First period completed the Giver projects. They’re not actually due until next Friday, so students can come in early to do additional work on them, but we won’t be spending any more class time on them.
Second period began Great Expectations.
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could [...]

First period continued working on their Giver newsletter projects. They’re almost all complete; Friday will be the last day for everyone to finish up.
Second period worked on web quest to begin the new unit on Dickens’ Great Expectations. Students looked at several web sites, but most popular were the

Dickens biography, and the
Surviving Dickens’ London game.

Fourth [...]

First period began creating their Giver newsletters. We typed all the articles and saved them in a centralized location, thus creating a central pool of material for students to draw from in designing and creating their newsletters.
Second period continued working on the Antigone/Lord of the Flies project.
I provided a Antigone / Lord of the Flies [...]

First, fourth, and sixth periods were all doing in-class writing. Everyone is working to create class newsletters: first period on The Giver, fourth and sixth periods on Flowers for Algernon. First period will be going to the library tomorrow; fourth and sixth periods will be going Tuesday.
Second period began working on their Lord of the [...]

First period continued working the newpaper for The Giver. We examined this newspaper article about whoopie pies to see how reporters work quotes into their articles. We’ll be finishing up Friday in the library.
Second period worked on dividing characters from Antigone into four quadrants based on their views about the individual and law, about morality [...]

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 [...]

First period completed subordinate/dependent clauses and complex sentences.
Second period completed participles and gerunds, then continued with Antigone.
Fourth period completed Algernon.
Homework

First period: complete handout on complex sentences and subordinate clauses.
Second period:

read through page 139;
vocab quiz Friday (words coming shortly);
complete the following chart:

We had no first or second period classes due to the PASS writing test.
Fourth and sixth periods continued with Algernon. We’ll be finishing up this week.

First and second period both worked on grammatical topics. First period learned about simple and compound sentences. We’ll be adding complex and compound-complex later in the year.
Second period began with a vocabulary quiz on Antigone. We then reviewed prepositional phrases and began working on verbals: participles and gerunds.
Fourth and sixth periods continued with Algernon. We [...]

First period discussed the meaning of Release and the reason why a community would have such a policy: strict population control. We then switched gears to look at sentence types. We’ll be finishing that Monday.
Second period continued with Antigone.
We spent some time with a long passage from the Chorus, and discussed and implemented ways of [...]

First period worked on chapters 16-18 of The Giver. Specifically, we looked at how Jonas’s new knowledge is really beginning to set him apart from the rest of the community. We practiced the skill of inferring by working in groups to determine a few facts we can learn about the community by paying close attention [...]

First period continued with The Giver. We looked at all the ways the community tries to eliminate pain from the community. In the end, we determined that all the major differences between our society and theirs has to do with the elimination of pain.
Second period looked at the differences between modern drama and Greek drama. [...]

Due to ITBS testing, we only had fourth and sixth periods today. We continued the “frequently confused words” work in conjunction with Flowers for Algernon.

First period looked at the various rites of passage in The Giver and worked together to come up with an answer to the day’s essential question, “What is a rite of passage.”
Second period finished up Lord of the Flies. We began working on two trials that will be held Monday the next time we’ll have [...]

First period went over euphemisms and how they’re used in The Giver.
Second period discussed symbols in Lord of the Flies.
Fourth and sixth periods worked on Flowers for Algernon.
Homework

Second period: read chapter nine of LoF.
First, fourth, and sixth periods: test on persuasive techniques tomorrow.