English 8 read the second selection from The Circuit. It's called "Inside Out" and deals with the author's first days in school and the challenges he face not being fluent in English. We used a...
Archive
What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Completing Paragraphs and More
English 8 worked on two things: first, we took the graphic organizer we made yesterday: We first needed to add the commentary for our paragraph. We wrote it as a class, but in our graphic...
Homeric Embed Completion
English 8 finished their first round of practice with embedding quotes. We shared and assessed our homework. We determined we should include the following for their context: They had already made it...
Embedded Similes
English 8 students continued working on the quote embedding practice we began yesterday. In addition to our trip to the library, we moved students away from teach-centered and group-based work on...
Embedding Quotes and Gerunds
English 8 students worked on embedding quotes in our CDs. We have be using a very simple format: "For example, the text says 'here is the quote.'" This is acceptable but not optimal. Today we worked...
Socratic Reading
English 8 students began working on the first of three selections from The Circuit, Francisco Jiménez's memoir of life as a migrant child. We read "Under the Wire," the first chapter of the book,...
Parts of Speech Review and Views of Calypso
English 8 students worked on a parts of speech review covering nouns, verbs, and adjectives. This is the last of our review: we'll have a test on those three parts of speech late next week. English...
Opening Unit and Opening Lines
English 8 students began our new unit, which is about the search for home. We'll be starting with some selections about immigration, so we prepared for those selections by watching 10 minutes from...
Adjectives, Test Completion, and Participial Phrases
English 8 continued with the brief parts of speech review, going over adjectives today: English I students had time to finish their test and then went over participial phrases.
Psychological Analysis and Participial Phrases (And Test Review)
English 8 students continued with "The Tell-Tale Heart," shifting to some character analysis. We looked at psychological factors behind the story. We looked at questions like: What motivates the...
Tell-Tale Conclusion and Participles
Notes and homework only
Further “Heart” Annotations and the Final Sonnet
English 8 students continued with "The Tell-Tale Heart," reaching the climax of the story: when the narrator commits the awful dead. We continued marking the text for use of repetition, specifically...