English 8 students began working on their workshop skills. Today was a frustrating day for them as I was doing more formative assessment, having students perform tasks with minimal instruction and even less help to determine what they could or couldn’t do. Students were to paraphrase three short sentences that were part of their workshop goal sheet. After a quick assessment, I modeled the peer cooperation I was looking for and had them try again.

English I Honors students finished up their initial work on the Schaffer model and began learning how to analyze literature as a way of getting students to use quotes to back up claims. We looked at Li-Young Lee’s “The Gift” as an initial piece for analysis:

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

Afterward, students began comparing a summary with the original in order to see what they would not be doing in class this year.

Students in creative writing looked at how to “see deeply” before doing some initial writing.

Homework

• English I Honors: 
  • complete the first step of today’s work, comparing the summary and the original;
  • complete the benchmark test (online at moodle.ourenglishclass.net) before midnight.