English 8 students worked on their sentence work for the week. We’re learning how to craft sentences that begin with participial phrases.

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We had some practice as a class and as pairs, creating some masterful sentences:

For instance, we took “Sally reached into her purse. She was looking for her sunglasses.” and transformed the sentences into two different versions:

• Looking for her sunglasses, Sally reached into her purse.
• Reaching into her purse, Sally looked for her sunglasses.

Students will return to the work next Wednesday when we return to our writer’s craft lessons.

English I Honors students learned how to do the tag-team Socratic seminar. Students worked on the following discussion questions about “The Cask of Amontillado.”

1. Who is the narrator? What can we say about his mental state?
2. Who is the victim? What can we saw about his personality?
3. Who is the audience? To whom is the narrator speaking and why is this important?
4. Can we trust this narrator? Is he telling the truth? Is he concealing anything?

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Afterward students conducted their first Socratic seminars.

Homework

• English I Honors: listen to the Socratic seminars from today: fourth period, listen to sixth period, and vice versa.