English Strategies (fourth period) began working in earnest on the reader’s journal mini-project that goes along with the Nightjohn unit.

English Studies (fifth period) began an additional enrichment project that will look at three motifs/themes in the novel: power, money, and freedom.

English I Honors began the second writing assignment in the short stories unit with a modeled paragraph to show one last time the way to use the Schaffer model in planning and writing a paragraph. Sixth period’s paragraph:

The old man is motivated to take care of the animals because of his emotional attachment to them, which probably arose from his loneliness. To begin, when asked if about his family, the old man explains that “only the animals” have any real significance for him. It’s possible that he didn’t have family or perhaps that he had no real close friends. Clearly, though, the animals are of great significance to him. Therefore, he stayed behind “taking care of the animals” and was in fact “the last one to leave San Carlos.” This was a great risk to his very life, and it shows just how important the animals were to him. He would have rather died with the animals than leave them to fend for themselves.

Seventh period’s paragraph:

The old man’s loneliness motivates him to take care of the animals because they had likely become the only family he had. For example, when the narrator asks about the old man’s family, the man explains that he has “only the animals” he’d mentioned earlier. Perhaps he had no family or friends and that was what originally motivated him to take care of the animals. As he did this, he grew closer and closer to the animals and they became something like a family to him. Therefore, the old man was “the last to leave the town of San Carlos” because he was still “taking care of the animals.” In doing so, the old man was literally risking his life. When we consider, however, how important the animals were to him, it’s only logical because everyone will risk their life for family.

We will begin applying these skills to the story “Thank You, M’am” tomorrow.

Journalism students went over the photo work from earlier this week and began their newly assigned jobs as we transform the classroom into a newsroom.

Homework

• English 8 Studies: none.
• English I Honors: 
  • reread “Thank You, M’am” for class tomorrow;
  • evaluate (as necessary) the first writing assignment on the Moodle site.