Opening Unit and Opening Lines

Opening Unit and Opening Lines

English 8 students began our new unit, which is about the search for home. We’ll be starting with some selections about immigration, so we prepared for those selections by watching 10 minutes from the legendary 1960 documentary Harvest of Shame. We also watched...
Cemetery of Memories

Cemetery of Memories

The first time I approached the cemetery in Lipnica Wielka was November of 1996, and I headed up for my first experience with All Saints’ Day in Poland. I took pictures and made mental notes for my journal: I left my apartment around 4:30 and headed up to the...
Parts of Speech and Sonnets

Parts of Speech and Sonnets

English 8 unexpectedly moved Friday to Tuesday: due to the number of absent students (nine students absent out of thirty) in seventh period (now meeting during fourth period) , we elected to hold off on “The Tell-Tale Heart” since we’ll have a unit...
Tell-Tale Heart and Sonnets

Tell-Tale Heart and Sonnets

English 8 students worked on their Halloween story, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” We made it through the first four paragraphs: we’re working on annotations and a summary, so it takes a bit of time to go through each paragraph. We’ll continue working...
Villanelle and Summary

Villanelle and Summary

English I students worked on “One Art,” finishing up the somewhat challenging poem and determining: the initial tone the location of the tonal shift the meaning of the lyric moment Afterward, we looked at “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke and...
Homework Only

Homework Only

We’re only going over homework today. It’s Friday — too tired to do much else. HomeworkEnglish 8 Studies: none.English I Honors:  complete the questions for “The Lanyard” and complete the questions for “Do Not Go Gentle into...
Tone and a New Unit

Tone and a New Unit

English I students continued with tone, returning to “The Lanyard” to notice how the poet carefully built the humor: We’ll do some more tone work tomorrow, adding a new element to explain that precipitous drop at the end of the graph. English 8...
Test and Final Writing

Test and Final Writing

English I students had their parts of speech test. English 8 students worked on their final drafts of their technology arguments. This slideshow requires JavaScript. HomeworkEnglish 8: complete any missing work. English I Honors: work on extra credit if...