24 February - End of the Week

English 10

A simple day to end the week in English 10. We did a bit of grammar to review some of the issues I saw from your letters that you wrote, then it was some quick time with devices for Membean. We ended our day by looking at our first key idea - the doppelganger - in an episode of The Twilight Zone called "Mirror Image". We thought about literary devices, techniques in the episode, and then wrote about the concept for today's graded assignment.

If you have missed your chance to write your letter, please schedule a time with me next week to complete that. We only have Lion Time on Tuesday of next week because of Early Release on Thursday. 

Homework for B Day Students - 7 December

AP English III

Congratulations on completing your third timed writing.  From here on out it's just forty minutes for the timed writing because that's what you'll have on the actual exam.

For tonight, delve in to The Crucible - make sure that you have read Act One and thoroughly annotated.  Don't forget to follow your character thoroughly as you read and annotate.

Also, keep an eye out for vocabulary.

English II

Tonight you have a one paragraph response which answers the question - Who is your hero and why?  The hero you have does not need to be a person that you have met, nor does it even need to be an actual person (Batman, perhaps?).  No matter whom you choose, make sure that you have a clear topic sentence, clear examples, explanation of those examples and a conclusion.

B Day Homework - Weekend Edition - 22 September

English II

Another great day.  I appreciated the chance to conference with you all today about your writing and your progress so far in class.  Over the weekend you should be working on the rewrite of your paragraphs based on what we went over together during the conference.  Use the example paragraph to help you out.

You'll turn in the revised paragraph and the old one on Monday to us and get a new grade on it before your progress reports.

You should also be reading in The Boy Who Dared.  Getting to page fifty-five by Wednesday is our reading goal.

AP English III

I hope that you all appreciated the time and effort that went in to getting your outlines back to you so quickly.  Also, we're hoping that today's class focused on writing and developing paragraphs (both body and introduction) was good for you as we move on to our rough drafts.  A few reminders to take you into the weekend:

1. Your rough drafts will be checked on Friday and we will have a workshop.  Keep working in your Google Doc and let us know if you need our help with something as you are working.  This is the joy of working in Google Docs.
2. We'll be starting our study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on Wednesday.  You should bring your copy to class with you then.  If you do not purchase your own copy you can check one out from me, but you will need post-it notes or some other means to annotate
3. Monday will be our Quest on Didion, Erickson, Capote, and Welty.  We will have one question on each of the minor pieces and then two questions on In Cold Blood.  You should be able to explain author's purpose, the use of the rhetorical triangle and the three classical appeals in order to be successful on this assessment.  One of the In Cold Blood questions is open book, so bring your copies of the text.  This will also be your final chance to resubmit annotations for In Cold Blood.

That will do it from me.  I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Homework for B-Day Students: 6 September 2016

AP English III

Tonight you have a few things to complete to prepare for our next class meeting.  First, please read and annotate Stephanie Erickson's "The Ways We Lie".  It is available in the first edition of 50 Essays or at this link.  As you read, pay attention to the way that Erickson sections her piece and the way that she uses definitions in her article.  You may also want to consider how this piece relates to Didion and Capote, especially as regards their idea of truth and lies.

Following that, make sure that you have reviewed Section III of In Cold Blood as well as the vocabulary for that section on your sheet.  We'll be working on the vocabulary in earnest next class in the computer lab.

English II

Tonight for homework we have some writing to do and some planning to do.  Please follow the instructions on your assignment sheet to review the prompt and to then complete the planning on the front.  You should then use the back of the sheet to draft your response.  This will allow me and Ms. McCormick to understand where you're starting as a writer this year.

Homework for the Weekend - 2 September - A Day

Russian II-IV

This weekend I want you all to keep working with your verb knowledge.  Now you know (or have reviewed) the present and past tense endings for the conjugation patterns as well as knowing how the stems relate to the conjugation patterns - it's time to put all of this together.  Take the five verbs that you have been working on and conjugate them for present and past tense.  As you conjugate - do the conjugations in ST before going to Russian.  Show how the stem combines with the ending, show what process happens, and then show what this means in Russian letters.  It's my hope that things are starting to make sense to you with all of this.

Be prepared for a transcription quiz soon.

Russian I

We've now learned our three groups of letters - the friends, the false friends, and the Greeks - we only have one group left to finish the whole alphabet.  This weekend, work on your handwriting packets.  You should complete everything up through exercise thirteen on page six.  Feel free to work ahead if you would like.  I'll collect this when we finish learning our letters for a homework check.

English II

This weekend you have some writing to do for us.  Read the prompt on conformity carefully and go through the tasks on the front of the sheet.  Work through those tasks and complete them on the sheet.  They'll help you to put the paragraph together on the back.  Do your best with this writing - we'll spend time working on it to revise it and make it stronger.

Homework for A Day Students - Weekend Edition - 12 May 2016

English II

Given today's workshop you really have all that you need to finish your websites and begin moving toward your presentations.  Remember that for the websites you will need at least two paragraphs that answer the research questions.  You'll need to show me how you are using facts from research by including parenthetical citations in your paragraph whenever you use a fact from your research.

By Monday's class you should have at least one paragraph uploaded to your website.  I would also recommend going ahead and finishing the citation for the resources you used to write this paragraph.  Put that on your citations page.  Also make sure that your images are complete.

Russian I

This weekend you should finish working on exercise 3.8 which has you combining sentences using our conjunctions of И, А, НО.  Remember as you use these conjunctions to combine sentences that you will want to cut down on how much of the sentence you are holding on to as you combine.  Remember to look at what we did today in class as you are working through your homework as examples of how to work through this exercise.

Remember that we will have our unit exam on unit three on Friday, May 20th.  This will be the last major grade of the year.  Today we finished learning any new content.  From here on out it is all review.

Russian II/III

All of you have your two minute introductions to your characters due on Monday.  With this I should see that you have put the work you've done to research vocabulary for your character.  You should all be prepared to speak to the class and state who you are and what your motivations are for the show.  Remember to think about the mini-introductions we see on talk shows; we get the dirt, the background, the full story from the person's perspective.

Outside of this, Russian III Students have an additional homework assignment.  You should do the translation exercise on Past Passive Participles in their short form.  That is exercise 11.12.  Use the list of PPP on page 472 to help you out.

ALL STUDENTS:

You have only until the last day of class which is May 24th for A Day students to complete any missing work or to resubmit anything.  Past this date the gradebook will be locked to any changes with the exception of the final exam.

Homework for B-Day Classes: 2/2/2016

Here are your reminders for tonight everyone:

English II

There's nothing to complete tonight except for the writing about Marquez if you did not finish that today during class.  Make sure to take some time to review your notes today on Neruda and his sonnets and odes, remember the possibility of our daily quizzes!

Lastly, we will have our exam on Latin American literature next week.  We'll be reading one of our last texts next class and finishing up the unit in the next few days.  Start studying and reviewing in preparation for your test!

AP English III

There are two major tasks for you all to complete tonight.  First, make sure that you have completed your research topic assignment.  Make sure that you have done some of your preliminary research using SIRS or some other online sources so that you can start to specify your paper, topics, and your questions.  For this assignment, we don't need anything too specific -- remember that part of the process of research is to make the topic and assignment more specific.  Stay focused on the aspects of the DADS argument that you will have to prove in this assignment.

Secondly, take a look at your reading bookmark for Invisible Man and read Chapter One.  There are all of the motifs in this chapter, so make sure that your motif chart reflects all of that information.

Homework for A Day Students - 21 January 2016

English II

Today we took our i-Ready test in class for your reading comprehension and skills.  I look forward to going over this data and using it to make my teaching better for you.  Here's what you need to accomplish for tonight - the writing work on "Tuesday Siesta" by Marquez.

Follow the steps on the handout I gave you in class.  Start with the summary from last class - if you need the full text of the story, use this link.  Write your summary in the grey box on the story.  Then, do your vocabulary for step two.  Lastly, you have your writing for step three, four, and five.  You can do all the work on the handout.  I'll check it next class.

Russian II/III

We need to spend time reviewing the conjugations of the verbs of motion again.  Stay focused on the unidirectional verbs since they're the wonky ones.  The multidirectional verbs are pretty straightforward once you remember the mutations.  Start here tonight.

Russian II - Make sure that you've completed one through ten on your assignment sheet.  We'll go over that next class and talk through the questions.

Russian III - Spend time with your cases, prepositions and prefixes.  Really understand and learn the way that these are all paired together and the way in which these are paired as opposites.  Read the information in your textbook from pages 410-418 - this will go over the verbs, the prefixes, and give you great examples of how they are used.  We'll go over this information together on Monday, but I want you to read it now and develop questions and baseline understandings.

Russian I

Learn your vocabulary!  Especially your adjectives.  Start with the colors and the word for "what type of/what kind".

Don't forget your writing assignment.  Select your two animals and describe them.  Tell what they have.  Make sure to check your adjectives for agreement!  I'll check this for completion next class.

Homework for Monday - B Day Students - 9/21/2015

English II

Tonight you'll be writing your Personal Reflection #2 - this will be on the story "The Overcoat".  Here is your prompt, make sure that you answer the question clearly using a solid paragraph.  You may want to write more than one paragraph.

Have you ever had an object that you wanted the way that Akaky wants his overcoat?  What was the object?  What did it symbolize for you?  What happened to you once you got the object?  Did you change like Akaky is changing in the story?

AP English III

Today we started to crack the surface on Emerson and "The Over Soul".  The next few classes are going to be key in helping you really make sense of what he is saying and what he means.  For tonight, start your project on being a Transcendentalist for a week.  Remember the idea is to transcend your everyday experience, so think about something you can give up to accomplish this goal.  Have fun with this assignment and discover something about yourself.  Remember that you will write one page a day about your experience for five days and then complete a final reflection on the week, due on the 29th of September.

For tonight as well, read Thoreau's "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" - while you work on Wednesday there will be a reading guide which will help you to get through the main ideas of this piece.  Continue to draw connections to Emerson - it'll make things a lot clearer.  Here's the link to Thoreau's piece if you don't have 50 Essays.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Edition - 18 September

Russian II/III

Today you survived your first exam.  Congratulations.  If there were areas of the exam which were difficult for you then I would suggest studying over the weekend to review while it's still fresh in your minds.  Over the weekend begin to study the nouns in chapter four.  We will have a spelling test on Thursday covering these nouns.

Russian I

From the reading performance I think that many of you were not totally prepared for today's test.  I will grade your tests this weekend and prepare you for corrections on Tuesday during the first half of class.  Be prepared to move forward.  Make sure that you are ready for Tuesday and that you can correct anything that you missed today.

English II

This weekend you'll be writing your Personal Reflection #2 - this will be on the story "The Overcoat".  Here is your prompt, make sure that you answer the question clearly using a solid paragraph.  You may want to write more than one paragraph.

Have you ever had an object that you wanted the way that Akaky wants his overcoat?  What was the object?  What did it symbolize for you?  What happened to you once you got the object?  Did you change like Akaky is changing in the story?

Back from the long/birthday weekend...Homework for 9/8/15 - A-Day

Remember:  Each and every day makes us older and hopefully wiser, too.

Russian II/III

Thursday we will begin with our writing conferences which we cut today in order to work on phonetics.  Make sure that for Thursday you are fully prepared with a paragraph that has all nouns, pronouns (of all types), and adjectives translated into Russian into the appropriate case.  Your paragraph should reflect all six cases.  If you use a translator/dictionary for a word, indicate that so that I can give you another, easier word or reference my dictionary.

For verbs, put your verb analysis chart at the bottom of your work.  Verb in English with tense and subject (for II and III) followed by aspect and directionality (III only).  As we conference we'll go over the individual verbs you need.

Bring your textbooks - we'll use them in class during conferences.

Russian I

Looking at your handwriting packets I see that a few of us will be having a working lunch to correct some mistakes and misunderstandings.  The grades are already posted in PowerSchool - if you have B lunch, you could come to lunch on Wednesday instead of waiting until Thursday to earn your credit back.

For tonight's homework, study your alphabet and your new vocabulary.  I encourage you all to make flashcards which will help your handwriting and memory.  Study the main words, not really the whole phrases.  Also, continue to practice with your phonetics packet - we'll have more phonics work on Thursday.

English II

I've updated PowerSchool to reflect missing assignments including the vocabulary work.  If you want to, please turn in your work tomorrow to me or Ms. Ginocchio and we'll fix the grade as soon as we can.  Remember that missing work must be turned in by Friday to be eligible for full credit.

For tonight you will be writing your first of three personal reflections to a text - remember that you will keep this until the end of our unit on Russian literature when it will be collected for a full quiz grade.  For tonight, you will reflect on Chekhov's "A Problem" - your prompt is:

Do you agree with Sasha's final thought at the end of the story that he is "indeed a criminal" or not?  Why do you agree or disagree?  Use one clear example from the story to support your opinion.

Remember to follow your rules for good paragraph writing and build complexity by talking about a story.

Homework for B-Day Students - 31 August 2015

Happy Monday Everyone!  We're back in the swing of things, and I'm especially excited about this week because it ends with my birthday!  Here are your reminders for tonight to move you into Wednesday.

AP English III

Tonight you should all be working on two tasks which will move us forward into Wednesday.  First, I want all of you to start to do the heavy lifting and work to revise your outlines - especially the thesis/argument statements since we focused on that today.  Take a moment to look at what you have written:  Most of you have given me only the defensible point that you are trying to make.  Remember that this is only one part of the necessary argument structure.  Follow the way we created Kozol's argument today and use that as a model to help you rework yours.  Once this is done, the rest of the process will begin to fall into place.

In addition, reread and annotate chapters four and six of Kozol.  Remember to apply what we are doing in class to your reexamination of the text.  This is crucial as you begin to open your approach to reading texts such as these.

English II

There is no homework that you have to complete to turn in tonight unless, of course, you forgot to turn in the final draft of your paragraphs.  Since some students have been added to the class late I'm giving everyone an additional day with no penalty to turn in these assignments.  Make sure to submit both your first and second draft of the work to get full credit.  See me or Ms. Ginocchio if you have any questions or need help.

Homework for the Weekend - 8/28/2015

Russian II/III

This weekend you have to complete some writing to turn in to me.  Take your paragraphs and begin to write in Russian.  At any point when you are using nominative, accusative, or genitive case I want you to write that in Russian.  All other case instances or verbs should be written in English.  At the bottom of you work, do a verb analysis.  Russian II - You only need to tell me the tense of the verb.  Russian III - Tell me the tense, aspect, and if it is a verb of motion, the directionality of the verb.  In addition, practice your singing!  Here's a video to go along with our song about passionate, dark, gypsy eyes!  Enjoy Fillip Kirkorov - he's a bit like a Russian Liberace.

Russian I

This weekend you should master the first three groups of Russian letters as well as the handwriting that goes with these.  Make sure that your packet is complete, for all the letters we have reviewed.  I will check these on Tuesday!

English II

You have no official homework this weekend; however, some of you need to complete your travel paragraphs and everyone needs to study their Russian literature notes.  Make sure that you are practicing and reviewing every night so that you remember everything really well.

Homework for A-Day Students: 8/26/2015

Russian II/III

Tonight, continue to work on your written paragraphs.  By the end of it, all of your paragraphs will contain all six cases - as you are writing, continue to develop your work so that all six cases are in the paragraph.  In addition, use this time to find translations of needed words.  Remember that if your paragraph involves motion/travel, you may want to talk to me about what verb to use.  Tonight you should be able to complete all the work in nominative and accusative case.

Russian I

Today we went over the second set of letters and I gave you a packet for practice which contains these letters and several others.  Please only do the letters and exercises which we have covered today.  You will finish the packet on Friday once we've finished all of the letters in the packet.  Remember to write the letters/words/sounds multiple times and to say the letter/sound/word each time you write it!

English II

For Friday I need the final draft of your travel paragraph.  Remember that when you turn in your final draft I will also need the draft you worked through today in class from peer editing.  If you would like for me or Ms. Ginocchio to look over your work, please see us outside of class before Friday.

Homework and Announcements for 8/25/2015 - B Day Students

And now I've met all of you and I can say that this year is going to be really wonderful.  I'm really excited to see how you all are approaching the course and your new year at Jordan.  Here's what you need to take care of for tonight:

AP English III

The parent information and contact sheet is located two posts down.  Make sure that if you fill out the sheet online then you bring back the paper version with the first line filled out and the word "ONLINE" at the top.  Then I'll know where to find the information.

In addition, I want you to finish reading the Alexie piece we started in class.  Make sure to read and annotate - follow the same ideas we began discussing today in class.  At the end, please answer question number two.  Make sure to write a thorough response to this question as we will spend time working through the idea in our seminar on Thursday.  The question is:

In paragraph 7, Alexie repeats a certain verb fourteen times. What is this verb, and what effect does this repetition have? What might Alexie be trying to say about the process of his coming to literacy, in terms of both the effort required and the height of the obstacles encountered (or, given the metaphor introduced in paragraph 4, the thickness of the doors that must be broken through)?

The whole Alexie piece and the question can be found at this link.

You should be able to turn in your response if I were to ask for it.  Make sure to also bring in your copy of Shame of the Nation next class.

English II

The homework for the A-day class is the same as your homework tonight.  Please complete the parent information sheet either on paper or using the online form below.  Remember to turn in the paper form, even if you complete the form online.  After this, complete the rough draft of your travel paragraph.  Remember that your paragraph needs all four parts to be complete.  Have your paragraphs with you next class so that we can complete our peer editing!

Homework and Announcements for 8/24/2015

Happy First Day of Class!  It was really great to meet a bunch of new students as well as reacquainting myself with my старики in Russian II/III.  Here are your reminders for tonight's homework - all classes have something to prepare for our next meeting on Wednesday.

Russian II/III:

Tonight you don't have to do much work in Russian - most of your work will be in English.  For tonight write your paragraph in English and then mark the words in a highlighter which will need to be in the NOMINATIVE case when you translate into Russian.  Tonight just focus on nominative case.  If there is vocabulary you need for your paragraph you can also look up words.

II:  Tell me about one thing that you do today. (Only writing in present tense)

III:  Tell me about one thing that you did this summer.  (Mixture of past and present tense)

Russian I:

Tonight you will need to start learning the first six letters of the Russian alphabet - remember these are not the first six in order, just the easy six.  Using your own paper, write the words from the homework sheet at least five times.  Practice making your letters.  Say the words aloud as you write them.  Write this on your own paper so that you can practice making your words nice and neat.  We'll begin by reviewing this next class.

English II:

Tonight your homework is to complete two things!  One - Fill out the parent information sheet either on paper or online (link below).  Two - Complete the first draft of your travel paragraph.  Make sure that you have all four parts to ensure a complete response!  We will work through these a bit more on Wednesday, when we do some peer editing.

Homework for A-Day Students - PLC Day - 1/28/2015

English II

Tonight your homework is to finish your paragraph response of the question on Sasha's character.  Remember as you write you need to first have a clear topic sentence which answers the question and gives a reason behind your answer.  You need two clear details in your writing with explanation which help prove your point.

Show what you've learned about good composition and writing and put this in to this assignment.  Don't also forget that the last day to turn in the tone assignment is next class.

Russian II

We didn't get as far as I would have liked today, but we had a good class nonetheless.  For tonight, work on your exercise focusing on using the word интерес.  Write a brief story using this word in a variety of contexts.  Make up a situation.  Project to your future.  Whatever you'd like, but use the word and use it correctly.  Remember the examples you have and the analysis we did in class.  Come and see me if you need help.

Also remember that if you haven't submitted your translation sentences these are due on Friday for final call.

Russian I

Tonight you should complete exercise nine on the use of the accusative and prepositional/locative case in Russian.  After our review of exercise eight, all of you should be able to complete this exercise.  Remember to follow the patterns.  Don't make things more complicated than they need to be.

Lastly, remember that we have the vocabulary project which is due next week.  Get ahead on this now and start to create your sentences.