Today students began by going over the next sentence in our clause-identification practice we're doing for a starter. Afterward, we covered standard L-4.1b about active and passive voice. After...
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What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Verb Mood Concluded
We began the day with an analysis of clauses in a given sentence, as we've done for the last few days now. This sentence was from Great Expectations, which is the final book we'll be exploring this...
Completing Mockingbird and Starting Mood
Today began with more phrase/clause work. This will become increasingly important as we dive into Great Expectations these final weeks. Afterward, we had the final batch of comprehension questions...
Completing the Novel
Today we completed, for all intents and purposes, To Kill a Mockingbird, with students solving the mystery they were working on Thursday and Friday last week: what really happened to Bob Ewell?...
The Mystery at the End
To Kill a Mockingbird ends with a bit of a mystery for eighth-grade students: what exactly happened to Bob Ewell? To solve this mystery, students worked through seven excerpts from the text in a...
TDA and Relaxation
The kids wrote another TDA today. I'll be giving them feedback over the next couple of weeks regarding this as we near the final, actual TDA portion of the state-mandated year-end testing. Since it...
Legal Advice
Today, students participated in what is always one of the highlights of the year: Mr. Jim Bannister of the Bannister, Wyatt & Stalvey law firm discusses with students the Tom Robinson trial from...
The Tea Party Concluded
Students today finished working on the enigmatic twenty-fourth chapter of Mockingbird, which includes this passage that stumps all the kids every year: Mrs. Merriweather nodded wisely. Her voice...
The Tea Party
Few chapters are as initially bewildering as the tea party scene in chapter 24. It makes little sense because the women are all intentionally being somewhat obtuse, and while they all understand...
Wrapping up the Trial
Students today completed the trial work with some comprehension questions about the chapters (17-23) as well as a little additional work on their testimony sketches in preparation for our meeting...
Analysis of Testimony
Students today looked at the testimony presented in the novel, with each group/pod taking a specific character's testimony and sketching it out step-by-step. We will be using this on the Tuesday...
The Crime Scene
During this lovely spring day today, students began a two-day look at the trial of Tom Robinson, focusing on the scene of the alleged crime. We sketched out the Ewell cabin and property. [gallery...
