27 and 28 October - This is the end...

Quarter 1 is now officially over. Grades have been posted for Quarter 1. No changes will be made. Remember that quarter one counts less than your other quarters because I know that you are readjusting to things. If you've faced challenges, it is important to reflect on those and chart a new course forward. Don't keep repeating the same process and expect a different outcome. You should also know that the course will begin to get more difficult as we move forward. With that, on to the the updates.

AP Language

Today was essentially our end of the unit for The Crucible. We discussed some of Miller's ideas and purposes through the play as we participated in a jigsaw discussion on excerpts from his article. I think that it is extremely important that we noticed the ways in which history and humanity stay the same throughout the eras, even though there are significant changes. 

After that, we launched into our mini-project where we're comparing Mean Girls and The Crucible - the playlist for the clips are linked on Schoology. Remember to use your viewing guide and select ONE element for your compare/contrast. Decide if the elements are generally similar or different between the two texts and then explore the importance of this similarity OR difference. You'll construct a visual comparing/contrasting the two elements (character, conflict, theme, motif, setting, etc.) and then the mini-essay. Follow the outline on the back of the viewing guide for the mini-essay.

Be aware of the following assignments that will open Quarter 2:

• AP Classroom FRQ and MCQ (10/29 or 11/3)
• Timed Writing - The Crucible Unit Exam and Mini-Project (11/8 or 11/9)
• Vocabulary Cards 2 (11/8 or 11/9)
• Websites will be scored the week following.

We're opening Q2 with a lot of points! Use this weekend to get ahead and be prepared. Remember that we're going to be studying The Great Gatsby next.

English 10

We had a very chill and easy day to end quarter one. I am very happy that so many of you completed your test corrections and used this opportunity to raise your scores before the end of the quarter. I also hope that by reviewing your work and your answers that you see your mistakes, and don't repeat them in the future. After test corrections, we took time for some grammar and then moved to our novels.

We will finish this unit by Thanksgiving Break. Your final assessment on your book will be a project - more on this later - that focuses on how the characters have grown up through the course of the book. There is a graphic organizer we'll begin to fill out to help us track these changes. For now, it's important to keep reading!

Next class we'll have our NoRedInk Diagnostic Test (remember you'll get a 4.0 for completion of the test) and any time afterwards will be for you to collect and complete vocabulary. These two assignments will be your first grades for Quarter 2, and both are very easy ways to start with a 4.0 - just do the thing!

Homework for English Students - A Day - 20 December 2017

English IV

Today, we finished watching She's the Man and completed our accompanying viewing guides. After that, we discussed the film in comparison to Twelfth Night, drawing conclusions and making some connections between the two works. We closed class with some work on a short writing assignment. If you've missed class, get in touch with me or Mr. Miller for class notes and the assignment description. Have a wonderful Winter Break, looking forward to seeing you in 2018!

Homework for B-Day Students: 1 November 2017

English IV

Your work is the same as your colleagues in the A-day group. Begin collecting and reviewing your notes on The Canterbury Tales for review and to prepare for your exam next week. The exam will cover The Canterbury Tales as well as information around writing and vocabulary. Prepare yourselves! We'll continue to review on Friday.

AP English III

You may continue to present your monologues on Thursday (before or after school) or on Friday (before school, after school, during B lunch, or during class in our time). All visuals and paragraphs will need to be collected by Friday so that Mr. Bernhard and I can have them graded in time. This project is a good example of how to work in this class. You can't do this project all in one night. It can only successfully be done if you work on it a bit at a time. Hopefully those of you who procrastinated on this assignment will learn from that mistake and rectify this in the future.

You will also have a timed writing on Friday. We will start with the timed writing. It will draw on The Crucible and Mean Girls - you will be expected to draw on those two "texts" for the majority of your evidence. You will be able to use your notes for the assignment, but your notes will not be graded themselves.

We are starting this quarter with six "test" grades - make sure that you're not getting yourselves into a deep hole. See me if you need help.

Homework for B-Day Students: 17 May 2016

AP English III

Tonight you all need to work on two things at the same time - the work which will finish out our year.  First, you have your compare and contrast assignment on Mean Girls and The Crucible.  Remember that you are focusing on a motif and then elucidating that motif using evidence related to characters or conflicts.  Recall that you have to be making a clear insight about our society related to this motif.  Prove and relate that point!

Further, we also know our final day of class will be on the 25th of May.  You'll have your Character Cafe this day.  Bring in your snack/party item as well as your costume for our day.  You also have your entry ticket to the party which is your completed "Character Bone Structure" activity sheet.  The answers on this sheet should be based on the text in which the character is found or the author him/herself.

English II

We have our website presentations beginning next class.  Half of you will present on Thursday and the following half will present on Monday to finish our year.  Please make sure that you have used the rubric to prepare your final product.

The key things to remember are:

• you must have at least two focus paragraphs for your website
• you must deal with the other questions/pages - if you can't find information, address that fact and move on
• your must have at least one photo per page
• you must cite where your information has come from
• you should have an introduction to your website on the home page
• you can have notecards for your presentation

This is your final major grade of the year - make it count!

Homework for B-Day Students: 13 May 2016

English II

Hopefully with our workshop today in class you all were able to finish a good chunk of work on your websites.  Make sure that by the end of the weekend you have really:

1.  finished and uploaded your two focus paragraphs with parenthetical citations
2.  finished your citation page
3.  uploaded an image for each page

This weekend - please finish the Elie Wiesel writing and stay focused on his use of subjective and objective language.  Remember as you read that you should find at least one objective example and one subjective example per page.  Remember that as we discussed in class, some paragraphs can have a mix of objective and subjective language - remember to think about the difference between facts and feelings.

We will start website presentations on Thursday.  It is important that you finish everything by then.

AP English III

Take some time to sum up the observations that you made from today's viewing of Mean .  If you turned in your copy of The Crucible then feel free to use this online version.

We'll finish this next class and have a brief writing workshop before we move on to looking at one of my favorite American authors, Ms. Flannery O'Connor.

Also - here's the link to the Russia trip.

Homework for A-Day Students - 29 October 2015

English II

There are a few things to accomplish as we move into next class - let's go over them in order of importance.

1. Read the next two chapters of Persepolis - "The Sheep" and "The Trip".  As you read, take notes on characters, plot, and new vocabulary.  You'll have a quiz on these chapters on Monday.
2. Complete the paragraph which compares/contrasts your childhood to Marji's if you did not already turn that in today.  The only other day we will accept this assignment is Monday.
3. Select your moment in your life for your personal narrative project.  We'll spend some time working on projects on Monday, most likely.

Russian I

Continue studying your new vocabulary and grammar especially the older concepts such as verb conjugation and possessive pronouns.  These will continue to be important as we move forward.  For tonight's homework, you're going to complete exercise three on page fifty.  You have ten questions which will require you to use the PREPOSITIONAL CASE in your answers.  Review the way in which we change words to put them in the prepositional case and answer the ten questions.  Remember to write out full answers.

Russian II

Tonight you are focusing on numbers.  On page 221, you will complete exercise sixteen.  In this exercise you need to write out the answers to the questions that you are asked.  Remember that each answer will start with the word B (At).  Please write your numbers out in words so that you are able to learn this vocabulary.

Russian III

Tonight you are reading in the textbook and taking notes on the modal expressions we briefly reviewed today in class.  Read over pages 366-369 and develop your knowledge on the use of modals, especially as they relate to tense and aspect.  We'll review this on Monday in some detail.  To help you with your knowledge of the five modals I am asking you to write one sentence with each modal.  Please as you write use the new vocabulary in the chapter to help you to learn and reinforce these new words.

Homework for the Weekend - B Day - 10/31/2014

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

AP English III

I hope that you all enjoyed working with Ms. Alley today on your analysis of "The Death of the Moth" - I was especially impressed by the connections that you made to The Great Gatsby as well as to "The Oversoul".  Making these connections when you study literature is so important and good to do!

For the weekend you have a few things on your plate:

1. Finish reading The Great Gatsby - ensure that your covers are fully annotated and that you have thorough annotations throughout the text.  
2. Read A. Petrunkevitch's "The Spider and the Wasp" - you do not have to read and prepare this piece for class discussion; it will only be used for your writing assignment.
3. Complete the graphic organizer using mostly direct quotations from both Woolf and Petrunkevitch.
4. Write your compare/contrast assignments on the TONE used in each of the two pieces.  Here is the question that you should consider as you are writing:  Both Petrunkevitch and Woolf chronicle the death of an insect but in vastly different ways.  How does the author's tone establish a difference in purpose?  Your graphic organizer and typed, compare/contrast assignment will be due on Thursday.

In terms of long-term planning, you will have your presentations likely on the 10th of November, your test on the 13th, and we will begin our study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the 17th - go ahead and get yourself a copy now.

English II

No homework for tonight as you had a test today in class.  

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

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

Honors English II:

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

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

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

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

ESL English III

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

Homework for the Weekend - 11/1 and 11/2

Freshman Focus

Now that we've finished our debate on education I would like for you all to review your experience and write a reflection. For the reflection, please answer the following questions:

1. Overall, how was this experience for you? What would you do differently next time? What do you think you did well?

2. Which team won the debate? Why did they win?

3. If we do another debate in class, what can I do to make the experience better for you?

Please answer the three questions in a brief paragraph for each. When you've finished, make sure that you turn in your work to me on Monday/Wednesday morning.

AP English III

I've gone ahead and given you the outline for your second vocabulary assignment - the vocabulary slides. I'm putting the link here so that you can review the required information needed on the slide. Be sure to use dictionary.com or the Oxford English Dictionary in my classroom to find the required information. This will be officially assigned to you on Monday/Wednesday.

The real assignment you have this weekend is the Woolf/Petrunkevitch tone compare/contrast assignment. To complete this assignment you must first complete the graphic organizer to find evidence from each piece. Then, you will create your one to two page assignment. With this assignment, don't focus on making a thorough essay - focus on creating your argument, proving the argument with evidence from the two pieces, and then conclude. Remember that the assignment is about comparing and contrasting the tone of the author - stay focused on the prompt. You will want to add complexity to your argument by coming to a decision as to why each author uses their particular tone.

These tone assignments and graphic organizers will be collected on Monday/Wednesday. No late assignments will be accepted. We're past that point.

English IV

For homework over the weekend you have two tasks to complete. First, you need to finish your quotation analysis from chapter ten if you did not finish it in class. If you did finish it, great! All you have to do is the test review. We will be having our test on Book II of 1984 on Thursday and Friday next week. To prepare, I would like for you all to do a bit of review and preparation for me. You will be writing sample test questions for Book II. I would like for you to write:

• one short answer question
• four multiple choice questions with answers

We will use these to begin our test review on Monday/Wednesday. You will be graded on this, so make sure that you have completed this assignment before you walk in.