Final Poetry and Tone and Mood

Final Poetry and Tone and Mood

English I Honors students had their final day of test prep/unit review today. I gave students a copy of the poems that will be on the test tomorrow, and they had the opportunity to collaborate on the interpretation of the poems. English 8 students finished up...
Sonnet 18 and Irony

Sonnet 18 and Irony

English I students today continued with the final stages of our poetry unit, looking at Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” while refreshing an old term (inversion) and adding a new one (syntax). English 8 students began an incredibly short Halloween unit that...
Quiz, Test, and Phrases

Quiz, Test, and Phrases

English I students had their quarter 1 Article of the Week vocabulary quiz today. Most students did very well. Afterward, we went over prepositional phrases and began a new sonnet. English 8 students had their unit-summarizing test on Nightjohn, voice, fragments, and...
Sonnet Completion and Test Prep

Sonnet Completion and Test Prep

English 8 students worked on a practice test for tomorrow’s test on Nightjohn, effective readers’ skills fragments, and voice. Everyone did fairly well on the pre-test, so we will go ahead with the test tomorrow. Anyone who would like additional practice...
Parsing and SWBS

Parsing and SWBS

English I students began a few days’ work on Shakespeare as we bring our poetry unit to a conclusion. We started today looking at how we could create an incredibly long sentence out of a relatively short sentence: we began with “When I go home, I...
PSAT and Socratic Magic

PSAT and Socratic Magic

English 8 students conducted their first real Socratic Seminar today, discussing a couple of events from Nightjohn, the novel we’re about to finish. Students were engaged, focused, and professional as they discussed the book. It was a sight that brought a smile...
Tone and Chapter 3 Skills

Tone and Chapter 3 Skills

English I Students in third and fourth periods worked on tone in poetry, looking at a lovely poem by Billy Collins called “The Lanyard.” We didn’t quite get to the tonal question as we were working on establishing a basic understanding of how the...