Friday, April 29, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students - Weekend - 29 April 2016

English II

If any of you did not submit your essay packets to me today please make sure that they are completed and in to me on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.  Remember that I need your final draft as well as some preliminary work so that I can give you an improvement score for your essay too.

Over the weekend, I want you to read and annotate the two articles I gave you about life in the ghetto for Jews.  As you read, underline or take note about conditions in the ghetto for Jews.  These article are yours - so feel free to write on them.  We'll discuss this on Tuesday and build some comparisons to Anne's life.

AP English III

We will be having our quiz on Acts I-III of The Crucible on Thursday next week.  For those of you in AP Calculus - please see me before or after to complete the quiz.  This weekend you need to read and annotate Niccolo Macchiavelli's "The Morals of the Prince".  The reading is available within the first edition of 50 Essays or at this link.

As you read, consider Abby against Machiavelli's Prince.  Does Abby embody the qualities of a good leader?  Do you generally agree with Machiavelli about a leader?  This piece gives us some interesting food for thought especially around honesty, power, and manipulation.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students - 28 April 2016

English II

The only homework that you have this weekend is to complete your essay and have it ready to be submitted on Monday.  Remember that for this essay you are expected to have five clear paragraphs.  Use the rubric for your final draft to help you put this together.  If you were active during our last writing workshop then you have a very good example of your third body paragraph to use when constructing the others.

If you need my help, I'll be available tomorrow after school, before school, and during B lunch.

If you would like to spend more time poking around Anne's hiding place and learning more about her or her family, I invite you to investigate the website of the Anne Frank House.  You can access that site here:  Anne Frank House.

We will continue our reading and study of Anne next class as well as begin our research projects.

Russian I

If any of you did not finish your adverb quiz, make sure to see me to finish that no later than Monday.  For the weekend, I would like for all of you to make sure that your presentations are ready to show and that you have completed the viewing guide for our film Девчата.  If you need to watch portions of the film that you may have missed, you can find the film at this website.

Remember that we will soon be starting our review for the final exam (Units 1-3).  Take time this weekend to look through your textbooks and come up with topics that you would like for us to review during that time.

Russian II/III

Many of you will need to see me tomorrow to finish your quizzes.  Make sure that you make yourself available to do that no later than Monday.  For the weekend, make sure that those of you who need to use the link above to finish watching our film and complete your viewing guides.

Additionally, you may want to take time to consider our final speaking assignment of the year.  We'll decide on roles on Tuesday and begin to prepare a bit then.

Lastly, make sure that you read about our next grammar unit before we see each other on Monday.  For Russian II, you want to read about the concept of double negation in Russian (282-285).  For Russian III, you want to read about verbal adjectives and gerund formation in Russian (477-488).

When I see you all next week there will only be NINE A-days until we begin exams!

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Homework for B Day Students - 27 April 2016

AP English III

Your homework tonight is very light - I hope that you appreciate it.  For tonight make sure that you have finished the reading and studying of Act III in The Crucible.  Your covers should be updated to relate the major symbols, topics/motifs, and settings as well as the characters.  Be sure that the text's body is also fully annotated to reflect this thinking and reading.

We will be having a quiz on Acts I-III of The Crucible, likely next week.  I'll give you more details on Friday.

English II

If you would like to spend more time exploring the annex in which Anne and her family hid, then please visit this link.  Here you'll be able to explore the rooms of the annex, learn more about the members of the family who hid there, and more about the day-to-day experiences in the annex.

Remember that your essays are due to me on Friday.  You should have five complete paragraphs and at least one rough draft/preparation assignment with this to earn your improvement score.

Also, we will begin building our websites for our final project on Friday.  Make sure that you have your gmail account set up and your password.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Homework for A Day Students - 26 April 2016

Russian I - III

Remember that next class you will have a quiz on your recent learning units.  We reviewed these today in class.  As a reminder:


  • Russian I - You have your quiz on adjectives and adverbs.
  • Russian II - Your quiz will cover plural declensions of all words and the use of cases.
  • Russian III - Your quiz will focus on the word который.
Please use the exercises that we have done and the information in your textbooks to further prepare for this quiz.  This will be one of your last quizzes of the year.

If you missed any of Девчата then you can see it at this link.  This is especially important if you missed class last Friday.  Make sure that you complete the viewing guide and have it submitted no later than Monday.

Russian I Students - Remember that you have your major presentations over the next few classes.  Be ready to share your former Soviet republics and teach us about them.

English II

Your homework is much the same as your classmates in the B Day class.  Your essays are now due on Monday to give you more time for final edits and revisions.  Make sure that if you did not turn in your viewing guides today that you have them ready for me on Thursday to be turned in for a grade.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Homework for B Day Students - 25 April 2016

AP English III

Next class we will be working through our AP Multiple Choice for the vast majority of class since the day is a PLC Day.  Additionally, make sure that you have completed your written homework - the tone analysis.

Remember for this assignment you will be analyzing five lines for their tone.  Be sure to copy and cite the line from the book to your response.  Annotate the line to draw out the tone.  Apply your tone sheet and develop your tone vocabulary.  With each line, be sure to explain how that specific tone is significant to the work as a whole.  Three lines should be from each act (I-III) and the last two are your choice.

The goal of this assignment is to reactivate your skills of analysis and explanation - things we'll need for the upcoming exam!

English II

Your homework for tomorrow's class is to finish your viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda and (if you didn't already turn it in) The Wave.  There is no additional homework tonight.  Essays will not be collected until the end of the week on Friday.  If you need me, I have cleared my schedule on Tuesday to meet with you on your essay if you need me to review it or give you final notes.

This essay grade is a major part of your grade this quarter - don't miss the chance to turn it in and do well!

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Homework for All Classes - Weekend Edition 21 and 22 April

Since I won't be here tomorrow I figure that I should go ahead and post the weekend update for everyone.  If you have questions, please email me over the weekend and I will try to address your question.

AP English III

For the weekend you should stay focused on your reading of The Crucible.  Continue on and complete Act III - please read all the way to the end of the act.  Use your reading guide to pay attention to the key elements of this act as well as the importance of the new characters.

As you read, consider your role as a member of the audience in this act.  Consider your knowledge in comparison to that of the revered judges who sit and weigh judgement.  Additionally, we have one of the main turning points of this play.  There will be much to discuss on Monday.

English II

Over the weekend I hope that all of you will spend time revising and editing your essays to complete your final drafts.  You have rough drafts, writing planning sheets, and rubrics as well as a great version of your third body paragraph.  Make sure that all of your body paragraphs are as good as your third.  Edit your introduction and conclusion so that your main idea is clear and you have accounted for all of the stories we have studied for this essay.  B day essays are due on Wednesday and A day essays are due on Thursday.  I'll be available after school on Monday and Tuesday for last-minute help.

Also, please make sure that you finish your second viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda.  I'll be collecting those to be checked on Monday/Tuesday.

Russian I

You all have your quiz on adverb formation and use on Tuesday.  Be sure that you can do the following:

  1. recognize an adjective versus an adverb
  2. be able to recognize a cultural adjective versus a quality adjective
  3. know how to turn a cultural adjective and quality adjective into adverbs
  4. know which nouns can be turned into adverbs and which case to use
  5. know which words are already adverbs and don't need to be changed
You should use your worksheet on exercises 20 and 25, your notes, and your textbooks to help you study and prepare.

Also, you will have your presentations on Thursday for your country projects.  Make sure that you are working on these as you need to in order to meet Thursday's deadline.

Russian II/III

We will be having our quizzes on Thursday.  Tuesday will be geared toward review.  Hopefully those of you in Russian III found the exercises online useful and helpful.  I wanted to let the Level II students know that I didn't forget them.  Here are some great exercises using plural declensions and especially the genitive plural.  There is a lot of good stuff there - just use the title of the link to get you started.  If you need particular things just on the genitive plural there's this, this, this, and this.

Russian Students - Make sure that you finish your viewing guide for Девчата based on what you watched in class so that we can quickly finish the film and I can collect this work.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Homework for A Day Students - 20 April 2016

Russian III and II

We're going to hold our quiz until Thursday so that we can have extra time to review on Tuesday.  In advance, make sure that you are spending time with the grammar and vocabulary in this section of your lessons.

For Russian III Students I have these exercises using который.  Exercise 1 and Exercise 2.

I hope that you all enjoy the film on Friday.

Russian I

You all will have your adverb quiz on Tuesday.  Remember that the main goal that you will have on this quiz is being able to determine how to turn an adjective into an adverb (both cultural adjectives and adjectives related to qualities) and to determine if a word is already an adverb - this is mostly done by studying the worksheet that we reviewed today in class.

We will have our presentations on our Soviet Republics on Thursday.  Be prepared for that.  Don't forget your cultural artifacts if you want to earn that extra credit.

English II

Now that we have finished our work on drafting the third body paragraph then you should now be able to finish the edits that you have for the rest of your essay.  Use the final rubric to help you make your final edits.  Your final essays will be due on Thursday of next week.  Make sure that you have a final draft as well as your preliminary work.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students: 19 April 2016

English II

We did a lot of work in class today to build a solid third body paragraph and complete our essays.  Make sure that you do the following with your final essay so that you are prepared for Wednesday's submission date.

  1. Edit your introduction and conclusion to account for Hotel Rwanda as well as The Stranger and your personal experiences.
  2. Revise your first and second body paragraphs based on the work we did today especially around explaining your examples.
  3. Make sure that you either type or wrote your full essay to account for all changes and revisions.  Use your rubric to help you out with this.
AP English III

Today we had a fair amount of business to settle - thanks for working hard to get it all done.  If you were absent today you missed the completion of your AP Exam answer sheet - this is a must do ASAP.  Make sure to report to Guidance to get this done.

As for your work tonight, make sure that you have concluded the reading of Acts I and II in The Crucible.  With your reading, pay close attention to key motifs and characters - the character charts are especially helpful in locating who knows whom and who knows what.  

Lastly, be aware that I need to finish the grading for your major assessments - if you haven't yet taken the timed writing for Invisible Man, then I need you to settle this by Friday of this week.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Homework for A Day Classes - 18 April 2016

Russian III

Remember that you will have a quiz on Tuesday that will focus on который as well as the work that we have done to review declensions.  Make sure that you are studying and reviewing vocabulary in order to prepare for this quiz.

For tonight's homework you have two exercises to complete.  For exercise 11.9 you will be combining two sentences using который.  Make sure that you write out the sentence combination and the translation of the sentence.  For exercise 11.10 you will be translating from English to Russian using который.  Make sure that you write the Russian translation as well as the analysis of который - what is the antecedent? the gender? the number? the case?

Russian II

You will have a quiz on Tuesday that focuses on plural declensions and the usage of the genitive case.  To help you with this you have exercises to help you with this.  Complete exercise 7.8A and 7.8B.  For exercise 7.8A you will be filling in the blanks and translating the sentence.  For 7.8B you will be filling in the blanks, declining the word in parenthesis to the proper form and translating.  Make sure that you do this work on notebook paper so that I can check it.

Russian I

You should be working on your presentations about the former republics of the Soviet Union.  We will be presenting these countries next week on Thursday.  Additionally, you all have a quiz next Tuesday on forming and using adjectives.  Tonight for homework you have two exercises to complete related to adjectives of time and adjectives of measure/degree.  Please fill in the blanks with the required words - they are either in the word bank associated with the exercise or in your textbook.  Be able to read the sentence aloud with confidence.  We will review these next class.

English II

Your main homework tonight is to finish the second viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda to deal with the after-viewing questions.  Also, make sure that you are ready to complete the work on our essays next class.  We will quickly be finishing them and moving on to our final project of the year.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students - 15 April 2016

AP English III

Super amazing day today everyone.  Mrs. Mausi came by and was very impressed with the work that you all did.  For the groups who didn't present today, that's okay; we'll begin class in the hallway to finish your presentations.

On Tuesday we have business to settle related to presentation, Guidance coming to visit and dealing with AP Pre-Administration for your exams.  That means that any reading of The Crucible will be settled on Thursday.

For Thursday, make sure that you have read both Act I and Act II of The Crucible.  Use your character charts to keep track of important moments for the characters and their relationships with other characters (very important).  The questions are for you to check your comprehension of the acts.

English II

Over the weekend you should be able to complete your viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda - both of them and complete the drafting of your final body paragraph for you essays Hotel Rwanda and the character of Paul.  Remember to use the outline that we established today in class.  Next week we will be quickly finishing these essays and submitting final drafts - make sure that you have all of the work done in a timely and complete fashion!

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Homework for A Day Students - 14 April 2016

Russian I

For homework this weekend I want you all to do some writing and some review of the old vocabulary from unit two.  Please go into your textbooks and select five adjectives from unit three and five adjectives from unit two.  Then, transform the adjectives into adverbs if they logically can make that change.

After you've made this change - I want you to write a sentence using the word as an adjective and another sentence using the word as an adverb.  Explain the difference in meaning between these two sentences.  In total, you will write twenty sentences because you are writing one sentence for each word form.

Pay attention to meanings and what you are describing as you use these types of words.

Russian II

This weekend you have some work to do focused on the genitive plural.  Complete the exercise putting the words into the nominative singular (given), nominative plural, genitive singular and genitive plural.  You're going to want to use your textbooks here since there are some irregularities to account for.

Russian III

This weekend you are continuing to work on который but instead of simply translating and analyzing you are filling in the blank with the appropriate form.  Remember as you are filling in the blank you have to really consider the needed case for the situation.  Remember to consider what is happening after the comma in order to determine the case.  You need to consider the referent from before the comma in order to figure out the gender and the number.

You will not be able to just fill in the blank - you should write out the sentences.

English II

There's no actual homework for you all to do tonight but it would be a good idea to make sure that you have done:

  • preliminary research for your project - start finding answers to your questions
  • make sure that your viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda is complete through question four
  • if you didn't finish your StudyIsland assessment - make sure that it gets finished

AP English Language and Composition Test Prep

Hi AP English III Students - Here are those exam preparation materials I promised and forgot to post.

101 Key Terms AP English Language

Top 100 Terms Quizzlet

AP Terms Packet - pdf

There's a lot of overlap between these different websites so feel free to use one or all to help you prepare.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students - 13 April 2016

English II

Today if you didn't finish the Quarter Four assessment then make sure that you login to Study Island tonight and finish it up while it's fresh in your minds.  I'll then be able to go back and give you the updated grade to reflect the full work you did.

You all have the research project on worldwide genocides.  For tonight, you should start with some preliminary research about your country and its genocide.  Stay focused on the questions at the beginning of the research assignment.  Those four questions are the key questions to the project.

Make sure that you have a functional Google account - we'll be building websites using Google Sites.

AP English III

Next class we are constructing and presenting our murals on Invisible Man.  Be prepared with what you need to construct the mural and with what you are going to say along with your group mates.  Your group should be prepared to begin immediately on Friday.

For Tuesday next week, make sure that you've read Act I of The Crucible.  Pay attention to the main ideas we discussed today in our overview as well as the relationships and knowledge between the characters.  Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have your papers ready to return to all of you.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Homework for A-Day - 12 April 2016

Russian III

Tonight I want you to put what you have learned about который into practice with a bit of reading, translating and analyzing.  Take a look at exercise seven in Chapter Eleven.  You will see several sentences using который.  Translate the sentence as best you can.  Then analyze который for the case, gender, and number that it is in in the sentence.  You should be able to explain all of the sentences.

Russian II

We have to make a lot of plurals in your homework.  For the list of words in exercise six, be able to put the words into all of the cases for the singular and for the plural.  Some of these words will be tricky, so we'll look at the more troublesome ones on Thursday.

Russian I

Today we briefly started looking at adverbs and how they are formed from adjectives.  For tonight, I want you to start looking at the new vocabulary in Chapter Three - especially the adjectives.  The list is on page 102.  With this list, read the adjectives and consider which of them can be made into adverbs - then, make the change to the adverb form.  Only one of them doesn't really form a logical adverb.

English II

Make sure that you've finished the viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda - especially questions 2, 2a, and 3.  Also, consider one of the scenes that we saw today for your essay.  Remember that the work on this film will be your third body paragraph - it's a good idea to start planning this paragraph now.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students: 11 April 2016

AP English III

The most important thing on your radar right now is the mural completion and presentation which will happen on Friday.  Remember that in advance of Friday's class you want to have a good idea of what your mural will show and how it will answer the question of Ellison's purpose through the motifs that you are studying.  Consider how you will use language from the text and imagery to communicate your message.  Also, think about the organization of your mural as you plan and conceive your overall work.  I will check blogs one last time on Friday and will collect one motif chart from the group.

For next class you need to prepare for our first day on The Crucible.  Please read Miller's "Why I Wrote The Crucible" - I gave you an excerpted version of this.  Consider his purpose in writing the play - be able to answer the question in the article title.  As well, make sure that you look up any political allusions in this piece.  You will want to be very familiar with the politics of the 1950's.  Additionally, please read the introduction to Act I in The Crucible.  This consists of everything before the dialogue begins.

English II

For next class you should complete the viewing guide questions we reviewed today in class from watching Hotel Rwanda as well as the work at the end of the viewing guide related to your final body paragraph for your essays.  Make sure that your previous rough draft has been revised so that we can finish our essays next week by adding the last body paragraph on Hotel Rwanda.

You will want to be studying your vocabulary for our African literature unit - there will be a final major quiz on this soon, once we finish Hotel Rwanda we will move on to our final unit of the year.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students

Russian I

Today we had our exam on Chapters One and Two - I hope that you all felt prepared and were able to show what you know of Russian grammar.  For the weekend I would like for you to do a few things.  First, do some more preliminary research on your country.  Secondly, start to look over the information in Chapter Three.  Begin with your vocabulary for the new chapter.  It'll be useful to start learning now.

Russian II

This weekend you should start to review the next part of Chapter Seven.  Look over and read pages 271 - 282 in your textbooks.  Make a chart for case declension in the plural for adjectives and nouns.  Also, start to review the information on forming and using the genitive plural.  We'll start marching through this information together on Tuesday.

Russian III

You should also spend some time with your textbooks this weekend.  Look over the information on 466 - 477 about participles (adjectives formed from verbs) and look over the different types and the different formation rules.  There's a lot here, try to understand what you can understand and we'll start working through it soon.

English II

Hopefully your writing workshop was productive in the Dell Lab.  Over the weekend you should finish polishing these four paragraphs so that you are ready to add in your last body paragraph related to our final text.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Homework for B-Day Students - Weekend Edition: 7 April 2016

English II

Over the weekend you should continue working on your essays and make sure that they are polished with the work that you have.  The goal right now is to make sure that you have applied the notes that I have already given you for the four paragraphs that you have.  We will be writing one more paragraph on our film - Hotel Rwanda.  Be ready to complete that drafting quickly to finish this essay assignment.

Additionally, make sure that you have studied Bessie Head's story.  That will be part of the quiz on African Literature at the end of our unit.

AP English III

For the first time in a long time you don't have any reading homework this weekend.  Your main goal now is to prepare for all of your assessments that you have going on next week.  First we have the timed essay on Monday.  You have the prompts and you have your books, so it's time to prepare for your writing.  Keep in mind that I will be checking your annotations on Monday for the whole book - make sure that they show the level of our study over the last nine weeks.

Further - it's a good time for you and your groups to work on your murals and plan.  Remember my idea that I shared with you all today about creating a mural mock-up on Google Docs.  This is a great way to make sure that you're ready to construct your murals on Friday of next week.

Enjoy your weekend!  I'm going to get through a lot of essays.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Homework for A Day Students - 6 April 2016

Russian I, II, III:

You all have assessments next class.  Make sure that you have studied your grammar information that will be assessed as well as the vocabulary that you will need.  The reminders for your assessments are in the previous posts.

English II:

You have reading to complete tonight from South Africa.  Please read "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses" by Bessie Head and pay attention to the ideas we discussed in class.  The characters are really important in the story as is the conflict between them.  Make sure that you consider why the men are in conflict with each other as well as how the conflict is resolved.

We'll be moving on next class to looking at the story in detail and working on our essays more.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Homework for B Day Students - 5 April 2016

AP English III

Please remember to get caught up with your reading and blogging in advance of Thursday's class.  By the beginning of class on Thursday I should be able to find your question and thesis post for your mural, your analysis of the motifs in Chapters 23, 24, and 25, and lastly your synthesis post for the last half of the novel.

You should also be working diligently in your group to plan your mural - remember to use your blogs since that is a record of your thoughts, quotes, and ideas about these motifs.  I would recommend using a piece of notebook paper/computer paper to start planning out what will go where on your murals.  Lay out the quotes, images, and other elements.  Organize them in a way that makes sense.  Remember that you're proving your thesis through your mural - you want to organize and plan the same way you would a written essay.

Next class we will be finishing our seminar on Invisible Man, be caught up and prepared to participate.  Next week we will begin our work on The Crucible.  Make sure that you have your copy.

English II

Great class today to begin our work on South Africa.  For tonight, I want you to read Bessie Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses".  As you read, pay attention to the idea of apartheid/segregation.  Also notice the two main characters of Brille and Hannetije.  Why are they in conflict with each other?  How does the conflict develop?  How is it resolved?

You have your own copy of the story, so you can take notes and highlight as you read.  Don't forget to be able to answer the first three questions at the end of the story in advance of a possible reading quiz.  Next class we will spend more time developing our essays and learning more about South Africa.

AP English III - 5 April Workshop

AP English III Students - Please refer to this blog post on the motif instruction blog for today's workshop.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Homework for A Day Students - 4 April

English II

There's no official homework tonight.  Use the time to get ahead on your reading for your extra credit projects.  Keep journaling and answer the questions that apply to your book.

Russian I, II, and III

You all have exams or quizzes at the end of the week so the important thing is to study the vocabulary and grammar that we will see on your quizzes/exams.

  • Russian I - Your exam will cover the ten verbs we listed today and your tables.  Make sure that you know your vocabulary and your declensions.  Play with your dominoes.
  • Russian II - Your quiz will cover weather vocabulary and the uses of the dative case that we reviewed at the opening of the unit.  
  • Russian III - Your quiz will focus on long form versus short form adjectives.  Make sure that you spend some time looking at the declensions of adjectives in singular and plural since you'll need that for long form adjectives.  
The only class that really has homework to turn in is Russian II - you have your weather report presentations due next class.