We began looking at how to integrate quotes into concrete details. It's not just a question of taking the quote from the source, throwing a "For example" at the beginning of the sentence, and...
Archive
What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Planning Analysis for “The Sniper”
Students have been spending the last two days working on how we can use plot and setting to analyze a short story. Each day's classes came up with slightly different results. Our first step was to...
Analyzing and Paraphrasing
Today we began the heavy lifting of the first unit of significance: we're learning the difference between analyzing and summarizing in order to begin analyzing short stories. We looked at Li-young ...
First Schaffer Paragraph
First, we went over yesterday's work before English I students today worked on creating their first Schaffer paragraphs. I modeled it for them and talked them through it. We made a chart for our...
More Schaffer Analysis
Students today looked at a Schaffer paragraph written by students in previous years, first identifying all the elements of a Schaffer paragraph: topic sentence concrete detail commentary concluding...
Schaffer Analysis
Students today looked at the following Schaffer paragraph: (1) School lunch at Beck can be gross. (2) For example, I got a piece of cold, slimy pizza the other day. (3) The cheese was falling off...
Grading During Our COVID-19 Sequestration
The grades will derive from your completion amount and the level of engagement (i.e., how hard you try) for a given activity.
Out through March
The state of South Carolina has closed all schools through the end of March due to the continuing efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. We will be having online school through this time....
Responsibility and New Friday Work
English 8 students went over the test we took yesterday and a few notes about how things will go Monday when we start a new unit. [gallery type="rectangular" columns="4"...
Test and Hints
English 8 students had a test today on subordinate clauses and pronoun/antecedent identification -- skills we used in tackling the Frederick Douglass text. English I Honors students worked on...
Romeo’s Speech and Final Test Prep
English I Honors students finished up (almost) the analytic part of our Romeo and Juliet unit by analyzing Romeo's final speech. We'll finish up tomorrow, but kids need to do some homework related...
Transitions and Voice
English I Honors students worked on a very tricky subject, something that's difficult to teach because one learns it, in general, by doing it: transitioning between big ideas in a paper. We went...
