Weekend Post - 5/29/2015

Make sure that you know your exam schedule and that you are preparing yourselves!  See me if you need any help as you prepare!

Exam Schedule - 2015

All Students:  Here is my exam schedule over the next few days.  It's important that you not miss your exam since this will delay your final grades for the year.

Russian II:  Review on Friday, 5/29.  Exam on Monday, 6/1.

AP English III:  Review on Monday, 6/1.  Exam on Tuesday, 6/2.

Russian I:  Review on Tuesday, 6/2.  Exam on Wednesday, 6/3.

English II, B3:  Review on Wednesday, 6/3.  Exam on Thursday, 6/4.

English II, A4:  Review on Thursday, 6/4.  Exam on Friday, 6/5.

English II, B4:  Review on Friday, 6/5.  Exam on Monday, 6/8.

If you are in English II we will be testing in one of the computer lab, I'll let you know the location the day of the review.  Russian and AP English students, you'll be testing in my classroom.  Make sure that any missing work is turned in the day of the review as I'll be finalizing grades for the classes at the review.

LDOC - B Day Students - 5/27/2015

And now we start the exam schedule.  Here are your reminders to get you there.

AP English III

All of you have grades from your participation in our activity today.  I'll post some photos later.  Please respond to this post with your reflection from the activity.  Remember to think about who impressed you the most and why?  What did you learn from the activity?  General thoughts?  Please post no later than tomorrow evening.

Remember our review session.  I highly recommend that you attend as we will go over the exam and the content you will need to know.

When you post your comment it will not show on the website until I approve it.  Send me a copy via e-mail to make sure it reaches me.

English II

If you have anything left to turn in, please make sure that it's done by your class review session.

LDOC - A Day - 26 May 2015

For A-day students it's LDOC (last day of class) - the only thing now to get through is our review and exam schedule.  Here are your reminders for that:

Russian II

If you are exempt, congratulations.  Please make sure to bring back your class materials like books.  If you are not exempt, I expect to see you on Friday afternoon for our review session and then on Monday morning for our exam.  Use your quizzes to study and prepare.  Don't forget your final journal entry!

Russian I

If you are exempt, congratulations!  Please make sure to bring back your class textbooks.  If you are not exempt I expect to see you on Tuesday (6/2) for the review session and Wednesday (6/3) for our morning exam.  Remember that journals are due for those of you not exempt by the review session.

English II

None of you can be exempt for this exam because it is a state test.  Make sure to report to the review session.  A4's review will be on Thursday (6/4) with the exam the following morning Friday, the 5th.

B-Day Homework: Weekend Edition - 22 May 2015

This is actually the last weekend that you'll really have homework since we all hit the exam schedule starting on Thursday.

English II:

You have your study guides for the EOC and many of you have asked for extensions to Sunday on your essays.  Make sure that you start by learning/reviewing your literary devices and that you finish your essay no later than noon on Sunday so that I can grade it.  This is your last major grade of the quarter, so make sure that it shows your best work.

AP English III:

Our last class will be our character cafe.  Make sure to bring back any leftover books!  Bring costumes and food items and remember we'll have a special guest star.

A Day Homework - 21 May 2015

Well, we've survived our first day of exams.  Here are the reminders for A-day students to take them through the weekend.

Russian I and II

Your final exam study guides are now in your hands and you have your final assignment which is your last journal entry.  We will have time to really focus on the study guide during our review period before the final exam.  As you review the study guide, use your textbook and other resources.  Begin reviewing grammar, go over your quizzes to see where you have gaps, and learn your vocabulary.  Do a bit each day so that you can accomplish what you need to.

Your journal entry is due by the review session.  I know that many of you have things to prepare for, so I don't want to add to your list.  Some of you got this done today in class, and I applaud that.  Remember that the final journal will focus on the phrase "Это палка о двух концах!"  Write about this phrase, work it into your writing, and remember that by writing you're able to practice your language skills.

English II

Everything is due tomorrow:  essays, extra credit, missing work, everything!  I'll be grading essays this weekend and finishing your grades.  Don't miss this chance to do the final push on your grades.  Some of you have already told me your essays are ready - I'm very proud of how hard you've worked to accomplish this!

B-Day Homework: Oops

I guess with my meetings after school I forgot to post this for all of you.  Here are your brief reminders:

AP English III:

We are basically done with Friday being a short class and next Wednesday being our character cafe.  Make sure that if you have books that you bring them back to me on Friday so that I can start accounting for all of the supplemental novels.  In addition, if you have missing assignments about which we've already discussed, make sure that it is turned in to me tomorrow as I want to finish grades this week.

English II:

Your essays and any additional extra credit or make-up work are due on Friday.  Please make sure that you refer to your rubric as you put together your drafts.  I'll be looking for all of the elements on that sheet.  As I said today in class, most of you just need to finish the work you've already started.  It's your responsibility to take care of this.

If you need help, I'm free after school on Thursday to offer assistance.

A-Day Students: Homework

A-Day Kids:  Sorry for not posting your work for the weekend.  It slipped my mind.  This will actually serve to get you ready for Thursday.

Russian I and II:

Your journals are due on Thursday as well as any make-up work or finishing work that you need to do.  You'll be watching a film and getting your study guide.  We'll be doing a lot of review the next few days so use the study guides to prepare yourselves.

English II

Essays are due on Friday (normally I'd say Thursday but Friday is the last day, so I'll call it there.)  I'm free after school on Wednesday-Thursday to help you if you need it.  I'll go over the rubric with all of you on Thursday so that you can make any final tweaks to your essay before the final due date.

Homework for B-Day Students: 18 May 2015

AP English III

First groups today did a great job of presenting and teaching their tales.  Good work!  Next class we'll run through the next set as well as the synthesizing conversation.  Be ready for your presentations.

English II

Today you got progress reports and a reminder of the extra credit project.  Do what you need to raise your grade.  Remember that essays are due on Friday!

Homework for B-Day Students: 14 May 2015

AP English III

We have next week pretty well planned out.  On Monday and Wednesday we'll have our discussion groups.  Three of you are presenting on Monday and three on Wednesday.  Remember to prepare a PowerPoint with your essential questions and your multiple choice questions and send it to me so that we can use them in your presentations.

Also, don't forget about your character cafe next Friday.  You know who you are going to be so now you can start to prep your costumes.  If you're going in a pair, try to coordinate with your partner, right A. Bird?  We'll sign up for refreshments on Monday.

English II

A lot of you got a lot of work done today on your essays.  Congratulations.  Continue working.  Remember that you need to follow the guidelines from our last two days of writing bootcamp.  Take your outlines and remove the labels, put your sentences in the right order, and then add on.  Develop your examples and especially your explanation given what we've been discussing lately.  If you need me to continue working with you on this assignment then please make an appointment to work with me outside of class.  There will be a conference sheet on the door Friday for you to sign up.

Homework for A-Day Students: 13 May 2015

English II

Today we started drafting our essays in the computer lab.  Continue this work.  Remember that by THURSDAY you are turning in your rough draft.  This will be your last grade of the year and your last major grade of the year as well.  Just turning it in will earn you fifty points and then each paragraph will be judged on a ten point rubric.  Have everything and have it complete so that it reflects what you've learned this year.  Next class we will do more work for EOC preparation and watch more of Escape from Sobibor.

Russian I and Russian II

You have your quizzes next class.  Prepare yourselves.  Here are your study tips for tonight:

Russian II:  time expressions (months, days, weeks, years, whole dates), prepositions related to time, numbers, counting rules, ideas related to verb tense and aspect

Russian I:  plurals from singulars, singulars from plurals, possessive pronouns, adjectives, the words meaning also

All of you have big things going on.  Practice and prepare!

Homework for B-Day Students - 12 May 2015

AP English III

Your homework for tonight is KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!  There's nothing that you can do at this point to get ready for tomorrow other than:

• review your writing skills for each essay
• look over your tone words and learn definitions
• review literary/rhetorical devices (there's a link a few posts back)

Be in my room tomorrow morning before the exam at 7:25 am so that we can do our chant of "This is my pen!" and apply warpaint for the exam.

English II

Next class we will spend half of our period in the computer lab drafting our essays.  To prepare for this you should continue the work that we were doing today in class during our writing workshop.  Finish your topics.  Continue to develop your examples.  Do more to explain and describe your evidence.  Put your voice in your writing through your descriptions.  Full rough drafts will be due next week, so those of you who may be behind in the writing process should work hard to get caught up.  

Homework for A day Students - 11 May 2015

As you all saw from today - I'm still sick.  Thanks for bearing with me and tolerating my horribly scratchy voice.  Here are your reminders for tonight:

Russian I and II

Both of you have your second unit quiz this Friday.

For Russian II this quiz will focus on all of the time expressions that we have learned and reviewed these past few classes.  To practice this your homework is your genealogical chart of you and eight relatives.  On the back of your chart you should explain the dates of birth/death for these people.  Remember that if you just have a year it's different than if you have the full date.  Next class we'll focus on reviewing prepositions with time as well as times of day.

For Russian I you should focus on your plurals for your quiz on Friday.  We've read two articles which use plurals and the words for also.  Reviewing these articles as well as the rules we've reviewed for the two words meaning "also" and plurals would be helpful.  Continue to study your vocabulary as we prepare for Friday.

English II

In order to move on to the rough draft portion of our essay assignment you should make sure that you have a complete outline with all three topics clearly outlined.  Many of you need to spend more time working here before you can move on to the actual essay.  For those of you who are ready, you should be drafting your paragraphs using the structures we reviewed in class.  On Wednesday we'll spend half of class in the computer lab writing essays.  Be prepared for this - if you're productive you'll be able to finish your rough draft and you'll have no homework for the weekend.

Homework for the Weekend - B-Day Students - 8 May 2015

I've been feeling sick the whole weekend - nasty and congested.  Here are your reminders from Friday for Tuesday's class.

AP English III

We will be having our last class before the AP Exam on Tuesday.  Make sure that you've read and annotated "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" - it's probably my favorite story in the whole selection.  Stay focused on our key motifs and add to the characters as we'll see them develop.  This story is also interesting because it's told in a different voice.  Notice how O'Brien creates character through voice.

English II

I'll be reading your outlines online today and the paper ones turned in to Mr. Owen on Monday.  Everything will be ready for you on Tuesday so that we can move to the next step which is developing paragraphs.  From what I'm seeing so far there are about three issues that I'm seeing which are key:

1.  You haven't clearly outlined three topics.  Remember that two of the topics can be the same text, but they need to show different examples and explanation.

2.  You don't have a clear topic sentence for each topic.  Remember, you want to stay focused on relating your topic back to your idea about remembering tragedy.  Stay focused on your argument.

3.  There is weak explanation.  In your explanation remember to stay focused on the idea within your topic sentence.  How does your example help to display and prove this idea?

Continue working and revising.  Use these tips as you move forward.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students - 7 May 2015

Russian II

This weekend you all need to do some reading and writing.  Using the family tree reading, complete the three tasks A, Б, В.  Make sure that you focus on your time expressions especially those of years and full dates (day, month, year).  On the back, you should read the letter in Russian handwriting to review grammar and vocabulary.  We will go over this and I will check it on Monday.

Russian I

For homework you have the reading about Moscow State University.  Read the text carefully and then complete the first three tasks on the opposite side with the text.  First, identify all of your conjunctions we've studied in this unit and consider their meaning.  Second, identify the uses of "also" and consider the difference in choice between these words.  Lastly, notice your plurals and rewrite them as singulars.

We will continue to work on this on Monday including the other questions.

English II

Over the weekend you should all continue working on and developing your outlines.  Work hard to follow the instructions carefully.  Remember to outline you don't need to write full paragraphs.  Just list out the important elements -

Topic:

Topic Sentence:

Evidence:

Explanation of Evidence:

Make sure that you have these three topics done!  Next week we'll move on to drafting and writing our paragraphs and essays.  The outline step must be done before the writing!

AP Students - Test Prep

AP Kids:

I forgot to post this yesterday.  Here's a PDF of commonly asked terms on the AP Examination as well as examples and definitions.  Go through the ones you know and then study the ones you don't!

AP English Language Terms

Homework for B Day Students - 6 May 2015

AP English III

For our next class, which is really going to be on Tuesday you've got two things to take care of.

1. Read and annotate "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" - This is a great story and I think you're all going to love it.
2. Do work in your discussion groups - You'll all get some time to work together face-to-face in class on Tuesday.

Lastly, look over your multiple choice.  Study and review.  Understand why you got the question wrong the first time and why the right answer is the right one.  Remember that part of the reason why we do these practices now is so that you can take your knocks before the actual exam.

English II

For homework tonight you have two major things to complete as we prepare to move to the end of the week.  First, make sure that you have completed your three topics for your outline.  Remember to follow the listing format that we discussed in class.  The only sentences that you need to write are your argument and three topic sentences.

Second, make sure that you're ready for your quiz on Friday.  Study Night, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Hotel Rwanda.  Study and review, be prepared!

Homework for A-Day Students: 5 May 2015

Russian II

For homework tonight I would like for you to do a bit from our review/exercise packet to help you to learn the different ways to express time in Russian.

In exercise ten, select five events.  Tell when these events occurred by stating in which year as well as the full event with month and date if you have that information.

In exercise eleven, select four times.  Write the time in official format and in conversational format.

In exercise twelve, select two clocks and write the time in official and conversational style.

Don't worry about exercise thirteen.  Complete all of exercise fourteen.  Remember to write out the sentences and all numbers.

Russian I

For homework tonight you should continue working on your exercises related to plurals.  Remember that you should be able to complete the translation for homework as well as the exercise before parts A and B.  For the translation, if you don't know a particular word then you can feel free to put in the English word instead of the Russian.  However, when you know the Russian you should put in the Russian.

English II

Next class you have two things due for me.  First we'll have our quiz - make sure that you have studied and prepared so that you will do well on this important assessment.  Secondly, your outline will be collected.  Make sure that you have all of your topics identified, your evidence selected, and your points explained.  We will be turning these into rough drafts next week so it's important to have a solid outline first.  If you were not able to complete this in class, you must complete it on your own.

Homework for Monday - B Day Students - 4 May 2015

And may the fourth be with you...

I can't help letting my nerd flag fly a bit today.  I was always more of a Star Trek kid than a Star Wars, but anyway...Here's your reminder for tonight.

AP English III

Future brought donuts and they were delicious.  I will pay for that at the gym, soon.  Your reminders are in the previous post.  Remember your reading and Google document for your group.  Hat tip to the group that has already set up their document.

English II

For tonight you have two key priorities which are to study for your quiz as well as work on your outlines.  We'll be working a lot on Wednesday on our outlines as well as reviewing for the quiz by looking at some sample questions.  Make sure that you are prepared for this by doing some work in advance.

Keep working on your outlines as the due date has been extended to Friday.  Remember that for the outline you need to have three specific examples/topics that you'll use to prove your point about remembering tragedy.  Remember to use the films and books we've been studying as your topics (or whatever fits your argument, but I recommend using what we're studying in class!).  Explain to me why you think these films or texts are good ways to remember tragedy?  What makes a movie better than anything else?

Thank you especially for being understanding with my sensitivities today.  It was a rough day to be me.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students - 1 May 2015

Russian I and II

С праздником товарищи!  Happy holiday comrades!  Remember that today is a Russian holiday - May Day - or the holiday of spring and labor.  How much more communist of a name can you get, right?  For the weekend you have your journals to write.  Remember our phrase:  Все свое ношу с собой!

Beyond your journals you've all been learning some new grammar concepts recently which should be practiced this weekend.  Review your system of plurals (both regular and irregular).  For Russian II, look at your new information related to time.  As always, try to write using these concepts to help you learn them more thoroughly.  Both classes will have unit assessments coming up soon - it's a great idea to start preparing now.

English II

I've decided that you all having more time on your outlines is a good thing in advance of writing the essays.  So, that being said the full outlines of your essays are now due on Thursday - the same day as your quiz on our unit.  While all of you are writing your quiz, I'll be grading your outlines.  Remember that for the outline you need to have three specific examples/topics that you'll use to prove your point about remembering tragedy.  Remember to use the films and books we've been studying as your topics.  Explain to me why you think these films or texts are good ways to remember tragedy?  What makes a movie better than anything else?

As I've said throughout the whole process - the idea is that you need to be able to prove that you are right by using examples.