“It was the best of times and the worst of times . . .” Her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music, lined on the pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading gently. I knew from listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of her reading, and I hadn’t really heard, heard to understand, a single word.

This was an example for our examination of how to use sensory language. In particular, we looked at how Angelou described sounds in this passage. (I have highlighted the phrases we focused on.) Notes from today are available here.

Fourth period completed the rubric for the Lord of the Flies project, which is due next Friday. I have created a template for the project. Both the Microsoft Word and Openoffice.org Writer version are included in this zip file (Lord of the Flies Project Template).

Homework

• First period: study for vocabulary quiz.
• Second, fourth, and seventh periods: none.

Fourth period had a quiz and Q&A session on the latest chapters of the novel. We ended doing work with pronouns as part of our parts of speech review.

Additionally, fourth period began working on the rubric we’ll be using to evaluate the Lord of the Flies project, tentatively due Friday 11 September. Our notes looked like this:

Homework

• First period:
  • write definitions of the terms;
  • compose sentences using the new vocabulary.
• Second period: compose sentences using the new vocabulary.
• Fourth period:
  • complete Lord of the Flies;
  • complete the Lord of the Flies rubric, adding two more strands.

Second period began wrapping up the symbolism of Lord of the Flies. We determined a few things:

• The beast represents the evil, selfish urges in all of us.
• The conch symbolizes civil society.
• The fire is a measure of how connected they are to the civilization they left behind.
• Piggy symbolizes the rational drive of humanity.
• Jack represents the selfish, impulsively selfish side of humans.
• Ralph represents the rule of law by common consent.

We will be finishing up the selection this week.

Homework

• First, second, and seventh periods: finish the “Letter to Maya.”
• Fourth period: read chapters nine and ten.

Overview: Today we went over all types of nouns, and the 4 basic principles.

Materials Distrubuted: Nothing

Homework: Read Chapters 5 and 6 LOTF. Take Vocab. quiz before Tuesday. Go over class discussion questions. Write 300 to 500 word proposal about class talking.

Materials Distributed: Hobbes and Rousseau Organizer Sheet

Homework

• 2nd Draft of Essay,
• Read Chapter 3 in Lord of the Flies,
• Go over Vocabulary and take quiz before Friday midnight.

First period began a unit on Shakespeare. We’ll be reading a condensed form of Much Ado About Nothing. We watched a film about Billy’s life and his use of language. Students returned to the topic of poetry briefly in order to learn what specifically blank verse is (unrhymed iambic pentameter).

Second period went over their Lord of the Flies/Antigone projects. We’ll have our first presentation tomorrow. We also looked at Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development during the last ten minutes of class. This will serve as a focal point for analyzing Pip’s actions and decisions.

Fourth period finished the debates. I took on one student in a one-on-one, free-for-all debate. I think he probably won.

Sixth period spent one last day in the library working on their Flowers for Algernon project.

Homework

• First period: look for examples of iambic pentameter in your daily life.
• Second period: read chapters 21 and 22 of Great Expectations.
• Fourth and sixth periods: none.

Second period held the trials for Ralph and Jack. Ralph’s Dream Team came through for him, convincing the jury to return a “not guilty” verdict. When we meet again on Thursday, we’ll be starting Antigone, the classic (literally) Greek play by Sophocles.

Fourth and sixth periods worked on a quick review of words often confused:

• Accept/except
• Advice/advise
• Affect/effect
• Break/brake
• Choose/chose
• Hear/here
• Its/it’s
• Loose/lose
• Passed/past
• Peace/piece
• Principal/principle
• Quiet/quite
• Than/then
• There/their/they’re
• Threw/through
• To/too/two
• Weak/week
• Who’s/whose
• Your/you’re

For the most part, students are doing this individual and in pairs. It should be a review, but a few of them keep popping up in student writing.

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 class together.

Jack's Defense

In separate trials, we’ll be trying Ralph and Jack for the death of Simon. Those who chose to work on Jack’s case will receive a bit of extra credit, as they had no materials to begin with.

Ralph's Defense Dream Team

Prosecution At Work

Initially, I only planned on the trial for Ralph, but we talked as a class and decided to do two trials, with the understanding that those working Jack’s trial — especially the defense — would have a much harder assignment.

Dream Team II

Prosecution Team for Ralph

“Defending Jack is a little like defending Osama bin Laden,” said one of Jack’s attorneys to me. Of course, the truly difficult defendant from Lord of the Flies would be Roger.

Prosecution and Defense for Jack

Fourth and sixth periods returned to Flowers for Algernon. We took a break from reading to watch a bit of the film version, Charlie.

We’ll be having ITBS testing next week, so theoretically we won’t have class for first and second periods until next Thursday. I’m hoping we can, as a team, make some adjustments so that we’ll have class with first and second periods at some point during that three-day testing block.

Homework

• First period: read chapters 9-11 of The Giver.
• Second period:
  • finish up preparation for trial;
  • answer essay question on the forum.
• Fourth and sixth periods:
  • re-read Charlie’s first diary entry;
  • correct the spelling and punctuation mistakes..