Friday the 9th of September

AP English Language

Time spent with Thomas Jefferson today as we worked through "The Declaration of Independence" and understood some of the keys to annotating in this class. I enjoyed your attention to our work related to topic, audience, and speaker. Remember that texts will often have several audiences, so speakers will tweak their approaches in order to address a specific audience. We saw this as Jefferson had slightly different arguments to his various audiences - the colonists, the representatives, and the king.

Over the weekend, you should start in on your next set of cards. If you haven't submitted your first set, be sure to do so as soon as you can. Grades will be updated next week. I would also suggest starting one of the three choice articles - Anzaldua, Apess, or Sedaris' "Go Carolina". These are available as PDF's on our course page or in the textbook.

AP Research

A day where we give and get feedback is always a lovely day in AP Research. It gladdens my heart to see you all so engaged with each other and with making each other better. I'm also enjoying seeing the development of your ideas - using your sources and your building Body of Knowledge to develop your ideas are key right now.

Our work today focused on learning how to test our sources for credibility and then getting some work on our research questions. Use the feedback from your peers to revise your research questions. This is so important. Also use the feedback and gaps on your organizer to go back to the databases. Keep building your reading log and source list. Lastly, your new reflection question has been posted for this week - be sure that you add your answer to the running list.

Day 2 - 25 and 26 August

AP English Language

Today we took time in class to brush off our skills of annotating and to work with what is our anchor document for this unit - "The Declaration of Independence" by Thomas Jefferson. We talked about topics and motifs, main ideas and arguments, as well as the diction that Jefferson uses to appeal to his audience (as well as who that audience was). 

Tonight, spend time with the document posted on Schoology, the "rough draft" and see what changes you note. What may have motivated Jefferson to make those changes? Is the document significantly changed from one to the next? Remember to annotate! There are also the forms to the syllabus and the optional summer assignment open for submission.

English 10

Thanks for a great day today, everyone! We started our day reflecting on the concepts of culture clash and conflict before building a bridge to the idea of stereotypes. I loved the discussion we had around how stereotypes can be indicative or a product of a culture clash. 

We then spent time with a TEDTalk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called "The Danger of a Single Story" and answered some questions ans we considered her speech. Tonight, keep thinking about your single story versus your full story - we'll finish our reflection next class.

Remember to access the syllabus and signature form on Schoology to complete that task. The syllabus is under Materials - Course Resources.