English I students began with a bit more practice on parts of speech identification before turning to our poetry unit. We completed their work on connotations with "Those Winter Sundays." English 8...
Archive
What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Connotations and Fragments
English I (fourth and fifth period) continued working on poetry; today we added the importance of connotation. We went over what connotation is: Afterward, we did some practice with connotation...
Poetry Interpretation and Literature Circles
English I students began with a bit of analysis of our challenging article of the week, looking to determine what "flummery" might mean. Afterward, we continued with our new poetry unit, finishing...
Final Writing and Voice
English I students worked in class on their final Schaffer paragraphs for the short story unit. They're writing on symbolism and irony in "The Gift of the Magi" or "The Necklace." Students have...
Necklace and Nightjohn Discussion
English I students finished the in-class instruction/overview for the parts of speech work we've been doing. We'll have a test on the material some time in the next couple of weeks after a bit of...
Ironic Planning and Nightjohn Beginnings
English I students went over linking verbs and phrasal verbs before working on the paragraph for their model selection for our last short story analytic writing assignment. (Complete notes below.)...
Pronouns, Irony, and a New Unit
English I students continued their parts of speech overview, looking today at indefinite and demonstrative pronouns and how they can sometimes be adjectives. Common indefinite pronouns include: all,...
Friday Fun
All students took their first common assessment today on standard RL-5.1: "Cite the evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from...
Turning In Projects
All classes finished (or nearly finished) their first major writing assignment, which was a Schaffer paragraph analyzing a short story. Fourth- and fifth-period students completed their paragraphs...
Final Schaffer Writing
English I students began by looking at their article of the week to get some more practice on what exactly I expect students to do for the required context-clue words. We worked to determine context...
Schaffer All Around
All classes today worked on Schaffer paragraphs to some degree or other. Fourth and fifth periods worked on their analytic paragraphs about "The Cask of Amontillado" and the question of whether or...
Analysis and Final Schaffer
English I students focused on their next analytic Schaffer paragraph in which we look at the question of the narrator, point of view, and whether or not we can trust the narrator. We circled back to...
