AP Announcement - Motif Projects

I've had this question from a few of you so I want to put it here:

For the motif projects all you need is a parenthetical citation with the author's name and the page number. Be sure to use this citation throughout your written analysis as well. This will need to be used at all uses of a reference to Ellison, so make sure to cite your calligraphy too. 

Looking forward to your presentations tomorrow. 

B-Day Homework: 4/30/2014

Honors English II:

Tonight you need to complete reading of chapter five in Night.  This goes to page eighty-five in the "blue books".  As you read, you'll need to reflect on your notes related to Jewish holidays, Wiesel will talk about these a lot.  Also, continue to add to and consider our work on motifs/topics and conflicts:  How is he developing the conflicts and showing more motifs/topics?  Are there symbols coming in to the conversation as well?

Lastly, I want you all to do some pre-research on our upcoming research task:

1. Select five countries invaded by or under the control of a Nazi or Nazi style government.  
2. Were there concentration camps in the country?
3. Were there active resistance fighters in the country?
4. Were there groups other than Jews persecuted in this country?

For our research we will be looking at anti-Nazi movements in the occupied countries.  Be prepared to start that on Friday!

ESL English III

Tonight I would like for you to continue your reading of Night.  Pick up from where we left off in chapter four and continue reading to page thirty-eight.  This is halfway through the chapter.  Look at your questions and answer questions one through six.

A Day Homework - 4/29/2014

Russian I

Tonight for homework you will need to finish the verb stem and ending sheet which we began today in class.  Please be sure to complete all questions.  Write the stem and the ending, then show what type of joining process has happened.  We will review this next class before we work more with verb tenses.

AP English III

Now you've got all of your written work for the whole year.  Use this work to help you to prepare for the AP Exam next week.  Be sure that you review your writing of all types - argumentative, analytic, and synthesis - to prepare yourselves.  In addition, you also have the multiple choice to consider.  Here is a link to the 101 most commonly used terms on the AP Exam.  I would say that most of you will already know about eighty percent of these.  Study the rest.

For tonight, complete your reading of Buckley, Didion and X.  We'll be analyzing and working through these next class.  In addition remember that your motif projects are due next class.  You must have the calligraphy and the writing as well as your motif charts for the whole novel.  Don't forget anything.  Remember that in your writing on the back you have three key goals:  (1) explain the elements of good writing you find in the passage, (2) explain how the motif is developed and the meaning of the motif, and (3) to explain the significance of the passage to the whole novel -- you should integrate a discussion of the motif's importance to the novel as well.

This project will be your last major grade of the year.

Homework for B-Day Students - 4/28/2014

Honors English II

Tonight as I begin to read and edit your essays, I would like for you all to move ahead with your reading of Night and other important documents.  First, complete the reading of chapter four in Night (those of you in the blue books will go to page sixty six).  As you read, continue to pay attention to the crises that Wiesel faces, his use of irony in the text, and any other trends or patterns which you see as significant.  Further, you will also need to read Wiesel's acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize.  As you read this, annotate with an eye toward the questions at the top of the speech.

English III ESL

I would like for you all to finish the reading of chapter three.  We were able to accomplish part of it in class, now it's up to you to finish.

A Day Homework for the Weekend - 4/25/2014

Russian I:

Over the weekend you should spend time preparing for our work next week on the one-stem verb system.  Review all of your notes up to this point as we will continue moving forward on Tuesday/Wednesday.  Also, begin to consider what you will do for your final writing assignment in Russian.  You will be asked to write a letter about yourself to a Russian host family.  Consider your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and information about your house, family, and school life.  More details to come!

AP English III:

Your motif projects and the presentation of these projects is set for 5/1/2014.  Be prepared to submit your work and present it to the class on this day.  No late projects will be accepted.  Next class we will continue to work on multiple choice skills and strategies, so please bring back your Invisible Man questions which I checked today.

Over the weekend, complete your reading of Didion's "Keeping a Notebook", Elizabeth I's "Speech at Tilbury", Buckley's "Why Don't We Complain", and Malcolm X's "Learning to Read".  Annotate heavily with an eye on analysis and argumentation.  These will be some of our final review pieces before we take the AP Exam on 5/9/2014.

Homework for B-Day Students - This Weekend (4/24/2014)

Honors English II

Over the weekend you have two major tasks ahead of you.

1. Complete your final drafts and assemble your draft portfolio.  In the portfolio you must submit the following documents - Final Draft with Rubric, Rough Draft with Comments, Outline.  Remember that you will get points for each item, so have them all there.
2. In Night you will need to read chapters two and three.  Continue to look for irony in several areas of the text as we started to discover those areas today in our discussion.  

ESL English III

This weekend you should complete the reading of chapters one and two in Night.  As you are doing your reading, answer question three, using notes to help you make sense of the scene on the train.  Then, look over the other questions for chapters one and two - you should be able to answer all of these.  If you cannot, go back and reexamine the text to find the answers.

Whoa! It's late! A-Day Homework - 4/23/2014

Good Evening All! Добрый вечер всем!

This has certainly been a good day! A long one too. Here are some quick notes as I finish up this Bob's Burgers and then head to bed. 

AP English III

Make sure that you are prepared for our final seminar on Invisible Man which is happening on Friday. I also expect that you have taken a chunk out of the motif projects. I'll have your Multiple Choice ready for you on Friday too, but the main thing that we'll do is Invisible Man. 

Russian I

Have all exercises answered on the review packet in your notebooks. Make sure that your answers are clear and organized. Also, the viewing guides should be near complete. I know that A day didn't finish the school film, so B day will finish that tomorrow too before we begin the review packet. 

English II Honors 

Make sure that you've read the first chapter of Night in preparation for our discussion and textual work next class. And we're talking about our papers tomorrow, focused on citations and parenthetical citation. 

English III ESL

Tomorrow we'll continue looking at the first chapter of Night and discuss the experience today and how it aids understanding the novel. 

Field Trippers/Путешествики 

Today has been a long day but a good one. I hope you all enjoyed the trip no matter the destination in DC. We will have a lot to say about our experiences today at the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum. I look forward to sharing mine with you. Continue reading our text and refer to your half journals which I loved seeing you use today. If you have space left, use it to reflect on what you ended up learning today. Was it what you expected? 

B-Day Homework/Reminders - 4/22/2014

Honors English II

Tonight for homework there are a few things for you to do concerning our new unit - Night by Elie Wiesel.  First, I would like for you to read chapter one of the text in preparation for next class.  Chapter one in the "blue books" will take you until approximately page fourteen.  Pay special attention to the creation of VOICE in the piece as well as TONE.  Tone will be especially important here because it is a memoir, thus the tone is actually what Wiesel is himself feeling.

In addition, I gave out the rubrics today for your final drafts.  We will go over formatting and citations in class on Thursday, so come prepared to ask questions.  I would recommend bringing your drafts too.  These papers will likely be collected from you on Monday to give me the time to finish reading my AP students' papers first.

Make sure as well that you complete the viewing guide for Die Welle and that your answers are thorough and complete.  I'll check these on Thursday for a grade.  I hope you all enjoyed the film.

ESL English III

I would recommend answering the questions based on what we were able to read today in class.  I also would suggest continuing to read Night at your own pace.

Field Trip Reminders:

• Be to school by 5:20 at the latest.  We will be departing at 5:30 on the dot.  If you are late you will be left.
• Wear comfortable walking shoes, jeans, a t-shirt and a light jacket.  I'd also recommend bringing a towel or a blanket to sit on if we have class outside.
• Bring about twenty dollars for food.  We will go to restaurants in DC for lunch and stop in Virginia on the way home for dinner.  There is a gift shop at the museum if you'd like souvenirs.
• Bring snacks for the bus, but remember that you will need to be neat and clean on the bus.
• You'll need your copy of Night as we will be doing some study of the book.  Bring something to write with as well.  I'll provide you a notebook to record your observations during the trip.

Welcome Back! Homework for A-Day Classes - 4/21/2014

Welcome back students!  It was wonderful to see you and to hear some of your stories from Spring Break.  A-day students, be reminded that I will not be with you on Wednesday due to the fact that I will be traveling to DC with my Honors and ESL English classes to visit the Holocaust Museum.  Please follow the instructions from the substitute.

AP English III

Tonight your goal is to prepare for your Multiple Choice day on Wednesday.  You will be taking a full length AP Multiple Choice test to approximate this experience for you which will happen on the 9th of May.  This will be graded on a scale score.  You don't need to get all of them write to get an A on this, but you will need to shoot for at least 85 percent accuracy in order to score that level.  Your preparation task is as follows:

1. Select four consecutive paragraphs from chapter twenty-five.  They can be any four paragraphs which you choose, but they must be consecutive and should be meaningful.
2. Using your question stems and instruction sheets you are to write one multiple choice question of each type.  The five types have been organized for you on your stem sheets.  
3. You must write five answer choices for each question.  Indicate the correct answer.

These will be collected on Friday, but it is important to do it tonight as writing these questions and thinking in this way will allow you to get into the brains of the test makes, thus leading to better performance on the practice test.

In addition, on Friday we will finish our discussion of Invisible Man.  Be prepared for that!

Russian I

Your quiz retake will be happening on Friday for A-day students and Monday for B-day students.  You must be prepared by knowing all vocabulary from chapters one through four.  I hope that you prepared over break!  

A-day Students:  I will be checking your viewing guides from our films on Friday.  Make sure that you've answered all questions thoroughly.

B-day Students:  I will be checking your viewing guides from the same films tomorrow.  Have these ready for me.

Spring Break Announcements!

My break started about twelve minutes ago!  Your breaks will start tomorrow!  Here are all of your tasks to take you through break for all classes.

Russian I

Over break you need to spend time reviewing and learning the vocabulary for chapters one through four.  We will retake the most recent quiz again after break, so thorough vocabulary study will work well for that.  I'm posting here the links to the audio files for the vocabulary.

Audio Files - Leaping into Russian

For the most part, the vocabulary is at the beginning of the chapter.  You will be held responsible for vocabulary in chapters one through four after the break.  Make sure to find ways to make this meaningful - label things in your house, use the vocabulary daily.  The more you interact with it, the more you'll actually learn.

AP English III

Over the break you will need to finish your reading and annotating of Invisible Man.  Also, I would suggest putting forth work on your motif projects which I gave to you today.  These projects aren't due until the 29th of April - so the week after we return.  I would like to see a lot of you the week after we return with drafts and ideas for this project so that we can review them together.

Furthermore, remember that when we return on 4/21 we will have a SYNTHESIS timed writing and I'll be checking your journals.

Honors English II

Over the break you should acquire yourselves a copy of Elie Wiesel's Night and work on the final drafts of your change essays.  Remember that these are due from you by the 24th, the day after our field trip.  I have given you this due date so that it is impossible to procrastinate (though I'm sure some of you still will).  I'll have the rubric for you on the 22nd so that you can use that to make some final tweaks.

ESL English III

You don't have any homework over the break to complete.  We will also be reading Night by Elie Wiesel, if you would like to get a copy and start reading before we return, that would be a good idea.

With that - I'm off to South America!  I won't be able to be reached past tomorrow morning so if you have an e-mail or a question, best to ask it sooner rather than later!

Homework for B-Day Students: 4/9/2014

B-Day Students - Today was your last day with me!  I hope that it was good for you because it was for me.  Here are your reminders for what you need to accomplish before Friday's class as well as a bit of information on Friday.

Honors English II:

Tonight I would like for you to read "War" by Luigi Pirandello which is in your Elements of Literature books.  The piece itself is very short, but be sure to read the biographical and textual information.  Once you have done that, please respond to the following question:

Both Pirandello and Levi focus on the impact that war has on a group of people - what do you see as the most important similarity and difference between these two pieces?  How do these similarities or differences help the authors to show a larger point about war's impact on humans?

This question should be answered as a comment to this post or via e-mail.  I will check them at 11:00 AM EST - any answers not posted by then will earn a zero.

Next class you will watch a film called Die Welle (The Wave) - it's an interesting German film about a classroom experiment which goes horribly wrong.  The substitute will give you a viewing guide.  Please work on the guide in class and then keep it as we will need to finish the film before starting our study of Night after break.  If you are going to buy a copy, be sure to get one soon.

ESL English III

Tonight you have no homework since you finished your essays in class.  Next class you will finish watching The Kite Runner as well as work on some journal writing.  Enjoy the day!

Catching Up After The Substitute - 4/8/2014

I hope that things went smoothly today with the substitute.  Please make sure to pay attention to the following announcements.

AP English III

Your paper portfolios are due tomorrow.  Please make sure that you have all of the required documents assembled in the correct order.  I will not take any questions related to the papers from this point on.  You'll have to trust your own judgement or that of a friend.  Please make sure to use the Purdue OWL to check your citations as I find it to be the most helpful and thorough bibliography assistant.

I will be accepting papers from 7:00 to 3:30 PM.  If I am teaching or my door is shut, please place them in the box in front of my door.  Make sure that your name is on your envelope.

In terms of Invisible Man be sure to complete the reading of chapter twenty-four.  There's another sex scene here, but the Invisible Man's reaction to the events within the sex scene will show how much he has progressed.  As you look at the chapter, continue to use your motif charts.  We will begin our motif project next class.

Over break you will be assigned the end of the novel.  Feel free to finish it early if you would like.

Russian I

I hope that you all felt successful with your quiz today.  I will have them graded tomorrow and your scores on PowerSchool.  For tonight, continue to work on your vocabulary development.  I'll give you some goals next class for how to spend your Spring Break on your Russian skills, and we will continue our study of the one-stem verb system.

Lastly, I'll give all of you the joy of the Винни Пух marching song and some of his other songs, too.

See you all tomorrow!

Homework for B-Day Students: 4/7/2014

Honors English II

Tonight for homework I would like for you begin by reading Primo Levi's "A Good Day" from Survival in Auschwitz.  As you read this piece, pay particular attention to Levi's use of tone since it will be one of our focuses in our seminar on Wednesday.  Once you finish the piece, answer question seven on generalizations.  To complete this writing assignment, I would like for you to do a 1Q1P assignment.  In this, you will only use one quote (1Q) from the story to write one page (1P) answering the question thoroughly.  This requires that you find a deep and meaty quotation which you will analyze and explain thoroughly to answer the question on generalizations.  If you hand write your assignment will need to be double sided, if it is typed, please double space.  No more than one page will be collected from anyone.

Beyond that, make sure that you have your rough drafts for our workshop next class.  Final drafts will be collected after Spring Break.

ESL English III

Some of you forgot to turn in your movie posters today.  If you are in this category, you need to turn them in at the beginning of class on Wednesday.  Next class we will spend some more time working on our writing assignments before we go to the computer lab to type our three paragraph essays.  You can get ahead by finding your moments from the story and work on your explanation.  Think to yourself, "How does this moment show the theme that I have found?"

Homework for the Weekend - 4/4/2014 - A Day Students

AP English III

Remember to always keep your eyes tuned toward the sun!  I hope that you all enjoyed the seminar on Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."  This helps us to understand Ellison's points much more thoroughly and the deeper messages that he is sending us on knowledge, truth, and perception.  For the weekend I would like to make sure that you do the following:

1. Your final research papers will be collected on Wednesday.  I'll be out on Tuesday getting my teeth fixed, so that gives all of you an extra day.  Remember to have the following in your packet to ensure completion:
• your final draft, cover sheet attached to the front, works cited page attached to the back, rubric stapled behind everything.
• your draft from conferencing
• your outline
• your proposal

Place everything within your envelope and turn in your envelope to me between 7:00 and 3:30 PM on Wednesday.  Papers collected on Thursday for any reason will lose ten points due to lateness.

1. This is actually number two.  Read Invisible Man chapters twenty two and twenty three.  The substitute will give you an outline sheet to help you make sense of this on Tuesday.  You'll work on this outline in class to better understand the chapter.

Russian I

Over the weekend and Monday night you will need to prepare for your quiz on Tuesday/Wednesday.  This quiz will cover the use of the Prepositional and Accusative case as well as the differences in the prepositions B and HA.  There will be NO information on the one-stem verb system.  Study and focus on your endings.  The quiz will also have reading, so make sure to know your vocabulary thoroughly.  We will continue learning the one-stem system after Spring Break!

B-Day Homework Assignments

ESL English III

For the weekend your priorities are to finish your movie posters and have them turned in on Monday to receive credit for this assignment.  Also, you will need to finish reading The Kite Runner this weekend so that we can finish the film and the study of the book next week.

Honors English II

If any of you were absent last class you will need to see me with your outlines and your answers to the questions on Ovid to get credit.  I'm available to go over your outlines on Monday or Friday, for your answers I just need to see them.

Over the weekend you need to complete your PHASES assignment.  Be sure that you have a clear quote from the text to connect the character to the age and a clear symbol.  Avoid using images of people - focus more on the symbolic meaning.

Our draft workshop for rough drafts will fall on Wednesday.  Remember to have fifty percent of your draft complete to earn credit!

Lastly, you're going to want to buy a copy of our last novel of the year Night by Elie Wiesel.  My copy is the one pictured below, so buy that one as it's a) the best translation available and b) the same as mine.

Russian I - Announcements/Reminders

For tonight make sure that you have been studying your vocabulary in chapter four:  the nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are especially important and will be used a lot on your quiz.  Also, use the homework from last class as well as the previous assignments on accusative and prepositional case to continue studying.  Anyone who didn't have the homework when checked will need to have it completed for Friday/Monday.

On Friday/Monday we'll be playing two review games - one on grammar and one on vocabulary.  Prepare for those!  Lastly, here's a good link for all of you to use!

Radio Echo of Moscow / Радио Эхо Москве

Try to listen to Russian being spoken every day to train your ear.  Especially when working on Russian it's important to fully immerse yourself as much as possible.  Listen, watch, train your ear and learn those inflection patterns!

Homework for A-Day Students: 4/2/2014

AP English III

First your work for tonight.  Your first priority is to finish your reading of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" - you've got it in 50 Essays or at this link.  As you read Plato, continue to stay focused on the ideas of light and dark, reality and fantasy, vision, and truth.  This piece is crucial in helping you to understand and make sense of what Ellison is trying to show in his text.  Consider the Invisible Man and his ability to see things as you read this.

Once you finish Plato, you'll want to launch right in to chapters twenty and twenty-one of Invisible Man.  The reading here will immediately pick up and continue the work from Plato.  Annotate heavily in preparation for our seminar.


Lastly, remember that your final drafts are due on Tuesday.  However, you may also turn them in on Wednesday for no penalty.  No drafts will be accepted past Thursday.  Anything submitted on Thursday will earn a ten point penalty.

Russian I

Tonight I want for all of you to focus on learning your new vocabulary as well as continuing to review your rules for prepositional and accusative case.  Check back over your homework and complete it or revise it as needed.  We will have a quiz on this content on Tuesday/Wednesday so prepare yourselves accordingly.

Homework for B-Day Students: 4/1/2014

Honors English II

Some of you that were absent today missed the chance to review your outlines and get feedback.  You must see me to get this credit made up.  Today in looking around class I saw that most of us needed the most work with examples - make sure that they're specific and precise.  Quotations and paraphrases from the texts under study are best; then explain those quotations in such a way that you connect and show your argument through them.  Your rough drafts for this essay will be due in one week - 4/9/2014 will be the day we do this; you'll need to have at least fifty percent of your draft to get credit.

For tonight's homework, continue reading Ovid's "The Metamorphoses" - when you finish reading, answer the questions at the end.  If you are reading from the "beige" book then answer questions 2, 3, and 4.  If you read from the "green" book, then your job is to answer questions 5, 6, and 7.  Make sure that you have thorough answers to these questions for next class.