Poetry Presentation Project

This week we'll be working on our Poetry Presentation Projects. Students should have memorized their chosen poems already, and quite possible spent some time analyzing their poems on their paper. This will place them in good standing through the week, as we actually put the presentation together.

Students will be using Google Presentation, which is very much like Microsoft Powerpoint, to make the actual presentation. The pink piece of paper that details the entire assignment (this should be in the students' second section--Reading section--of their English binders) shows what should be included on each slide. Below are four links: two finished examples and two "templates" for students to use.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
*ask questions when you're not sure about something
*if you're worried about time limits, come in early or stay late--FRIDAY is our due date
*I want all students to be successful--if you have concerns, talk to me. I can't read minds.

FINISHED EXAMPLE - "Mama is a Sunrise" by Evelyn Tooley Hunt
FINISHED EXAMPLE - "To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything" by Robert Herrick

TEMPLATE - no theme, just headers with blank slides
TEMPLATE - paper plane theme, just headers with blank slides

online search stuff

Here's a cool post from Edudemic:

30 Search Engines Perfect for Student Researchers

It includes a really neat infographic on online research methods.

poems for January 16th

We're going to dive headlong into poetry, first by seeing the direction we will be taking this quarter, and then by reading a bunch of really good poetry.

Poems to be read on January 16th.

the more they burn, the better they learn

2nd Quarter Reading Reflection

The 1st Quarter Reading Reflection was our first step in to these reflections. There are 21 questions in this reflection, and it should take at least 20 minutes to complete.

Please take your time.

Please represent yourself well.

Please be thoughtful and honest as you reflect upon your reading through this quarter.

The act of reflection can be immensely insightful in helping us get to know ourselves better, as individuals and readers. Let's learn from our experiences.

2nd Quarter Reading Reflection 

OTC field trip reflection

If you went on the field trip to OTC (Ozarks Technical Community College) on Thursday, December 5, please click on the link below and complete the survey.

OTC Tour Reflections


Thank you!

end of second quarter extra credit opportunity

The Performance Series tests will be the last "big" assessments that will go in to the grade book before the quarter ends. I like to finish the quarter with an opportunity for the students to earn some extra credit, so here it is. 

When taking the Reading Performance Series test: if a student scored on or below grade level on the beginning of the year test, and is able to improve their Lexile score by 100 points, then they will earn extra credit; if a student score above grade level on the beginning of the year test, and is able to improve their Lexile score by 50 points, then they will earn extra credit. 

When taking the Language Arts Performance Series test: compared to the beginning of the year Scaled Score, if a student scores 50 points higher on this middle of the year test, then they will earn extra credit. 

second quarter quickly drawing to a close

This won't be exciting--mostly just reminders.

The second quarter is quickly drawing to a close, and every single day will prove important for student learning and success. I recommend using the Assignments page to stay  up to date on what is going on in class. We're all trying out a team assignments document to share exactly what graded assignments were completed each school day in the four core classes. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciative.

This week, December 2-6, features work on a collaborative rocket unit centered on the question: what do good problem solvers do? In English, we'll be reflecting upon the history of rockets, the movie October Sky, and the process the students go through to build their own water rockets in order to answer this question. On December 5th we'll be taking a field trip to Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) to view the programs of study available there. It will be a fun and informative day. If students do not turn in their permission forms, they will be staying at school and working on alternative assignments. Other than the previously mentioned focus for learning, we'll be working through a few minilessons (capitalization of seasons, directional terms, family relationships; punctuating different titles; comma and semicolon use) to prepare for the Language Arts Performance Series Test.

The week of December 9-13 features Performance Series Testing. This will be our middle-of-year round of testing, to measure improvement from the beginning-of-year tests, and to pinpoint what areas we still need to continue to improve upon. Students MUST complete this testing before December 19, so if a student is absent, they'll probably be pulled from other classes or have to come in early to complete the testing. We believe it is best for students to complete the testing with their English classes, so absences during this time should be avoided. This week is mostly consumed with assessment, but through the assessment we can still learn quite a bit. We will think about and discuss test taking practices; we will reflect upon previous learning and place it within the context of this situation; we will receive our new scores and look to focus our learning for the end-of-year test that we will take in May.

The final week, December 16-19, features work on a Letter to Author that students will have the opportunity to send off to a writing competition. I hope that students take the opportunity to enter their work in the competition; it's a great opportunity to send student work well beyond our walls in order to see how our writing compares. The learning that takes place this week is a culmination of work that has been completed through the quarter. Students will look back on their reading experiences this quarter in order to reflect upon their reading habits and discover further what type of a reader they are and are becoming. Helping students to learn about themselves is an important aspect of the reading that we do throughout the year, and that won't happen without a reflective process. The letter students will write to an author is another opportunity for reflection, but the focus this time being a text, rather than themselves. Following the format is important, and working through the process of reflecting and writing and revising and sharing and revising and writing provides so many individual opportunities for learning about the little things of being a reader and a writer and a learner. I really enjoy getting to work with students through these weeks, because it's more of a workshop during this time than any other point in the quarter. I wish we could do it more.

With all this in mind, the nitty-gritty element is that there will be five more graded assignments:

• --December 3--MLA citation of book/author choice for Letter to Author (10 points)
• --December 10--Performance Series Testing Reading score (15 points)
• --December 12--Performance Series Testing Language Arts score (15 points)
• --December 17--Second Quarter Reading Record (60 points)
• --December 19--Letter to Author (50 points)

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.

thoughts around Thanksgiving break

On January 6, 1941, PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt gave his 1941 State of the Union address, which became known as the "Four Freedoms" speech. In this speech, President Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that people everywhere should enjoy: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In 1941, following The GreatDepression (yes, it deserves capital letters as a proper noun—name another depression that deserves such reverence) and two years into World War II (although the United States had not yet formally entered the war), to speak of freedom from want was probably rather popular, as the idea would be today as well, I imagine. But not among everyone, now, as it might have been then. Such a freedom assumes that everyone in the entire world would have everything that they ever wanted. Some might believe that to be a pretty ostentatious claim, especially in a time now with huge economic disparities, even in the wealthiest country in the world. I guess it all depends on how we define “want.”

Today, I bring this up because Norman Rockwell's representative image, Freedom From Want, is a family sitting around a table, presumably at Thanksgiving. (To place it within context, Rockwell created images for all four freedoms.) I hope you all are able to gather with family or friends during this break, and experience some level of freedom from want. For some in our community, it may only be for one day, while for others it may be one in a long line of many. Let’s all be reflective during this time, not just of the historical background of Thanksgiving, but also upon our experiences through the last year. And maybe President Roosevelt and Mr. Rockwell can help us to have some perspective as well, not only regarding our own situation, but the situation of many in our community and world who don’t have a freedom from want.

Have a great Thanksgiving. 

Article of the Week vocab words

It's been a few weeks since we did an "article of the week" (go figure on the name), but we've got one this week, and today we discussed as a class to choose some new vocabulary words and constructed response questions. Unfortunately, in second period, we got into such a wonderful discussion about genres that we didn't get choose vocabulary words and questions. That's alright though; I'll just pull in the most popular words for the vocabulary list and best questions for the constructed response. The quiz will be next Friday, November 8, 2013.

One thing that I think is awesome and wonderful is how students are starting to expand their thinking about the topic, and asking questions that can't be answered in the article. The article of the week quiz is designed to assess student reading of the article and student writing for a structure constructed response. Because of these restrictions, many of the questions that the students pose, which can't be answered in the article, are relegated to the sidelines because they're too big. Well, as their teacher, I this is a great problem to have. So I'm going to start adding an extra credit question on Monday. It will be a question that can only be answered through outside research and learning. I'll ask that the students answer the question as a constructed response, after doing the research of finding the answer. I think that's a great alternative to simply having students not consider those questions at all. And if I could incentivize the answering of these questions through not offering extra credit, I'm all ears. 

Third Period:

Fourth Period:

Fifth Period:

Sixth Period: