6 February - End of the Week

English 11

Phew! What a day! I'm sorry that I almost missed your lunch; we were just so wrapped up in the work that we were doing! Thanks, Casey for the reminder.

Today, like most of the days right now, we focused on writing. With the winter weather in the forecast, today may be one of our last practice opportunities before our state test. I'm really happy with what I'm seeing with your writing. We reviewed some feedback for the class and did some more practice. I hope that you enjoyed this moderately creative writing assignment. Remember, if your author is still alive, you might want to share what you wrote with them. Who knows, maybe they'll write you back!

We also took a bit of time for vocabulary at the end of class today. The words have been posted in the slides. Remember that we'll have two more quizzes before we have our major grade. If you need to take care of your List 4 Quiz from last week, please make an appointment for next week. I'd recommend that we do Monday the 10th because of the weather warning for next week.

Snow Day to Start 2022

Happy Snow Day, y'all!

I hope that you're able to stay warm, safe, and dry while the snow falls. It's really falling heavily, so I'll be taking Bruno out in a bit to see what he thinks about all of this. Be sure to check Schoology for updates to your class. If you're in 2nd or 6th - be aware that this class will not be able to be made up. Try to take some time for class if you can today - there are resources to help you do this.

I'll be available via email if you need me. Please reach out and enjoy the day!

Snow Day! 18 February

Good morning everyone! We find ourselves with an official snow day today - no virtual or in-person learning will be held today. I wanted to let you know that I will be available over email today if you have any questions about anything.

If you have missing assignments - today gives you a wonderful opportunity to get caught up before our upcoming catch-up days and asynchronous time. If you're all caught up - I'd recommend getting ahead with your final tasks for Unit 3 (the research paper). 

I'll be grading and getting caught up myself through the day. Please reach out if there's anything I can do. When we meet again, I'll let you know of any updates to our schedule and lessons -- I'm sure there will be a few.

Snow Day 2 - 2/21/2020

With the way my neighborhood looks, I would expect a normal day on Monday. Remember that our next school day will be an A day. The ACT is scheduled for Tuesday for all juniors - it will run first through third period.

See the post below to review what you should be working on. I've begun to score AP Literature Poetry Critical Analysis Projects. If you are missing this project, please submit via Google Classroom/Drive. The gradebook is updated for other assignments.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Snow Day 1 - 20 February 2020

Tomorrow we have our first snow day of the year with the predicted snow. I, as always, am skeptical of its arrival. Continue to work on the assignments outlined in the most recent posts. Certain classes should be aware of shifted dates as outlined below:

AP Research - Our writing workshop will be pushed back a day to accommodate a workshop day before peer review day. I do want you to have a hard copy of your paper for this round of peer review, let me know if you need me to print for you.

Russian I - We will only have our quiz if our next class is a full ninety minute class. У нас будет контрольная работа только если у нас будет девяносто минут на занятие.

AP Literature - Read your sonnet and Shakespeare. Enjoy! Get caught up if needed and submit work online.

Advanced Russian - Prepare for your upcoming quiz and work on your poet projects. Remember that the date of Olympiada is the same!

Snow Day #2 and the Russian III Field Trip

Hey All -

I've heard that there have been a lot of power outages in the area. I hope that everyone is able to stay safe and warm; as always, your health and safety are first priority. If you aren't able to accomplish some of your work because of issues with electricity/Internet, please let me know.

Hopefully we'll be back to school on Wednesday. I've seen that some AP English III students have submitted their synthesis writing; please do that if it is ready for me to read. I'll have scores uploaded tomorrow and comments too.

Russian III - Be aware that the trip has been postponed until the Spring. I'll be listening to your spoken presentations in two classes to be assessed. In the next class we'll be doing our dry run. Russian II - I'll also be looking at your visuals. You'll be explaining it in English.

AP Seminar's IWA scores are nearly complete. Remember that there will be a reassessment opportunity. I would suggest that if you want to ask specific questions related to your grade, please do. We can start that resubmission process a bit earlier. I would say that with those of you who have earned lower scores (below middle) did not produce an actual IWA in that it was not presenting an argument with clear limitations, implications, or objections. These papers tended to rely on summary of source material as opposed to synthesizing and applying source material toward the explanation of an argument. As of now, the scores are raw scores - they'll be converted to a scaled score once the scale is determined.

Russian I - I did not see completed projects from everyone. Those that I saw have been scored. Again, feel free to begin reassessing based on scores and feedback. You'll want to unsubmit and then resubmit. Please email me when you've finished this work. Do not use translators at all. Simply perform the task/sentences that you have been asked for. Everything else is coming very soon!

I've also graded the English IV work on A Doll's House - Make sure that you have a clear ACES response and that your work reflects the grammar rules that we have focused on especially related to punctuation and capitalization. If you can, finish and submit the rest of your projects.

Snow Day #1

This is definitely the earliest I think that we've had a snow day while I've been working for DPS. With the days off earlier this year for the hurricanes and flooding I think we're on track to have as many days off for weather as we ever have.

You should be prepared to return next class with your assignments complete. I'll be going through Google Classroom and Drive tomorrow (Monday) for Russian I and English IV work. I'll be also finishing up all of the work from AP Seminar today and tomorrow.

Russian III students - Be aware that we won't be able to have our dry run in class now since our trip is on Wednesday. I'll keep you posted if the symposium changes due to the snow. You should be actively preparing to present on Wednesday!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me!

Snow Day Number 3 - 17 January

I posted yesterday's post, and then DPS cancelled school about twelve minutes later. I think that's the fastest cancellation ever.

See the post below about what you need to do before our next classes. A special note to Russian I, II, and III. If you see a zero for the viewing guide assignment for The Irony of Fate it means that I do not have an assignment from you. When we return to school you will only have one day to turn in a resubmission. It may be a good day to watch the film and make up the time when you were doing something else in class. We will discuss expectations when you are with a substitute at our next class as well.

Snow Day #2 - 5 January 2018

Everything from my last snow day post still applies, except now we are pushing things back one more day.

The midterm examination for AP English III will fall on Tuesday the 9th. Be prepared. You will need to have your group and individual work for Mr. Bernhard (Gatsby Synthesis Assignment) by Thursday - 11 January. Hopefully you are using this weekend to finish that work and assist your group mates as needed.

On Monday and Tuesday the English IV classes will be finishing their writing assignment about humor in She's the Man or Twelfth Night. If you have already started working on this assignment - great. If not, go to Google Docs and begin working on this. We will finish Twelfth Night at the end of this week/beginning of next week and move on to our final assessment on that.

Russian classes should all be reviewing and preparing for any resubmissions of old work as well as working through the current lessons on cases (Russian I) or verbs of motion (Russian II/III).

As always, please email me if you have any questions or concerns about anything. See you all on Monday!

Snow Day Number 1 - 4 January 2018

Here we go! Hopefully this year won't be as bad as the years past. While you are enjoying your snow day today, here are some reminders for you.

Our next class will be an A day. Hopefully it will be a regular day. We will continue moving forward with our lessons. This means that Russian students should complete their homework that was detailed in your last blog post.

Seniors - If you can continue working on your writing assignment about humor in She's the Man or Twelfth Night it would be a good idea to do that. You will only have one or two classes left this quarter to finish everything up.

AP English - Your midterm examination will now fall on Monday of next week. You will have to finish your work on the Gatsby synthesis assignment for review on Wednesday. Today gives you a great chance to get a lot of that work done. Some of you are still missing the final test on The Great Gatsby - you should contact us immediately to settle this.

The last day of the quarter will now be Thursday for A day and Friday for B day. There has been no word as of now as to which teacher workday will be taken to make-up for this day.

Snow Day Number One

So - we're out tomorrow. I'm stranded in Raleigh until the roads clear up, and I can get out of a parking lot which is currently a skating rink.

Next class day is a B Day. We'll be doing our allegory play presentations (be ready, AP students) and having our Persepolis Unit Examination (study your guides from the review game, English II).  After that we have Russian - do your exercises and study. We will have our exam before the end of the quarter.

My guess is we won't be back to school until Wednesday at the earliest. We'll see...

SNOW DAY #4 - 15 February 2016

I guess that Lincoln and Washington really wanted us to have today off.  Here we are on another snow day - I've not gone outside yet this morning, but it certainly does look slick on my street.  Here are your reminders going into our next class.

Russian II/III

We will have our quiz next class on verbs of motion.  Be prepared for that by doing the following:  know your conjugations of your eight basic verbs of motion, know the prepositions and cases paired with these verbs to indicate going to and coming from, know the English equivalents of these verbs. Russian III, make sure that you know the meaning of your prefixes and the way in which the prefix joins to the verb, especially with идти/ездить.

Russian I

You will also have a quiz next class on adjectives and agreement.  Make sure that you know your endings, your changes, and the meanings of these cases in terms of grammar.  You've plenty of exercises in your textbooks and there are some great ones online too.  I recommend:  this one  on the nominative and this one on accusative from UCLA.  Once you've gone there you can feel free to explore this site for more on Russian grammar and exercises.  A great resource!

English II

I'm spending my morning planning out our unit on Africa - we'll be reading our main novel of the year and several short stories, poems, and articles about the continent.  Next class we will begin on our novel and try to finish up our creative writing projects.  You should spend your day today doing two things to prepare for our next class:  first, make sure to review your notes since you'll have a few minutes to check your multiple choice section on the Latin American Literature exam; second, draft your creative writing project - have ideas down on paper and as much of your assignment done on paper or on the computer.  If you work on the computer, try to get an electronic copy by sharing in Google Docs or e-mailing the document to yourself.  Remember the importance of completing long-term assignments on time and well!

AP English III

I will see all of you on Wednesday, I hope, with your blogs completed up to Chapter Six.  I've seen a few blogs and I really like what I am seeing.  Remember that your entries don't have to be over complicated right now - this is a slight increase of the motif chart (with a bit more explanation).  We'll be coming up on our first synthesis posting soon, and I'll go over in class about those and the requirements (they'll be beefier).  For our next class make sure that you've completed the reading up to Chapter Six, that you have annotated thoroughly, and completed your motif charts for the reading.  I would also recommend going through and taking a look at some choice vocabulary.  You'll have a set of cards due soon.

Additionally, take a look over the information I gave you related to the synthesis prompt.  We'll be completing one of these soon.  Don't forget about your outlines for the research papers.  They're still due next week.  Use today to get ahead on those!

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!

The end of another week of snow days...

It's still pretty gross outside and I went the full day yesterday without power.  If you need something to do it's in the last post.  As I said before, I hope that all of you have kept up with reading and research and the like as we are going to have a very accelerated schedule to get through everything by Spring Break.

Snow Day Number 6

It's one of these winters again, and they say that we're going to get more snow tonight.  Goodness.

Russian I and II

Make sure that your journals are complete.  Make sure that you are studying nightly to practice your grammar and vocabulary.  A great thing to do is to listen to Russian music and follow along with the lyrics - think about the grammar being used, use the Yandex translator to define words and build your vocabulary.  Keep using and studying Russian during this time.  There's a YouTube channel called ELLO which is all Russian music videos.

AP English III

I hope that all of you are using this time to get ahead on Invisible Man as well as your research.  When we return there will be a new, accelerated reading schedule as well as a quick overview on the idea of research outlines before you need to turn them in.  Be productive on these days off, a bit of work now will save a lot of work later.

English II

Just like AP you all should be getting ahead with your reading.  Spend time daily with Purple Hibiscus so that when you return you can be ahead.  Pay attention to characters, work on your vocabulary, and enjoy the time to simply read and get to know these characters.  The more you read now, the less you'll have later.

Snow Day #3 - 2/18/2015

Here we go again.  Keep working on the ideas in the last post - I hope that you've been researching and reading!

SNOW DAY #2 - 2/17/2015

Who knows when we'll be back to school - maybe tomorrow, maybe Thursday.  If you're looking for something to do today, here are my suggestions.

Russian I and II

Make sure that your journals are ready to be collected since I will be seeing you our next day in school.  Continue practicing with your new vocabulary and grammar.  Make flashcards of the different endings and be able to identify which case is signified by which endings.  Spending a few hours with this throughout the day (twenty minutes here, thirty minutes there) just drilling these cards can help you to memorize and get this information down pat.

Russian II

Your weather reports will likely be due next week with the snow.  We'll talk about this more next class.  Try to get some writing done for this assignment and I'll answer questions for you next day in class.

English II

You should be reading Purple Hibiscus.  Continue working on your vocabulary development as well as noticing the characters in the text.  We'll continue working on research projects in class, but if you have reliable internet connections at home I would recommend that you work on some of this research at home.

AP English III

Make sure that you're prepared for next class.  Some of you did not submit your writing assignment on symbolism in Invisible Man, so make sure that you communicate with Ms. Alley about this.  I would suggest that you continue to read Invisible Man and use this day to get ahead on your reading.  In addition, continue working on your research assignments - find your data and create your note cards.

With that, I'm going to bundle up and take the dog for a walk!  Enjoy the day everyone!  See you soon!

Homework for B-Day Students: 2/16/2015

And that was a very fast day!  Here are your reminders to get you to our next class, whenever that happens to be.

AP English III

Make sure that you are caught up on your reading of Baldwin and on the reading of Invisible Man, chapters two through three.  Bring any lingering questions you have from the first four chapters (prologue to chapter three) as we will be spending a good chunk of time working through the first section of the text and having some time to talk through this opening.

If you did not submit your writing on the symbolism of the Battle Royal - make sure to get that in.  If you are going to submit an electronic copy, send that directly to Ms. Alley at kta5duke (at) gmail (dot) com.

Lastly, continue researching.  You should be working nightly to find sources, analyze them, and refine your argument.  Outlines will be due soon so you must continue pushing forward to make these deadlines.

English II

Not next class but the one after you need to be to the end of the first section in Purple Hibiscus, page sixteen.  Make sure that as you read, you continue to take note of the characters and any new vocabulary for this first section of the novel.  In addition, you can continue working on your research projects.  Remember that copying and pasting directly from a source is not acceptable - this is plagiarism and you will not earn credit if you plagiarize.

Snow Day Number One - 1/14/2015

Having this day off today means that we lose that day off next week, oh well.  Keep in mind that this means when we return on Thursday that we will be having an A day.  Here is what all of you can do today to make sure you're ready for the end of the quarter.

English II:

All of you should take this time to prepare for your quiz on The Odyssey, Musashi Miyamoto, and Exodus.  Remember to review characters, the elements of being a hero, and the elements of the hero's cycle.  If you don't have notes - ask a friend or send an email to me.

In addition, be aware that you need to turn in your speech and do your presentation if you did not do this on Monday/Tuesday.  Thursday and Friday will be the only days left to do this, so get it taken care of.  A lot of B-day students were not in class because of the lockdown; make sure you submit this last major assignment.

The only minor assignment you can still submit is the bumper sticker assignment.  Do that if you do not have a grade.

Russian I and II:

You have your mid-term next class.  Please let me know if you need help as you are studying and preparing.  I had a bit of a mini-review session with some Russian II students yesterday which was really productive and went over some key parts of the exam.  Let me know what you need!

AP English III:

You have your presentation of your websites on Friday.  I'd also like for all of you to bring in your copies of The Crucible because we will be starting to work on that in class at the conclusion of your presentations.

For your presentations each group will need to present its synthesis - What is your argument?  How do each of you support the argument of the group?  In addition you'll need to each speak about your piece that you analyzed and give a brief explanation of the piece and the author's argument in the piece.

If this isn't the last snow day I'm going to kvetch

I already freaked out once this morning, especially because we just got the schedule back to normal.  Oh well, I'll grade and readjust; here's what all of you should take care of on your new day off.

All Students:

It's important to realize that the end of the quarter will still be next week.  Many of you due to being sick or absent for another reason, and then with all the missing school for snow days, have missing assignments which must be made up ASAP.  Wednesday will provide a good day to take care of these things before next week when my availability will be limited.

AP English III

Your rough drafts are still going to be due next week and we will begin conferencing.  Outlines were ready for pickup, but not everyone did.  If you have your outline, and even if you don't, you will want to begin drafting and writing.  Remember to continue refining your topics to be more fine and specific and to push the argument deeper.  What is the big reason why this issue is so important?  Why should I as your audience be invested in this topic?  That's what you want to prove to me.

Next class will now be Wednesday; have your reading complete to the end of chapter twelve so that we can begin that analysis work.  I guess you all weren't meant to take the ACT; I still recommend that a lot of you take that exam - just for another data point, I did better on it than the SAT.

ESL English III

Continue reading The Kite Runner and complete your comic strips if you have not already submitted that.  Also, some of you need to finish your Persepolis test.  Make sure to see me this week to take care of those exams.

Honors English II

We will see each other again on Thursday and have our discussion of Chapter II as well as some time to work on the Multi-Genre Project.  Today gives you a chance to finish your first two products as well as your reading of the third genre.  As you read, take notes using the essential questions.  Many of you will see that these essential questions can be used to organize and approach the argument to your essay and structure that argument.

As a benchmark, please have everything that you've completed for your essay outline to class on Thursday.  I will want to see these, especially your argument on change!

Honors and ESL Students - The final day for permission slips is Friday.  Please make sure that you have that turned in!

Russian I

Our next class together will focus on finishing the Accusative case and doing some listening activities to prepare for the exam coming next week.  The date of the exam is now the 25th and 26th.  You will still have the weekend to prepare, but it is coming a bit earlier.  Our presentations will fall on the 21st (A-day) and 24th (B-day).  Use the time today to work on your presentations, build your vocabulary skills, complete the exercises on the prepositional case, and listen to the news about Russia.

Olympiada Team - Please still plan to meet with me this week.  Friday is best because I want to see all of you as a whole group to talk about the weekend and the fact that we're traveling next week.