for interpreting the ending.
We also began an short culminating activity that attempts to encapsulate the whole of the novel in a single word — much more difficult than one might think, especially when I precluded some key words and ideas.
