October soon, already!?

Hey there, folks.  This week we will be reading about myths and discussing The Flight of Icarus.

Listen to Iron Maiden's "Flight of Icarus"!




Plans for the week:

Thursday:  Study for tomorrow's Vocab Quiz (anxiety, prowess, moderate, frantic, myth)
Wednesday:  Open Book Story Test and Vocab Quiz; Grammar HW
Thursday:  Brainstorm a list of ideas for your narrative
         

Online student E-book can be found here: http://my.hrw.com/
All students are already registered, they just need to type in the log-ins and passwords that were handed out during Back to School Night.  If you need your student login and password, please contact me at cdean@oxfordcentral.org.   The entire Collections text book is online.

Change of Plans

Students have been working so hard on these argument posters that I've decided to allow them more time and to give them more credit.  These posters will be students' first writing grade!  That being said, we will not have the brainstorming homework tonight.  That will be postponed until next week.

Thanks everyone!

Media Coverage

This week we will be focusing on two things.  First, we will be analyzing different types of media coverage on the same event -- the controversial voyage of the young Amy Sunderland.  We will be discussing students' opinions on what bold actions are worth the associated risks.  These lessons will provide a precursor to argument writing.

Second, later in the week we will also work on getting started with our narrative that will be due at the conclusion of this unit.  Students will be continuing the theme of Bold Actions in their narratives.

Homework:  Thursday students will be asked to brainstorm a list of ideas for their narratives.  What bold action will their main character be deciding to act on?  Students are to brainstorm ideas at home and bring  them back to class Friday.

A New Week

I will be introducing students to the companion site for our new Collections series.  They will be getting their log ins so they may work on assignments through the Student Ebook in the future.


Homework/Assessments this week:

Wednesday -- Students are to finish their four paragraph movie outlines of Rogue Wave.  This was started in class.  They must have:

1. A description of the opening scene that establishes the characters, setting, and conflict.
2. A description of each important scene in the plot.
3. Suggestions for how to shoot each scene to convey the suspense

Thursday --  Students are to read assigned pages in their Close Reader and answer the accompanying questions for Big Things.

1st Week!

Everyone did really well this week!  I was so impressed by students' abilities in gathering textual evidence.  Also, every single student participated in class discussions and provided thoughtful answers to some challenging questions!  All that despite their summer-time-mash-potato-brains! ;)

Welcome Back!!!

I hope everyone had a lovely summer!  I'm currently in the process of moving closer to Oxford, so it's been an exciting few months for me.

I have been enjoying the first few days of school as it has provided me the opportunity to get to know the Class of 2016.  They are a stellar group and I can already tell it's going to be a fun year.  There are a lot of talented, motivated learners and each person has an interesting story to tell. 

Here's to a new year with brand new books and brand new faces!