First and second period worked on sound devices, focusing on the use of rhythm and onomatopoeia in a poem titled “Cat.”
Second period finished up the ballad selection and poetry unit. We discussed a bit the portfolio (which will be turned in 2 December).
Seventh period finished up the test on The Diary of Anne Frank (we [...]

First period finished up the mini-unit on sound devices and moved on to figurative language:

simile,
metaphor, and
personification.

We began by looking at one poem (“Concrete Mixers”) in pairs for examples of all three forms of figurative language.
We’ll be having a quiz tomorrow on the vocabulary terms in “Concrete Mixers”.
Second period worked on Homeric similes before starting with [...]

Second period read one of the most famous episodes in the entire Odyssey: the Sirens, and the passage between Scylla and Charybdis.
First period continued working on sound devices. We also switched at the end of class from examining the language of the poems to examining more carefully the meaning of the poems.
Fourth and sixth periods [...]

First things first: I made a blunder during second period. We were looking at Odysseus’s journey to the underworld and his meeting with Tiresias. I mentioned the two famous victims of the underworld, Tantalus and Sisyphus; I elaborated on Sisyphus and the 20th-century French philosopher who designated him an “absurd hero.” I attributed this to [...]

First period worked on poetry. Specifically, we finished up the selections by Jacqueline Woodson and began the next collection of three poems.
Second period spent some time in the library doing research for their cyclops poem and project.
Fourth and sixth periods looked at a second poem by Jacqueline Woodson, “Almost a Summer Sky.” We used this [...]