Friday the 13th of January - Scary Tech Issues

English 10

Ugh. Some tech issues hit a few of us as we were writing our final essays today. If this happened to you, feel free to complete the assignment on your own this weekend or next week with me in Lion Time. If you were absent, I would recommend using Lion Time so you have access to your folders.

Over the weekend you'll want to spend some time brainstorming ideas for the problem you'll be focused on in our next unit. We'll do the official assignment to start on Wednesday next week. Remember that there's no school on Monday in honor of Dr. King.

9 January

English 10

Writing workshop day today in English 10 as we prepare for our final essay on Friday. Today our goal was the drafting of our introduction paragraph and the completion of our pre-writing. I was glad to see that so many of you were digging into history and other parts of the word to define your concepts. I'm already seeings some great growth in your approach. Remember that the whole goal as part of this is to get faster in our writing, planning, and especially our thinking. That's key when it comes to writing exams next year.

We'll finish our writing workshop next class by putting together body paragraphs. Be ready for your vocabulary test. Keep practicing with Membean if you need to. We may even get started with the next unit on Wednesday, but our goal is to be ready for Friday over anything else.

1 and 2 March

AP Language

Today we kept our selves on along as we continued through our writing days. The paper is due next week, so our days building to that eventuality are days for writing, conferencing, and working with partner groups to develop the draft. Use this time! Be efficient. Get content drafted. Your paper is due on the 10th of March at the end of the day. The 10th is the last day of the unit, so vocabulary cards are also due that day. 

English 10

Today was a really wonderful day. We took time to make a choice of what to read and then worked to collaborate with our peers to understand, analyze, and draw connections between the texts that we've read. I was glad to see your communication and collaboration with each other. Today was our last day of reading in the unit. Next class we will start with our final projects and final tasks for the unit.

Your quizzes have been returned to you online. You can do test corrections and recoup any missed points. Test corrections are due on March 8/9. I will not accept them after this date. You can also use rubles to raise your score, but that's a limited route - so I'd suggest the corrections. Next class will be a workshop day for us, so you'll be able to work on the final project or complete any final tasks for the unit like vocabulary or test corrections.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students - 27 September

With that our lovely September has come to a close, be aware that we are now in the second half of Quarter One, and it will end at the end of October.

English IV 

Today we did a lot of good work in class including our first major unit test and then drafting for our "This I Believe" essays. I think that many of you have a good idea of what you'll be doing for these essays now - remember that we're investigating a belief that is important and explaining what it means and where we got the belief from.

Over the weekend, keep thinking about your belief. Next week we'll be writing in the computer lab for these writing assignments.

AP English III

Today in class we began our discussion of The Crucible and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by discussing allegory, 1950's America, McCarthyism, and Soviet Labor Camps. Quite the mix of ideas. We also finished working through our sample argumentative prompt, so our first timed writing will be coming soon!

For the weekend, there are a few things to accomplish.

1. Assemble your draft pack in your envelope. Be sure that you have your outlines, rough draft from peer editing, and final draft with cover sheet and rubric.
2. Begin reading and annotating The Crucible. I have copies in my room that you can check out. Remember that you should have Act I read by Wednesday.
3. Read and annotate "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d" for class on Monday. From it, understand how Puritans conceptualized G-d. By knowing this, you'll really understand how they viewed the whole world.

As always, if you have questions, let me know!

Homework for A-Day: 16 April 2018

English IV

Today in class we spent most of our time finishing our essay assignments and completing work for the first novel check-in. There were many of you who did not complete the novel work, so that should be your priority for tonight. Remember that you need to show me one vocabulary card for your reading this week, a reading log of your reading for the week, project one - which is really your choice. I suggest that you complete the author study to begin.

Secondly, if you did not turn in your essay today, make sure that it is complete and a hard copy handed in by next class. I will begin grading these soon with the goal of getting them back to you so that you can resubmit them to me. Don't miss this opportunity to work on building your grade.

Next class we will spend time with our novels and have a college counselor coming to visit with some options to consider for next year.

Advanced Russian

Presentations of your projects are happening next class. Be prepared. Remember that you have an option that you can submit your presentation via recording (just have your recording ready to be played for me) or you can do it live. No matter which you do, be sure that your project work is complete for this checkpoint.

Additionally, you have some exercises to take you through the new concepts we began to learn today. Russian II is focused on words related to quantities. Work through exercises 7.9 and 7.10 - remember the rule about using genitive plural versus genitive singular. Russian III is focused on commands/imperatives. Work through exercise 9.12 for time to review the process of forming commands. Be sure that you use your textbooks as you work for reference!

Russian I

Now that we've had the chance to review the regular plural system, the main thing left for us is to take a look at the irregulars. We'll get started on that next week. For tonight, I want you focused on finishing your learning of the regular plural system. So, complete exercises four, all the way through. In this you will want to check the gender, then make the change to plural.

We'll review this next class for completion and do more with our packets to review! If you are interested in making corrections to your quiz, those are due by Friday of this week.

Homework for B Day Students - 19 October 2017

AP English III

You have your essays back and they're full of commentary to celebrate your accomplishments and to spurn your improvements. Here are the slides from today's class around Topic Sentences, Transitions, and the other Rules for Good Writing. As you are revising you can feel free to come in and chat with us (props to the people who already have) and you can bring us samples of the work you are doing to make sure that you are on the right track. Keep in mind that all revisions are due no later than Thursday next week. Anything received after Thursday will not be graded or reassessed.

Other than that this weekend you should spend time on your Drama Projects. I am deleting the written comparison between your play and The Crucible but I am keeping the visual part. For the visual you have a lot of options - just make sure that you are clearly comparing/contrasting one aspect of your play and the same aspect in The Crucible. You should also be memorizing your dialogues and writing your paragraphs to go along with the dialogue/monologue.

Lastly, there is a final quiz on The Crucible on Wednesday. It will cover Acts III and IV. The format will be the same as the last quiz with multiple choice questions and quotations. Study and review your feedback from the last quiz so that you will be more successful on this one.

English IV

Today in class you hopefully got a lot done as we are finishing our unit on The Canterbury Tales. If you can continue working in Google Classroom, please do so. Begin working on the resume, particularly, so that you are prepared and ready to end the quarter in a solid position.

Homework for B Day Students - 11 October 2017

AP English III:

If you did not submit a final draft pack in today's class it is very important that you complete and submit the paper by Friday so that Mr. Bernhard and I have a chance to grade and review your work this weekend. Remember that you will get one chance to resubmit after we return the final drafts back to you with feedback. I found many of your essays shared to me in my Drive folder, I will print and pair essays or leave comments online for you as I complete your rubric.

For next class you should read and annotate Oluadah Equiano's "Narrative of the Captivity" - remember to set a purpose for your reading and then to accomplish that purpose. You also have three vocabulary cards due on Friday. I will be checking your vocabulary bookmarks as well.

As a more long term thing, make sure that you are working on your Act III reading as well as your Drama Projects. There is not a lot of other work going on this weekend - so you have a great chance to get a lot done with your Drama Project.

English IV:

Make sure that if you want to revise your essays or do anything to raise or turn in any missing work then you should get that done as soon as possible. Also, make sure that you are continuing to work on your resume checklist - we'll be going through finishing a lot of that work up very soon.

Monday Night Homework - B Day - 9 October 2017

English IV:

Make sure that you have filled out the resume checklist for our next class. Our final writing piece in this unit will be your personal resumes which you will complete with the information on this planning sheet. You should also make sure that you have done work on the character projects so that you can quickly complete those in the next few classes. We'll be finishing this unit up quick, be ready!

AP English III:

On Wednesday we don't have any reading due. You have Oluadah Equiano's Narrative to read and annotate for Friday's class. Feel free to begin on it now. You also have Act III to read and annotate for Tuesday's class. Again, get ahead on the reading so that you have time for other things.

The main task for Wednesday is your final draft of your essay. For the final draft packet make sure that you turn in any and all outlines - this is your final chance to resubmit on outlines. You also need any and all rough drafts, but especially the one from our editing conferences in class. Lastly, you need the final draft with cover sheet filled out and honor code signed, the essay, and then the rubric. These should be stapled together.

Lastly, if you have anything missing (vocabulary cards or annotation checks) make sure that you have submitted these things in order to get credit!

Homework for B Day Students - 3 October 2017

AP English III

Good work today on getting through Act One and a bit with "A Narrative of the Captivity" - remember that we will keep working through The Crucible and Mary Rowlandson on Thursday. To take us on to Thursday, make sure that you have done the following:

1. Read and annotate Act II - as you do that take a look at the ideas we drew out today in class. Apply these to Act II as you are going through and annotating to see how this act builds upon the ideas we discovered in Act I.
2. Select and begin reading a play for your drama projects. Remember you have a performance aspect as well as two writing assignments with this.
3. Continue to work on essays and remember you have final drafts next week on Monday.

If you didn't submit vocabulary cards, be sure to get those in as soon as you can.

English IV

Make sure that you are continuing to work on your character projects or revise your essays based on the feedback you received today in on your drafts. Keep in mind that if you do a new version of your essay, you'll need to turn in the original along with the new version too.

Homework for the Weekend - 29 September 2017

AP English III

We have a few things to take care of or to start taking care of this weekend. I'll go over the short term things first and then move on to the longer term items.

1. Complete your next set of Vocabulary Cards (6-10). You should pick words from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d", The Crucible, and your tone word sheet. Account for all parts of the card. Use appropriate resources and turn them in electronically via Google Slides or on paper.
2. Read and annotate Mary Rowlandson's "Narrative of the Captivity" - for this piece, pay attention to the depiction and view of non-Puritans, the role of women in Puritan society, as well as any biases or elements of sensationalism in the text.
3. For Thursday we'll be working through Act II of The Crucible. You may want to start the process of reading and annotating this now.
4. Next week is our conference week. Mr. Bernhard and I are available during lunch, before and after school. Please make an appointment with us to review any drafts or outlines so that you can move to the final draft and know that you have a solid piece of writing.

All of the resubmissions turned in today should be entered in the gradebook no later than Sunday.

English IV

Many of you chose to take with you some of the graphic organizers so that you can continue to work on your characters project related to The Canterbury Tales. Here's a link to an online version of The Canterbury Tales. Make sure that if you have to spend time working on this that you complete this work over the weekend. On Tuesday we'll return to the lab in order to finish our research and we'll complete the reading of "The Wife of Bath's Tale".

Homework for B Day Students - 27 September 2017

AP English III

Lots of good work today on our editing skills as well as our discussion of Edwards and "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d" - I think that you have a pretty solid understanding of who the Puritans were as a people and how they conceptualized the divine. Pay this forward into your reading of The Crucible.

For Friday our main task is to read and annotate Act I of The Crucible so that we can have a productive seminar on Friday and work through acting and viewing some of these scenes. As you read, pay attention for vocabulary. This weekend you'll have another set of cards to make.

Your final drafts of your essays on In Cold Blood and the nature/nurture debate will be collected on October 9. Please come and conference with us later this week or next week to review your draft before the final drafts are collected. Also, make sure that you are using the rubric to guide your revisions as well.

Lastly, if you have any work left to submit, that is due on Friday. We are closing this first unit and moving on, it's important that everything be settled.

English IV

Also a lot of good work today around understanding different types of characterization and in finishing up some of your character project work. Next class we'll start reading one of Chaucer's tales in order to see how he puts these characterization skills to work.

Continue to work on any missing work that you may have, including the essay. That is the most important thing right now.

Homework for B Day Students - 21 September

English IV

Remember that on Monday, we will go to the computer lab to finish our "Me You Don't See" essays and turn them in to be graded. If you haven't already checked on your draft in Google Classroom, make sure you do before Monday to see and respond to Mr. Bernhard's comments. Try to respond to these as soon as you can, so on Monday we are able to finish the drafts quickly.

Although we got some good work done, today's class meeting could have been more productive; we can always improve at staying on task and following directions. Before next class, mentally prepare to finish the Creative Writing part of the Canterbury Tales character project and get a good start on the Professional Writing portion. Have a great weekend, and arrive on Monday ready to work!

AP English III

Great job today grinding away at the timed writing prompt. Writing good essays in such a small amount of time is challenging, but you will be very well prepared come AP Exam season in May. Before next class, keep working on summer assignment and essay outline resubmissions, as well as resubmissions of vocabulary cards. We are getting close to time to begin writing our In Cold Blood essays. Have a great weekend, and don't forget that everything we do is getting you ready for success later on this year!

Homework for Monday - 22 May 2017 - B Day

AP English III

Remember that next class we will have our end of year party! Please be prepared with your item to share for the group, your costume, and your character sheet. Your sheet is due at the beginning of class, to start the party.

English II

If you did not finish your essay today on Google Classroom and hit "Turn In" then you will want to work hard to finish that tonight. Your essays are due by Thursday and are the final grade for the year in this class. Make sure that you are showing me everything you've learned about good writing this year.

Homework for B-Day Students: 28 March 2017

AP English III:

Good discussion today in class to understand the importance of Rinehart and his symbolism throughout the whole text. I was happy to see so many of you annotating and developing your notes in the text as we read. Tonight, continue on to Chapter Twenty-Four when he attempts to rinehart his way to some information. Pay attention to vision/dreams/sex/power in terms of your motif charts. There's a lot of strange stuff going on in the chapter - generate questions and be prepared for Thursday. Also remember to complete your blogs for Chapter Twenty-Four.

As a final reminder, I will collect final drafts of your research paper on Monday, April 3rd. Next class we'll go over formatting issues and I'll release the rubric to you so that you have it for final edits. I'm available all week in the morning (8:00-9:00), at C-Lunch, and quickly after school (until about 4:15-4:20) to meet and discuss your papers with you.

English II:

Today we finished our reading of Oedipus the King. Next class we'll do some writing, play a final review game to prepare for our exam, and do more work with vocabulary. Make sure that you are reviewing your notes in order to prepare for your exam.

Homework for A Day Students - 14 December 2016

Advanced Russian

Your writing projects are due on Friday.  Make sure that you are prepared to meet this goal.  Additionally, we will work through a lot of the new grammar on Friday to clarify any confusions.  If you need to finish the exercises on the new grammar, make sure that those are done so that you can ask questions on Friday.

Russian I

I hope you enjoyed the watching of Zhivago today - we'll stay rolling through Siberia for a few more classes.  On Friday we will have our quiz on the nominative, accusative, and prepositional cases.  Make sure that you know your declensions and your grammar.  Also, verbs will be on the quiz since it's hard to do much without a verb.

English II

Great day today, guys.  Very productive.  If you need to finish your essay, be sure to get that work done for Friday.

Homework for A Day Students - 12 December 2016

I just realized that it's 12/12.  Is there a special thing for this?  I don't know.

Advanced Russian

I hope that all of you felt prepared for your quiz today.  I'll have the grades posted to PowerSchool as soon as I can.  If you want to reassess, we will settle that next week.  Also, if you want to do ruble exchange for extra credit, we can take care of that next class.

For homework tonight you should be reading from your textbook (or from your textbook as well as your short story [Russian IV]).  Take notes and generate questions as you go through the new content.  It's my hope that next class we will have a chance to finish our work on the recent episodes of Night Swallows as well as begin on the final portions of this unit.

Russian I

You all did very well today during our review work on grammar.  Tonight, make sure that you have finished your sentences about yourself and generated images that pair with those images.  Develop the sentences further if you want by adding more details (locations, et cetera).  You have a major quiz on Friday on the grammar we've been learning, prepare yourself accordingly.

English II

Your final drafts of your essays will be collected on Friday.  Make sure that you have a finished draft from today's class with some feedback so that you can meet your final deadline.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Edition - 8 December

Advanced Russian

We have a quiz on Monday which will focus on the new grammar and vocabulary in the unit.  Here are some reminders for what to study over the weekend:

Russian II - numbers (spelling and counting rules), time expressions and prepositions with time
Russian III - forming imperatives in Russian from verbs
Russian IV - forming superlatives and comparisons in Russian from adjectives

Additionally, you have your writing assignments.  I was happy to see so many of you working diligently in the lab today.  These projects will be collected on Friday.  We will have a bit of time in class on Monday and Wednesday to keep working.  We will also be going on to the next piece of these chapters on Monday.

Russian I

You will have a grammar quiz on Wednesday which will focus on the three cases (Nominative, Accusative and Prepositional) as well as verb conjugation.  Make sure that you use the exercises that we have now completed to prepare.  We will play a lot of review games on Monday to prepare us for the quiz.  We'll also get back to Zhivago.  Please be actively studying and reviewing this weekend.

English II

Over the weekend you have your writing to complete about your personal hero.  Make sure to write a one-paragraph response which uses a topic sentence, clear example, explanation of the example and a brief conclusion.  Your writing should reflect what you know now about effective writing.

Also, our essays will be due next week.  For those of you who finished today, we'll be looking at draft workshops next week for you.  For those of you who have yet to finish, please work with me outside of class to get this done.

Homework for All Classes - A and B Day - 10/4/2016

I was out yesterday celebrating the New Year (5777) so I didn't post this - here you are!

Russian I, II, III, IV

Next class we have reassessments (alphabet/phonics/vocabulary OR one stem verb system) as well as dialogue presentations.  Be ready for those.  If you're in Russian III or IV, you don't have a dialogue to present, but you have to listen and understand and transcript.

English II

Make sure that if you are missing anything (mostly it's the vocabulary assignment) that you get that done and turned in ASAP because we are going to be doing a lot with vocabulary over the next few classes.  Also, bring your books to class every day!

AP English III

Your papers are due next class.  Make sure that your packet is complete and that you have all of the supporting documentation in the packet.  For Monday, you have your next section of reading in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Chapters Seven through Twelve.  Take the work that we did today in class and make sure that your annotations for Chapters One through Six are complete and thorough.

Special Note for AP - Remember that your argument/thesis is now DEBATABLE.  This means you have to deal with and refute the counter argument at some point in the body of your essay.  Don't forget this very important step!

Homework for the Weekend - B Day - 30 September 2016

L'shana tova!  Happy New Year!  

AP English III

Over the weekend you should be working on two things:  First, you need to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapters one through six.  As you read, annotate.  Remember to add to your covers and investigate elements of humor and satire as well as repeated ideas.  Continue to focus on characters - their development and their conflicts.  Considering our discussion today around language and identity could also be helpful.

Second, we have your final drafts to begin developing.  Use the rubric you received today as well as the feedback from your conference to revise.  If you need/would like me or Ms. McCormick to look at your paper, let us know.  Come in for a conference before Wednesday afternoon.  Once Wednesday gets here we won't be talking about these papers with you.  Your final draft and the supporting documents will be collected on Thursday.

English II

Make sure that you are to page fifty-five in The Boy Who Dared for Tuesday's class.  We'll be getting back to Helmuth.  Hopefully our discussion on Dr. King over the last few classes gives you a lot to think about to connect these two men and times in history.

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!