Homework for B-Day Students: 29 January 2016

Happy weekend, y'all.  Here's what you need to take care of this weekend:

English II

For the weekend, please make sure that you have finished your writing on "Tuesday Siesta" - you should complete the writing sheet and paragraph on your question.  I'll collect this work from you on Tuesday.  

During Tuesday's class we'll be moving forward to look at our next author and texts - Pablo Neruda's poetry.  Look forward to that!

AP English III

There are a few things that you all need to take care of this weekend.  Excellent job on the skits today - the writing and presentations were wonderful!  I'll have your grades uploaded this weekend and feedback to the groups will be on the gradebook under comments.

First, make sure that you have your copy of Invisible Man for class on Tuesday and that you have fully read and annotated Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son", Part One.  We'll be referencing him as we discuss the Prologue to Invisible Man.

Second, you'll need to spend time working on your research topics.  Do some pre-research and consider your topic and the point you want to make.  If you don't already have a Durham County Library borrower card and PIN, get that this weekend; you'll need it on Tuesday to start your research.

Homework for A Day Students - 28 January 2016

I was very glad to see a good note from the substitute today.  Thank you for doing what I left for you while I was off coaching.  We had a really great meet!  Here are some reminders for you for tonight:

Russian Students (I, II, III)

Continue to practice with your vocabulary and work with verbs of motion (II/III) and adjectives (I).  I won't be seeing all of you again until Monday.  When I see you on Monday I expect to see that you have been learning the new content so that we can practice and keep moving forward next week.  I hope that you enjoyed the films today!  As a good practice, work on writing about the films you watched today using your new grammar.

English II

You should have had enough time to finish the writing of your paragraphs on your new question to "Tuesday Siesta" today in class.  You should have also finished reading the whole story.  Make sure that for Monday you will be able to submit your whole writing sheet with the question, outline, and paragraph completed.  We'll move on to our last Latin American authors next week and then it's off to Africa!

Homework for B-Day Students - 27 January 2015

And we're back to it everyone!  It's been good to see you again.  Here are your reminders for tonight:

English II

If you didn't finish the writing of your new question for Marquez make sure to finish that tonight so that we can have our writing workshop next class.

AP English III

Let's go over next class in order of importance:

1. Your skit presentations will be happening next class.  Make sure that your background and script have been shared to me (mrmillerjhs @ gmail [dot] com) in advance of Friday's class.
2. Make sure that you have practiced and prepared.  Have your props and costumes ready.
3. Read Part One of Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son".  The link is here.  It's also available in 50 Essays.  Continue to note what Baldwin is doing in relation to the ideas of The Harlem Renaissance that we discussed today in class.  Consider the similarities and differences between Baldwin's approach and Hurston's approach in their texts.  Annotate by taking notes if you can't print the text out.
4. You'll need your copy of Invisible Man for Tuesday, February 2nd.

And another one.

See the lower post for what you should do to prepare for your next class. Hopefully this is the last one. School is closed again tomorrow. Here's to seeing you all on Wednesday. I hope!

Snow Day Number 2 - 1/25/2016

Here we go again.  I figure we'll be good to go on Tuesday morning, but you never know.  Everything below still applies, we just put it off another day.

See you soon!

Snow Day Number 1 - 22 January 2016

It's happened.  We're not at school.  Here's what this means:

• Monday will be a B-day.  Tuesday will be an A-day.  If we're still out of school on Monday then that just moves down one day.
• AP students should complete the reading of Hurston and prepare for our final day of skit work.  Presentations of skits will now be on Wednesday.  You will still need Invisible Man next week; I now need to adjust the reading schedule.
• Russian students should continue studying vocabulary.  Russian I - Feel free to work with the other animals and some of the other adjectives other than colors.  Russian II and III - begin writing with your new verbs.  There are exercises at the end of your chapters that you can start to look at as well.
• English II - B day students will have their i-Ready test at our next class.  A day students should complete the reading of "Tuesday Siesta" and the writing/vocabulary assignment that I gave you.

Hopefully we'll all see each other on Monday.  I'm going to make myself another coffee and play some PlayStation after I finish some more work!  Enjoy the day!

Homework for A Day Students - 21 January 2016

English II

Today we took our i-Ready test in class for your reading comprehension and skills.  I look forward to going over this data and using it to make my teaching better for you.  Here's what you need to accomplish for tonight - the writing work on "Tuesday Siesta" by Marquez.

Follow the steps on the handout I gave you in class.  Start with the summary from last class - if you need the full text of the story, use this link.  Write your summary in the grey box on the story.  Then, do your vocabulary for step two.  Lastly, you have your writing for step three, four, and five.  You can do all the work on the handout.  I'll check it next class.

Russian II/III

We need to spend time reviewing the conjugations of the verbs of motion again.  Stay focused on the unidirectional verbs since they're the wonky ones.  The multidirectional verbs are pretty straightforward once you remember the mutations.  Start here tonight.

Russian II - Make sure that you've completed one through ten on your assignment sheet.  We'll go over that next class and talk through the questions.

Russian III - Spend time with your cases, prepositions and prefixes.  Really understand and learn the way that these are all paired together and the way in which these are paired as opposites.  Read the information in your textbook from pages 410-418 - this will go over the verbs, the prefixes, and give you great examples of how they are used.  We'll go over this information together on Monday, but I want you to read it now and develop questions and baseline understandings.

Russian I

Learn your vocabulary!  Especially your adjectives.  Start with the colors and the word for "what type of/what kind".

Don't forget your writing assignment.  Select your two animals and describe them.  Tell what they have.  Make sure to check your adjectives for agreement!  I'll check this for completion next class.

20 January 2016 - Homework for All Classes

English II

I noticed that some of you are missing the Persepolis movie review only at the last minute.  If this applies to you please make sure that you email this assignment to me or bring me a hard copy tomorrow.  I must finalize my grades at noon, so the work needs to be in soon.

Remember what I said today in class.  It's just me for the rest of the year and there are no more second chances.  Do what you need to do and be consistent - you'll be fine.  Don't repeat the same mistakes.

AP English III

I also want all of you to take to heart what I said today about missing work and expectations.  Remember that it's just me for the rest of the year - we have a lot of heavy lifting ahead of us before we hit the AP Exam in May.

For homework tonight you should read and annotate Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels To Be Colored Me".  As you read the text, pay attention to the elements of Hurston's voice in the piece (tone, diction, and tone shifts).  Also, notice elements of African American culture at the time like music, dance, and the idea of Africa.  This piece is also highly focused on her identity as an African American woman.  Notice how she constructs this in the text.

We'll be working through this text as we do our introduction to The Harlem Renaissance and using this text as an exemplar of the movement.  Be ready for a fun Friday!

Внимание! Внимание! Студенты русского языка!

Russian I, II, III:

For those of you who were in class on Friday for the whole session I have graded and saved all grades on the midterm.  Your grades are now up to date for the quarter.  I have discussed with those of you missing the midterm and performance task my availability on Tuesday, make sure that you are there during that window - the earlier the better.

Homework for the Long Weekend - A Day Students - 15 January

English II

No real homework this weekend, but if you have anything missing you need to get it turned in and made up on Tuesday.  I'll be in my classroom from 7:00 to 12:00.  Please come in and get things settled so that your grade is a real reflection of your knowledge this quarter.

Russian I, II, III

Spend this weekend looking over your new vocabulary words for the new unit.  Russian II and III students, make sure that you complete the writing of sentences using your new vocabulary to begin learning how to use these new nouns, adverbs, and verbs.

If any of you have things to finish or make up, please see me on Tuesday morning as well.

Homework for B-Day Students: The Long Weekend - 14 January

AP English III

Your main task for this weekend is to put forward a lot of work on your skits - the missing scenes of The Great Gatsby.  I would highly suggest using Google docs for your script and that you use Google slides for your backgrounds and such.  Then you can share everything to me (mrmillerjhs @ gmail [dot] com) and have it settled.

Remember that you'll have two more work sessions in class as a group - thirty minutes on Wednesday and Friday next week.  Then we will present these in class on the 26th.  Presentations should be no more than five minutes per group so that we can have time to see all presentations.

The only other task you have for this weekend is to secure your copy of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.  We'll start our unit on The Harlem Renaissance on Friday by reading some related texts; you may want to start your reading of Invisible Man sooner though since it is a long and complex novel, one that I hope you will enjoy.

English II

There is no homework for the weekend if you are completely satisfied with your grade and standing in class.  However, if you are missing assignments (especially the Persepolis movie review or any other major projects) then you should do some work this weekend.  Get these assignments completed and emailed to me or turned in to me on Tuesday morning.  I'll be at Jordan from 7:00 am to around 12:00 - you can come in and turn in work or even take a missing quiz or test.  Anything that we can do to raise your grade we need to do!

Keep in mind that this is the last quarter of the minimum fifty grade.  After this you will earn the actual grade each quarter, no matter how low it is.  The good news is that you still have most of your grade to earn, you just have to earn it.

Homework for A-Day Students: 13 January 2016

English II

It's the final call for any missing work or assignments.  I've plugged in zeroes for any work I haven't seen and given partial credit where I thought I could.  Some of you are failing for the quarter because of missing work, so please get this work turned in.

On Friday we'll continue with our study of Latin American authors and take a look at a short story that isn't nearly as strange as the first one we read.

Russian I, II, III

We did the writing portion of our exam today and then on Friday you'll have part two.  Make sure that you've studied your grammar, vocabulary, and other necessary topics since you'll have a traditional exam format of multiple choice, writing, and listening.  Hopefully I'll have reports on your performance today by next class.

English II- A Day students

Students:

Here is the link to the complete NY Times article about El Chapo: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/world/americas/theatrics-surrounding-el-chapos-capture-distract-from-mexicos-real-woes.html?_r=0

Because of the missing page and the exam, you have until Friday to complete the reading guide. I'll announce this in class. I will also have printed copies of p. 2 on Wednesday if you prefer that. You may have time to work on this after your exam.

11 January 2016 - Homework - A Day Students

Russian II/III

All of you should be preparing for your performance task on Wednesday which is the writing of your letter.  Remember that you can prepare your note cards with vocabulary to help you compose your writing assignment and bring that with you on Wednesday.  It looks like many of you have a good idea around your writing, just don't forget the basics.  If you want more one-on-one help with your writing, please see me tomorrow (Tuesday).

Russian I

You should focus on the studying of your cases and verb conjugation rules for your exam since those are the two areas bringing many of you down.  Next class we will be doing some writing for our exam.  We will first begin with some translation work, then after lunch you'll be writing for me in Russian.  Keep working on your family writing to prepare for this since you'll be doing one of the paragraphs in this timed writing environment.

Don't forget that for all of you that there will be the test on Friday.  If you miss the test on Friday you will only have Tuesday morning at 7:00 to make up the exam.

Homework for the Weekend - B Day Student - 9 January 2016

English II

Complete your missing major work if you have any.  There are some of you whom I put on the board to remind you about particular assignments like your Persepolis movie review or your Persepolis graphic memoir project.

Next week we will have our district benchmark; hopefully our reading activity and game gave you some good practice for this upcoming event.  Study your vocabulary and literary devices; it'll help.

AP English III

You have a timed writing coming to you on Tuesday; it'll be a rhetorical analysis.  Look at your previous writing assignments for comments and aim to improve.  Remember that the main issues were in the discussion of your findings.  Analyze the text to find significant rhetorical devices and explain how they help the speaker/author convey his/her argument.

Additionally, don't forget about the rhetorical triangle between the speaker, audience, and topic.  Always consider the audience - how does the speaker specify his topic and argument for that particular audience?

AP English III - Special Note

Remember that we will start our next unit in the beginning of the third nine weeks and it will focus on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.  Please go ahead and secure a copy of this book now so that you have it when we begin.  I would recommend getting a copy published by Vintage International so that we have the same page numbers.  Here's the link to Amazon's page on this edition.

Order Invisible Man

My edition is the old one with the red and white cover, the new has the green cover, but the page numbers should be the same.

Homework for A Day Students: 7 January 2016

Russian II/III

This weekend is meant for you all to spend time working on and developing your performance task for Monday's workshop.  Remember that Monday's class is basically a study hall/workshop for the writing assignment and for the midterm.  I'll have time devoted to work with each of you, and then I'll be available as you need me.

We have two days for the midterm, Wednesday is the performance task and Friday is the exam.  Make sure that you're prepared for this.

Russian I

This weekend I would recommend that you spend time studying your case notes and your verb notes so that you're getting prepared for the exam next week.  The work we did today to go through verb conjugation and the cases is valuable.  Next class and Wednesday we're going to continue working through that packet so that we can continue to study and review concepts.  After this we're getting into the next chapter, which means we'll learn about using adjectives!

English II

Again, no homework but many of you learned today that you DO in fact have a missing assignment.  If you didn't get back a movie review on Persepolis today then it is missing and you have no credit on that assignment.  Take the time this weekend to finish these assignments and be ready to close out the quarter.

Homework for B-Day students-January 6, 2016

AP English III
Today in class we worked on MLA formatting and citation. Most of the information you need is on the handout, but all of that and more can also be found at the pages linked in the previous blog post.

On Friday you must have with you:

• A printed final draft (as I said in one class, I am okay with double-sided printing)
• Your first and second drafts that were reviewed by your peers
• Any peer review sheets that you have
• A number of you were absent on the day we did peer reviews and may not have sheets. Show me evidence that you completed a peer review via email or some other method or include an explanatory note.


• Your big manila envelope in which to submit your materials
• Your portfolio--I plan to give back Huck Finn tests
• A copy of The Great Gatsby for our classwork that day.

English II
As before, your homework is to get in any missing work. We will continue with our reading game next class and probably finish reading the Cortazar story.

Please do not lose your vocabulary notes from today, and bring them back to class with you!

AP English III- Links for class

MLA paper formatting and sample first page: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Formatting quotations: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/

Sample works cited page: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/

How to cite books: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/

Sample MLA paper: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/13/

Homework for A-Day: 5 January 2016

Welcome back to all of you! It's time for a new year and to finish out the second quarter, which is happening next Friday! Here's what you need to take care of to prepare for next class.

Russian II/III

Today you all got your final performance task for the unit. Now is the time to start to prepare. Go through the assignment and plan out what you're going to say and make sure that you're going through all of the requirements of your particular assignment. Look up vocabulary that you're going to need, so that we can practice and work with it during our workshop day on Monday.

If you're missing any work or need to do resubmissions/reassessments, please take care of that this week.

Now, on to the exercises.  Russian II and III, these exercises are for practice and to develop mastery.  Russian III students, we will work through exercise nineteen next class, make sure it's complete.  Russian II students, you have exercises solely for practice - we'll take a look at those tomorrow, but not for a grade.

Don't forget - midterm next week.  Wednesday for performance task and Friday for test.

Russian I

We'll have our test next week and you all also learned about your performance task - you'll have to present one of your paragraphs on your family in a timed, testing environment with no notes or help.  Make sure that you review your previous drafts to prepare for this.  Keep using and reviewing your chapter one vocabulary; the more you use it, the more you'll know.

Many of you have missing or very low scores in quizzes, projects, and previous assessments.  Remember that the last time to work on resubmissions/reassessments is this week.  Please settle your business.

English II

We'll keep reading Cortazar next class - I hope that you're liking the story; it gets really good as we keep going.  For tonight, make sure that you're finishing your missing major work. If you don't know what you're missing, please shoot me an email and ask.  Better that you check and be sure than not check and do badly for the quarter.  You all (4A) had a great start to the year today, let's keep it up!

Homework for B-Day Students-- January 4, 2016

Welcome back, everyone! It was so lovely to see your smiling faces today.

AP English III

Today in class we peer-edited our second drafts for style, clarity, and grammatical issues. We also discussed your initial impressions of The Great Gatsby, talked about characterization, and worked in groups to gather significant details about various characters in the novel. Next class, we will continue to share our findings and extend our discussion to Gatsby himself and Nick.

We used a version of the "Editing and Proofreading" handout from the UNC writing center, which can be found here in the second column: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/

For Wednesday: Bring a digital copy of the most recent version of your essay that you will be able to access from the library. We will be working on MLA formatting and citation in the Dell lab during the first part of class, but please meet in the classroom.

For Friday: Final drafts of Huck Finn papers are due. You need to turn in your draft in your manila envelope, so bring this if you still have it. You will be turning in:

• Your first draft
• Peer review sheets that you received from your initial reviewers before break
• Your second draft
• Your final draft
• A cover sheet (will be provided on Friday in class)

To give you a sense of how we'll finish the semester, I plan to give back your Huck Finn tests on Friday. On Tuesday of next week, we'll have another Rhetorical Analysis AP Timed Writing. Next Thursday, we will be watching clips from both Gatsby films and analyzing these adaptations of the text. We will not have time to watch the entirety of either movie in class, but I recommend watching them outside of class. 

English II
You have no assignments for tonight. We'll begin reading a short story by Julio Cortazar next class. The end of the quarter is quickly approaching, so if you are missing a major assignment--the graphic memoir project or the movie review--now is the time to get that done!