Final Grades Complete

Everyone except for students in English II will now find their final grades for the year posted in PowerSchool.  I have finalized grades for all classes except for English II - I am waiting on EOC scores and will likely have them uploaded by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Final Grades - 3B

I have grades complete for AP English III (3B) and for (2B) since we had some late exams.  If you would like to know where you fall for the year, please let me know.

English II Students - You have your EOCs beginning on Monday morning.  4A students will test Monday morning in room 212.  Be on time for your exam.  4B students will test on Tuesday morning in the Media Center.  Again, be on time.  Make-up exams will be held on Wednesday, but taking a make-up exam will severely delay your final scores.

Enjoy the last weekend of school!

Final Grades - 3A

I have finished grades for Russian I.  If you would like to know where you fell for the year, please let me know.

Final Grades - 2B

I have grades finalized for Russian II/III and AP English III (2B).  Please see me if you would like to know your final standing in the class.

Final Grades

I have final grades calculated for Russian 2/3. I won't be able to enter them until the 8th of June in PowerSchool, but if you'd like you can see me before or after school. 

Exams Upcoming

Russian II/III Students

Your exam will be held on Tuesday morning at 7:30 in my classroom.  Please make sure that you are on time and prepared for the exam. 

If you have any textbooks or class materials, please bring them.

Exams Have Begun!

Please follow the exam schedule and ask if you don't know where or when to be.  At this point, grades have been finalized for the fourth quarter with a few exceptions.  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Reminders for B-Day Students: LDOC - 5/25/2016

And with that the school year has come to a close.  Thanks for a great finish today.  Remember that if you are exempt from my final exam (AP English III) then you are essentially done for the year.  If you would like to come to the review and take the exam, it can only help you.

If you are not exempt from the exam I expect to see you at the review session.  I also expect to see all English II students at the review since none of you are exempt from state testing.

Homework for A-Day Classes - LDOC - 5/24/2016

English II

We're all done!  Remember that we have our review session and our EOC still ahead.  Our review session will fall on June 3rd at 11:32.  Our EOC will be on Monday, June 6th at 7:30 in room 212.

Russian I

We're all done too!  Our final review session will fall on June 1 at 11:32 and our exam will be on June 2nd at 7:30.  You will have listening, reading, writing, and speaking along with your grammar questions and tasks.

Remember to keep your practice up over the summer, especially for those of you who are exempt.

Russian II/III

And we are done too!  Yay for your work and accomplishment today in our talk show.  Our review session will be on May 31st at 11:32 and the exam will follow on the next day at 7:30.

B-Day Homework and Reminders - 23 May 2016

English II

To those of you who have missing assignments or would like to revise your essays for a new grade, please make sure that anything you still have gets turned in next class - Wednesday, the 25th of May.  This is the day that we will finish everything for class including: Escape from Sobibor and your viewing guide for the film, our EOC review game, and a few quick reminders for the end of the year.

None of you are exempt from my final exam - so you should all be at my review session.

AP English III

Next class we will be having our character cafe - please make sure that you have your character study sheet complete.  You may drop off food and props and costumes in the morning - just make sure that it is in a bag and that your bag is labeled with your name.

I'll be finalizing exemptions and all of that next class so if you need to know, you should ask.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day - 20 May 2016

There is only one more A day left in the year before we begin examinations!

Russian I

This weekend you should spend your time reviewing verbs.  You have your verb charts to go over regular verb conjugation.  Work through your Russian I verb list and complete the conjugations that go along with the verbs.  Also, remember the cases that pair with the verb to create whole sentences.

We'll continue to look at these on Tuesday and do some more practice with them then.

Be reminded that since Tuesday is the last day of class any retakes or submissions of missing work or completing missing quizzes due to absence is Tuesday.  That is your last chance.

Russian II/III

Over the weekend you should spend time preparing for our talk show on Tuesday.  Make sure that you have your costume, your props, your introduction to your character and any notes that you may have made to help you with the speaking.

Also, make sure to answer the questions which Myah is preparing for you.  Those questions and answers will be a very useful tool to prepare yourself for Tuesday.

Be reminded that since Tuesday is the last day of class any retakes or submissions of missing work or completing missing quizzes due to absence is Tuesday.  That is your last chance.

English II

Remember that you all will start with me on Tuesday.  We're going in reverse order that day.  On Tuesday we will finish our website presentations and then go on to finishing Escape from Sobibor and our viewing guides on the film.

Be reminded that since Tuesday is the last day of class any retakes or submissions of missing work or completing missing work due to absence is Tuesday.  That is your last chance.  Some of you have missed a lot of class recently - please finish strong.  We'll go over our exam schedule on Tuesday.

Homework for B-Day Students: Weekend Edition - 19 May 2016

There are only two B-days left in the regular school year!  Yay!  So exciting!

AP English III

Have fun this weekend - that's your homework.  On Monday we'll finish up with Flannery O'Connor, sign up for our food items for our character cafe on Wednesday and round out the year with course evaluations.

English II

If you have any missing assignments or need to take this weekend to finish your website project it is important that you settle that work no later than Wednesday.  Monday will be the day that we will finish our presentations and get back to watching Escape from Sobibor.  On Wednesday we'll finish the film, play some review games, and round out the year.

Homework for A Day Classes - 18 May 2016

Russian I/II/III

You all have your assessments next class to prepare for.  Hopefully after today's class you are feeling ready for them.  Here are some quick questions to ask yourself to check your preparation:

Russian III Students:

• Can you identify the different endings for participles and use those endings to indicate the voice and tense of the participle?
• Can you recognize the verbal root to the participle?
• Do you know how to find the antecedent for a participle?
• Can you rewrite a participial phrase as a который phrase?

Russian II Students:

• Do you know when you should use a double negative expression versus a singular negative expression?
• Where do prepositions go when working with negative expressions?
• Do you know the difference between не and ни?

Russian I Students:

• Can you identify your parts of speech in Russian?
• Can you identify genders for these parts of speech in Russian?
• Do you know which words are irregular plural words?
• Can you form the plural from the singular in the nominative case?
• Do you remember what your conjunctions are and what they mean?

These quizzes will be your final assessment before the Final Examination (except for your speaking assignment for Russian II/III).  Make sure that you show your best on this.

English II:

For our final two classes we will be presenting our research projects and then watching a film to finish our study of the Holocaust and genocides.  Pay attention to the reminders below as your are finishing your websites tonight.  Remember - everyone should be ready to present next class, even if your website isn't perfect.  

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 Monday - 16 May 2016 - A Day Students

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

Tonight - 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 Friday.  It is important that you finish everything by then.

Russian I/II/III

You'll be having quizzes on Friday.  Make sure that you are all preparing yourselves based on the grammar ahead of you on your quiz.  Here is a brief outline:

• Russian I - plurals in the nominative case and conjunctions
• Russian II - using double negatives in Russian
• Russian III - recognizing and being able to analyze participles in Russian

We've been spending a lot of time on all of these goals recently, so hopefully you are feeling prepared.  I also spent time going over what you are missing (if anything) at this point in the year.  Remember that I won't take any late work past the last day of class which is Monday, the 24th of May.

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 - 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 Student - 11 May 2016

AP English III

I hope you crushed it.  I hope that there was nothing left for you to give and you put it all on the paper.  Good work.  Remember to bring your things for our study of Mean Girls on Friday.

English II

Tonight for homework you should finish the rough draft of your first focus paragraph for your website.  Remember that you need to clearly answer the research question, provide evidence to support and clarify your answer, and then explain that evidence.  If you are using any information from your research, it should be cited.

Additionally, you may want to go ahead and finish up your MLA citation for your citation page based on this paragraph.  For example, if you've used one source to write your focus paragraph you will want to create your citation for this source on your citation page.

We'll have a writing workshop next class to start finishing up this assignment.

Homework for A Day Students - 10 May 2016

English II

Now that we have gone over the requirements of the website project I hope that you will all be actively working on completing these over the next few classes.  We will only be working on them in class for about two more sessions.  They should be finished by the end of next week.

Next class I'll be checking your research cards.  You should have five cards total - with one on each topic and an extra on a topic where you've found a lot of information.  Five cards is the minimum.  Do more if you need to.

If you have any missing work, like the paper - make sure to turn it in sooner rather than later.

Russian I

For homework you should complete the masculine nouns, moving from the singular to the plural.  There are some of the irregulars that we learned today within this list, so make sure that you use your notes as you are working.

Additionally, you have the study guide for the final exam.  Remember that it will cover Chapters One, Two and Three from our textbook.  You should be reviewing the information in these chapters and the study guide.  If you can't do something, then make sure to ask soon so that you can review.

Russian II/III

For homework tonight you should all be focusing on the new vocabulary within your chapters.  Level Three students also need to keep working on exercise eleven.  You're moving on to sentences 7-13.  For these sentences remember to analyze the participles for (gender, active/passive, present/past, case, and antecedent) as well as being able to translate the participle.

If you can, try to change the sentence into a который sentence - you may have an easier time managing the grammar using a который construction.

Level II students should continue to focus on new vocabulary and negation - you will have a final unit quiz/test soon on these concepts before the end of the year.

Homework for B Day Students - 9 May 2016

Happy Victory Day!  С Днем Победы!

If we were in Russia we would be at a parade today, but we're in America so we're at school.  Here are your reminders going in to Wednesday.

English II

Make sure that you have finished your research cards for Wednesday.  You should have five completed cards and at least one on every topic.  Now that you know how to do your citations for the website, you should go back to some of your source material and try to do that work now too.  Next class we'll be focusing on finishing up our research before we are writing and constructing the websites in earnest.

AP English III

YOU HAVE YOUR AP EXAM NEXT CLASS!  YOU'RE GOING TO BE AMAZING!  KILL IT!

See you on Friday when we'll be working on Mean Girls...

Homework for the Weekend - 6 May 2016 - A Day Students

Russian II/III

Make sure that your character development sheets are ready for me on Tuesday.  Remember that all of the questions should be answered in Russian and are meant to help you fully realize the character that you are embodying for our final speaking presentation.

Russian III Students - You have the second task of going to our exercise and rewriting the participles as который clauses instead of as participles.  Next class we will continue to work on participles and delve into the difference between active and passive voices.

Russian I

This weekend you have your work on singulars and plurals in neuter and feminine gender.  Please complete the chart/worksheet by organizing your words by gender and then applying the notes we did today in class to create the plurals.

English II

Your homework is the same as what we have below for the B day classes.  We're going to six cards instead of five since we had a bit more time in the library today.  Remember that they should be organized by topics and reflect your sources.  Right now you should have at least two sources (one is a website and one is a book).  Next week we'll start plugging the information to the websites.

Homework for the Weekend - B Day Students - 5 May 2016

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Here are your reminders going into the weekend.

English II

I'd like for all of you to spend time this weekend working on your research cards for our project.  By Monday, you should have five completed notecards.  If you are having trouble finding information on one of your topics (remembrance or resistance, for example), then spend time and develop more notecards on another topic so that you can meet your overall goal of five cards.

Next week we will start to put the information we've collected onto our websites, so it's important we work hard now to collect this information.

AP English III

This weekend I want you to spend your time reflecting on your portfolios and the written work that you have prepared for me this year.  Spend time especially with your timed writings.  Consider some of the consistent feedback you've received this year and make concrete plans to improve on those areas of your writing before we get to our exam on Wednesday.  For Monday's class we will be finishing The Crucible and then reviewing some last minute tips before the AP Exam.

Homework for A Day Students - 4 May 2016

English II

Good work today in the library related to your projects.  Keep working on the research if you didn't reach your goal of three research cards.

The required homework for tonight is to read the article on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and answer the attached questions.  Remember that some of the questions are interpretation/me questions so you won't find the answers directly in the story.

Remember as well that if you have missing work it is important to get that turned in ASAP so that we can wrap up the semester well.

Russian I

Please finish the exercise that we began in class - checking the sentences for nominative case words and then changing those words from singular to plural.  We are identifying and changing only adjectives and possessive/demonstrative pronouns from singular to plural.  Also remember that everything changes to plural - all genders.

If you haven't yet presented on your country - you'll be doing this next class.

Russian II/III

With today's class being small due to AP testing we will be doing a lot of today's work next class.  Russian III students, we will be reviewing the homework exercise next class, so make sure that is prepared.

All students should continue to develop their characters for our final speaking assignment.  Remember to use the worksheet we reviewed today in class to sketch out and prepare to embody your character.  All answers should be in Russian.

Homework for B-Day Students: 3 May 2016

AP English III

Next class we will be having our quiz on Acts I-III of The Crucible.  In order to prepare for this assessment you should spend your time reviewing your characters, the study questions for Acts I-III, and the work that we did today on Machiavelli.

Your quiz will have multiple choice questions, quote identifications, and a short answer where you are drawing connections between the ideas of Machiavelli and the ideas of Miller in The Crucible.

English II

Today we had some time in the media center to begin our research on genocides around the world.  Next class you will be continuing to work on the research before we start working on the websites again.  If you would like to continue working on research at hope you are more than welcome to do so.  Keep using your cards as you keep doing research.

For homework I want you to read the small selection about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II.  With the reading, make sure that you read carefully, and highlight information to help you answer the questions.  You will need to answer all the questions at the end.  I will check this for completion next class.

Homework for A- Day Students: 2 May 2016

English II

For tonight you have two articles to read about life in a Jewish ghetto.  As you are reading the articles make sure that you are underlining and taking note of the living conditions in the ghetto for the Jews.  These are your copies so you can feel free to underline on the articles themselves.

You might want to compare and contrast the conditions that are seen in these readings to the conditions that Anne and her family endure in the Secret Annex.

Many of you didn't have essays today.  Get them in to me ASAP!

Russian I

For homework tonight you have to work on exercise four in chapter three.  For this exercise you will not be following the written instructions.  For the exercise, you will be focusing tonight on rewriting any words that are possessive or demonstrative pronouns or adjectives in the nominative case from the singular to the plural.  If the word is in any case except nominative, do not work with it.

For any nouns that you will need to change, leave a space.  We will deal with nouns later.

You should do this work on your own paper.  We will continue with our presentations next class as well.

Russian II/III

Tonight we have exercises in our textbooks focusing on the new grammar that we are learning to round out the year.

• Russian III Students - Work on exercise eleven, but only focus on numbers 1-6.  In this section, identify your participles and their antecedent.  Identify the type of participle being used and attempt to translate.  This is more of a reading and analysis assignment - we'll deal with more of the grit later.

• Russian II Students - For homework you have exercises eleven and twelve.  For these, focus on your rules related to double negatives as well as your vocabulary around negative expressions.  Remember that the use of the double negative is key in Russian!

Homework for B-Day Students - Weekend - 29 April 2016

English II

If any of you did not submit your essay packets to me today please make sure that they are completed and in to me on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.  Remember that I need your final draft as well as some preliminary work so that I can give you an improvement score for your essay too.

Over the weekend, I want you to read and annotate the two articles I gave you about life in the ghetto for Jews.  As you read, underline or take note about conditions in the ghetto for Jews.  These article are yours - so feel free to write on them.  We'll discuss this on Tuesday and build some comparisons to Anne's life.

AP English III

We will be having our quiz on Acts I-III of The Crucible on Thursday next week.  For those of you in AP Calculus - please see me before or after to complete the quiz.  This weekend you need to read and annotate Niccolo Macchiavelli's "The Morals of the Prince".  The reading is available within the first edition of 50 Essays or at this link.

As you read, consider Abby against Machiavelli's Prince.  Does Abby embody the qualities of a good leader?  Do you generally agree with Machiavelli about a leader?  This piece gives us some interesting food for thought especially around honesty, power, and manipulation.

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!

Homework for B Day Students - 27 April 2016

AP English III

Your homework tonight is very light - I hope that you appreciate it.  For tonight make sure that you have finished the reading and studying of Act III in The Crucible.  Your covers should be updated to relate the major symbols, topics/motifs, and settings as well as the characters.  Be sure that the text's body is also fully annotated to reflect this thinking and reading.

We will be having a quiz on Acts I-III of The Crucible, likely next week.  I'll give you more details on Friday.

English II

If you would like to spend more time exploring the annex in which Anne and her family hid, then please visit this link.  Here you'll be able to explore the rooms of the annex, learn more about the members of the family who hid there, and more about the day-to-day experiences in the annex.

Remember that your essays are due to me on Friday.  You should have five complete paragraphs and at least one rough draft/preparation assignment with this to earn your improvement score.

Also, we will begin building our websites for our final project on Friday.  Make sure that you have your gmail account set up and your password.

Homework for A Day Students - 26 April 2016

Russian I - III

Remember that next class you will have a quiz on your recent learning units.  We reviewed these today in class.  As a reminder:

• Russian I - You have your quiz on adjectives and adverbs.
• Russian II - Your quiz will cover plural declensions of all words and the use of cases.
• Russian III - Your quiz will focus on the word который.

Please use the exercises that we have done and the information in your textbooks to further prepare for this quiz.  This will be one of your last quizzes of the year.

If you missed any of Девчата then you can see it at this link.  This is especially important if you missed class last Friday.  Make sure that you complete the viewing guide and have it submitted no later than Monday.

Russian I Students - Remember that you have your major presentations over the next few classes.  Be ready to share your former Soviet republics and teach us about them.

English II

Your homework is much the same as your classmates in the B Day class.  Your essays are now due on Monday to give you more time for final edits and revisions.  Make sure that if you did not turn in your viewing guides today that you have them ready for me on Thursday to be turned in for a grade.

Homework for B Day Students - 25 April 2016

AP English III

Next class we will be working through our AP Multiple Choice for the vast majority of class since the day is a PLC Day.  Additionally, make sure that you have completed your written homework - the tone analysis.

Remember for this assignment you will be analyzing five lines for their tone.  Be sure to copy and cite the line from the book to your response.  Annotate the line to draw out the tone.  Apply your tone sheet and develop your tone vocabulary.  With each line, be sure to explain how that specific tone is significant to the work as a whole.  Three lines should be from each act (I-III) and the last two are your choice.

The goal of this assignment is to reactivate your skills of analysis and explanation - things we'll need for the upcoming exam!

English II

Your homework for tomorrow's class is to finish your viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda and (if you didn't already turn it in) The Wave.  There is no additional homework tonight.  Essays will not be collected until the end of the week on Friday.  If you need me, I have cleared my schedule on Tuesday to meet with you on your essay if you need me to review it or give you final notes.

This essay grade is a major part of your grade this quarter - don't miss the chance to turn it in and do well!

Homework for All Classes - Weekend Edition 21 and 22 April

Since I won't be here tomorrow I figure that I should go ahead and post the weekend update for everyone.  If you have questions, please email me over the weekend and I will try to address your question.

AP English III

For the weekend you should stay focused on your reading of The Crucible.  Continue on and complete Act III - please read all the way to the end of the act.  Use your reading guide to pay attention to the key elements of this act as well as the importance of the new characters.

As you read, consider your role as a member of the audience in this act.  Consider your knowledge in comparison to that of the revered judges who sit and weigh judgement.  Additionally, we have one of the main turning points of this play.  There will be much to discuss on Monday.

English II

Over the weekend I hope that all of you will spend time revising and editing your essays to complete your final drafts.  You have rough drafts, writing planning sheets, and rubrics as well as a great version of your third body paragraph.  Make sure that all of your body paragraphs are as good as your third.  Edit your introduction and conclusion so that your main idea is clear and you have accounted for all of the stories we have studied for this essay.  B day essays are due on Wednesday and A day essays are due on Thursday.  I'll be available after school on Monday and Tuesday for last-minute help.

Also, please make sure that you finish your second viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda.  I'll be collecting those to be checked on Monday/Tuesday.

Russian I

You all have your quiz on adverb formation and use on Tuesday.  Be sure that you can do the following:

1. recognize an adjective versus an adverb
2. be able to recognize a cultural adjective versus a quality adjective
3. know how to turn a cultural adjective and quality adjective into adverbs
4. know which nouns can be turned into adverbs and which case to use
5. know which words are already adverbs and don't need to be changed

You should use your worksheet on exercises 20 and 25, your notes, and your textbooks to help you study and prepare.

Also, you will have your presentations on Thursday for your country projects.  Make sure that you are working on these as you need to in order to meet Thursday's deadline.

Russian II/III

We will be having our quizzes on Thursday.  Tuesday will be geared toward review.  Hopefully those of you in Russian III found the exercises online useful and helpful.  I wanted to let the Level II students know that I didn't forget them.  Here are some great exercises using plural declensions and especially the genitive plural.  There is a lot of good stuff there - just use the title of the link to get you started.  If you need particular things just on the genitive plural there's this, this, this, and this.

Russian Students - Make sure that you finish your viewing guide for Девчата based on what you watched in class so that we can quickly finish the film and I can collect this work.

Homework for A Day Students - 20 April 2016

Russian III and II

We're going to hold our quiz until Thursday so that we can have extra time to review on Tuesday.  In advance, make sure that you are spending time with the grammar and vocabulary in this section of your lessons.

For Russian III Students I have these exercises using который.  Exercise 1 and Exercise 2.

I hope that you all enjoy the film on Friday.

Russian I

You all will have your adverb quiz on Tuesday.  Remember that the main goal that you will have on this quiz is being able to determine how to turn an adjective into an adverb (both cultural adjectives and adjectives related to qualities) and to determine if a word is already an adverb - this is mostly done by studying the worksheet that we reviewed today in class.

We will have our presentations on our Soviet Republics on Thursday.  Be prepared for that.  Don't forget your cultural artifacts if you want to earn that extra credit.

English II

Now that we have finished our work on drafting the third body paragraph then you should now be able to finish the edits that you have for the rest of your essay.  Use the final rubric to help you make your final edits.  Your final essays will be due on Thursday of next week.  Make sure that you have a final draft as well as your preliminary work.

Homework for B-Day Students: 19 April 2016

English II

We did a lot of work in class today to build a solid third body paragraph and complete our essays.  Make sure that you do the following with your final essay so that you are prepared for Wednesday's submission date.

1. Edit your introduction and conclusion to account for Hotel Rwanda as well as The Stranger and your personal experiences.
2. Revise your first and second body paragraphs based on the work we did today especially around explaining your examples.
3. Make sure that you either type or wrote your full essay to account for all changes and revisions.  Use your rubric to help you out with this.

AP English III

Today we had a fair amount of business to settle - thanks for working hard to get it all done.  If you were absent today you missed the completion of your AP Exam answer sheet - this is a must do ASAP.  Make sure to report to Guidance to get this done.

As for your work tonight, make sure that you have concluded the reading of Acts I and II in The Crucible.  With your reading, pay close attention to key motifs and characters - the character charts are especially helpful in locating who knows whom and who knows what.  

Lastly, be aware that I need to finish the grading for your major assessments - if you haven't yet taken the timed writing for Invisible Man, then I need you to settle this by Friday of this week.

Homework for A Day Classes - 18 April 2016

Russian III

Remember that you will have a quiz on Tuesday that will focus on который as well as the work that we have done to review declensions.  Make sure that you are studying and reviewing vocabulary in order to prepare for this quiz.

For tonight's homework you have two exercises to complete.  For exercise 11.9 you will be combining two sentences using который.  Make sure that you write out the sentence combination and the translation of the sentence.  For exercise 11.10 you will be translating from English to Russian using который.  Make sure that you write the Russian translation as well as the analysis of который - what is the antecedent? the gender? the number? the case?

Russian II

You will have a quiz on Tuesday that focuses on plural declensions and the usage of the genitive case.  To help you with this you have exercises to help you with this.  Complete exercise 7.8A and 7.8B.  For exercise 7.8A you will be filling in the blanks and translating the sentence.  For 7.8B you will be filling in the blanks, declining the word in parenthesis to the proper form and translating.  Make sure that you do this work on notebook paper so that I can check it.

Russian I

You should be working on your presentations about the former republics of the Soviet Union.  We will be presenting these countries next week on Thursday.  Additionally, you all have a quiz next Tuesday on forming and using adjectives.  Tonight for homework you have two exercises to complete related to adjectives of time and adjectives of measure/degree.  Please fill in the blanks with the required words - they are either in the word bank associated with the exercise or in your textbook.  Be able to read the sentence aloud with confidence.  We will review these next class.

English II

Your main homework tonight is to finish the second viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda to deal with the after-viewing questions.  Also, make sure that you are ready to complete the work on our essays next class.  We will quickly be finishing them and moving on to our final project of the year.

Homework for B-Day Students - 15 April 2016

AP English III

Super amazing day today everyone.  Mrs. Mausi came by and was very impressed with the work that you all did.  For the groups who didn't present today, that's okay; we'll begin class in the hallway to finish your presentations.

On Tuesday we have business to settle related to presentation, Guidance coming to visit and dealing with AP Pre-Administration for your exams.  That means that any reading of The Crucible will be settled on Thursday.

For Thursday, make sure that you have read both Act I and Act II of The Crucible.  Use your character charts to keep track of important moments for the characters and their relationships with other characters (very important).  The questions are for you to check your comprehension of the acts.

English II

Over the weekend you should be able to complete your viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda - both of them and complete the drafting of your final body paragraph for you essays Hotel Rwanda and the character of Paul.  Remember to use the outline that we established today in class.  Next week we will be quickly finishing these essays and submitting final drafts - make sure that you have all of the work done in a timely and complete fashion!

Homework for A Day Students - 14 April 2016

Russian I

For homework this weekend I want you all to do some writing and some review of the old vocabulary from unit two.  Please go into your textbooks and select five adjectives from unit three and five adjectives from unit two.  Then, transform the adjectives into adverbs if they logically can make that change.

After you've made this change - I want you to write a sentence using the word as an adjective and another sentence using the word as an adverb.  Explain the difference in meaning between these two sentences.  In total, you will write twenty sentences because you are writing one sentence for each word form.

Pay attention to meanings and what you are describing as you use these types of words.

Russian II

This weekend you have some work to do focused on the genitive plural.  Complete the exercise putting the words into the nominative singular (given), nominative plural, genitive singular and genitive plural.  You're going to want to use your textbooks here since there are some irregularities to account for.

Russian III

This weekend you are continuing to work on который but instead of simply translating and analyzing you are filling in the blank with the appropriate form.  Remember as you are filling in the blank you have to really consider the needed case for the situation.  Remember to consider what is happening after the comma in order to determine the case.  You need to consider the referent from before the comma in order to figure out the gender and the number.

You will not be able to just fill in the blank - you should write out the sentences.

English II

There's no actual homework for you all to do tonight but it would be a good idea to make sure that you have done:

• preliminary research for your project - start finding answers to your questions
• make sure that your viewing guide for Hotel Rwanda is complete through question four
• if you didn't finish your StudyIsland assessment - make sure that it gets finished

AP English Language and Composition Test Prep

Hi AP English III Students - Here are those exam preparation materials I promised and forgot to post.

101 Key Terms AP English Language

Top 100 Terms Quizzlet

AP Terms Packet - pdf

There's a lot of overlap between these different websites so feel free to use one or all to help you prepare.

Homework for B-Day Students - 13 April 2016

English II

Today if you didn't finish the Quarter Four assessment then make sure that you login to Study Island tonight and finish it up while it's fresh in your minds.  I'll then be able to go back and give you the updated grade to reflect the full work you did.

You all have the research project on worldwide genocides.  For tonight, you should start with some preliminary research about your country and its genocide.  Stay focused on the questions at the beginning of the research assignment.  Those four questions are the key questions to the project.

Make sure that you have a functional Google account - we'll be building websites using Google Sites.

AP English III

Next class we are constructing and presenting our murals on Invisible Man.  Be prepared with what you need to construct the mural and with what you are going to say along with your group mates.  Your group should be prepared to begin immediately on Friday.

For Tuesday next week, make sure that you've read Act I of The Crucible.  Pay attention to the main ideas we discussed today in our overview as well as the relationships and knowledge between the characters.  Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have your papers ready to return to all of you.

Homework for A-Day - 12 April 2016

Russian III

Tonight I want you to put what you have learned about который into practice with a bit of reading, translating and analyzing.  Take a look at exercise seven in Chapter Eleven.  You will see several sentences using который.  Translate the sentence as best you can.  Then analyze который for the case, gender, and number that it is in in the sentence.  You should be able to explain all of the sentences.

Russian II

We have to make a lot of plurals in your homework.  For the list of words in exercise six, be able to put the words into all of the cases for the singular and for the plural.  Some of these words will be tricky, so we'll look at the more troublesome ones on Thursday.

Russian I

Today we briefly started looking at adverbs and how they are formed from adjectives.  For tonight, I want you to start looking at the new vocabulary in Chapter Three - especially the adjectives.  The list is on page 102.  With this list, read the adjectives and consider which of them can be made into adverbs - then, make the change to the adverb form.  Only one of them doesn't really form a logical adverb.

English II

Make sure that you've finished the viewing guides for Hotel Rwanda - especially questions 2, 2a, and 3.  Also, consider one of the scenes that we saw today for your essay.  Remember that the work on this film will be your third body paragraph - it's a good idea to start planning this paragraph now.

Homework for B-Day Students: 11 April 2016

AP English III

The most important thing on your radar right now is the mural completion and presentation which will happen on Friday.  Remember that in advance of Friday's class you want to have a good idea of what your mural will show and how it will answer the question of Ellison's purpose through the motifs that you are studying.  Consider how you will use language from the text and imagery to communicate your message.  Also, think about the organization of your mural as you plan and conceive your overall work.  I will check blogs one last time on Friday and will collect one motif chart from the group.

For next class you need to prepare for our first day on The Crucible.  Please read Miller's "Why I Wrote The Crucible" - I gave you an excerpted version of this.  Consider his purpose in writing the play - be able to answer the question in the article title.  As well, make sure that you look up any political allusions in this piece.  You will want to be very familiar with the politics of the 1950's.  Additionally, please read the introduction to Act I in The Crucible.  This consists of everything before the dialogue begins.

English II

For next class you should complete the viewing guide questions we reviewed today in class from watching Hotel Rwanda as well as the work at the end of the viewing guide related to your final body paragraph for your essays.  Make sure that your previous rough draft has been revised so that we can finish our essays next week by adding the last body paragraph on Hotel Rwanda.

You will want to be studying your vocabulary for our African literature unit - there will be a final major quiz on this soon, once we finish Hotel Rwanda we will move on to our final unit of the year.

Homework for the Weekend - A Day Students

Russian I

Today we had our exam on Chapters One and Two - I hope that you all felt prepared and were able to show what you know of Russian grammar.  For the weekend I would like for you to do a few things.  First, do some more preliminary research on your country.  Secondly, start to look over the information in Chapter Three.  Begin with your vocabulary for the new chapter.  It'll be useful to start learning now.

Russian II

This weekend you should start to review the next part of Chapter Seven.  Look over and read pages 271 - 282 in your textbooks.  Make a chart for case declension in the plural for adjectives and nouns.  Also, start to review the information on forming and using the genitive plural.  We'll start marching through this information together on Tuesday.

Russian III

You should also spend some time with your textbooks this weekend.  Look over the information on 466 - 477 about participles (adjectives formed from verbs) and look over the different types and the different formation rules.  There's a lot here, try to understand what you can understand and we'll start working through it soon.

English II

Hopefully your writing workshop was productive in the Dell Lab.  Over the weekend you should finish polishing these four paragraphs so that you are ready to add in your last body paragraph related to our final text.

Homework for B-Day Students - Weekend Edition: 7 April 2016

English II

Over the weekend you should continue working on your essays and make sure that they are polished with the work that you have.  The goal right now is to make sure that you have applied the notes that I have already given you for the four paragraphs that you have.  We will be writing one more paragraph on our film - Hotel Rwanda.  Be ready to complete that drafting quickly to finish this essay assignment.

Additionally, make sure that you have studied Bessie Head's story.  That will be part of the quiz on African Literature at the end of our unit.

AP English III

For the first time in a long time you don't have any reading homework this weekend.  Your main goal now is to prepare for all of your assessments that you have going on next week.  First we have the timed essay on Monday.  You have the prompts and you have your books, so it's time to prepare for your writing.  Keep in mind that I will be checking your annotations on Monday for the whole book - make sure that they show the level of our study over the last nine weeks.

Further - it's a good time for you and your groups to work on your murals and plan.  Remember my idea that I shared with you all today about creating a mural mock-up on Google Docs.  This is a great way to make sure that you're ready to construct your murals on Friday of next week.

Enjoy your weekend!  I'm going to get through a lot of essays.

Homework for A Day Students - 6 April 2016

Russian I, II, III:

You all have assessments next class.  Make sure that you have studied your grammar information that will be assessed as well as the vocabulary that you will need.  The reminders for your assessments are in the previous posts.

English II:

You have reading to complete tonight from South Africa.  Please read "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses" by Bessie Head and pay attention to the ideas we discussed in class.  The characters are really important in the story as is the conflict between them.  Make sure that you consider why the men are in conflict with each other as well as how the conflict is resolved.

We'll be moving on next class to looking at the story in detail and working on our essays more.

Homework for B Day Students - 5 April 2016

AP English III

Please remember to get caught up with your reading and blogging in advance of Thursday's class.  By the beginning of class on Thursday I should be able to find your question and thesis post for your mural, your analysis of the motifs in Chapters 23, 24, and 25, and lastly your synthesis post for the last half of the novel.

You should also be working diligently in your group to plan your mural - remember to use your blogs since that is a record of your thoughts, quotes, and ideas about these motifs.  I would recommend using a piece of notebook paper/computer paper to start planning out what will go where on your murals.  Lay out the quotes, images, and other elements.  Organize them in a way that makes sense.  Remember that you're proving your thesis through your mural - you want to organize and plan the same way you would a written essay.

Next class we will be finishing our seminar on Invisible Man, be caught up and prepared to participate.  Next week we will begin our work on The Crucible.  Make sure that you have your copy.

English II

Great class today to begin our work on South Africa.  For tonight, I want you to read Bessie Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses".  As you read, pay attention to the idea of apartheid/segregation.  Also notice the two main characters of Brille and Hannetije.  Why are they in conflict with each other?  How does the conflict develop?  How is it resolved?

You have your own copy of the story, so you can take notes and highlight as you read.  Don't forget to be able to answer the first three questions at the end of the story in advance of a possible reading quiz.  Next class we will spend more time developing our essays and learning more about South Africa.

AP English III - 5 April Workshop

AP English III Students - Please refer to this blog post on the motif instruction blog for today's workshop.

Homework for A Day Students - 4 April

English II

There's no official homework tonight.  Use the time to get ahead on your reading for your extra credit projects.  Keep journaling and answer the questions that apply to your book.

Russian I, II, and III

You all have exams or quizzes at the end of the week so the important thing is to study the vocabulary and grammar that we will see on your quizzes/exams.

• Russian I - Your exam will cover the ten verbs we listed today and your tables.  Make sure that you know your vocabulary and your declensions.  Play with your dominoes.
• Russian II - Your quiz will cover weather vocabulary and the uses of the dative case that we reviewed at the opening of the unit.  
• Russian III - Your quiz will focus on long form versus short form adjectives.  Make sure that you spend some time looking at the declensions of adjectives in singular and plural since you'll need that for long form adjectives.  

The only class that really has homework to turn in is Russian II - you have your weather report presentations due next class.

B Day Homework for Break

AP English III

Over break there are a few things that you're going to want to settle.  They revolve around either Invisible Man or your research papers - so let's deal with those things below.

Invisible Man work:  Over break you will be expected to read and annotate Chapters 23-25.  Your blogging group should complete an analysis post of these chapters.  Your group should also complete a synthesis post which reviews your motifs from Chapter 16 to the end of Chapter 25.  Lastly, you will want to complete a thesis post which will state the thesis that your mural will be exploring around your motifs.  The posts should all be done separately.  You should have all of the postings complete by Tuesday, April 5th.

Your research papers are due on Monday, April 4th.  In your research paper portfolio you will want to submit:

• your research topic sheet
• your outline with my feedback
• your rough draft from conference
• your final draft with completed cover sheet and rubric

With that, I hope you all have a wonderful break and if you're traveling with us to Europe I can't want to see you in London!

English II

There is not any real work for you all to do over break with the exception of your extra credit project.  Take this time to get started on your reading and to complete the journaling work for the project.  Some of you may finish your projects over break in which case you may want to try to get a second novel read for an even larger chance at extra credit.

Spring Break Work - A Day Students

You've made it.  Today was our last A Day before break!

Russian I

We have our unit exam when we return from break which will cover the grammar from unit two and from unit one since these two units are so closely related.  You should be focusing on your tables from unit two.  Make sure that you're focusing on tables one through six.  From the case functions all the way through the words "this" and "that".  Remember that many of your endings are the same.  Focus on the similarities.

Spend your time over break learning and reviewing vocabulary and verbs from these units.

Don't forget your exercises in your textbook and the practice available online.  These links are located in the previous post for Russian.

Russian II/III

We will be having a quiz on the most recent grammar once we return from break.  II's - Your quiz will focus on dative case uses and weather vocabulary.  Stay focused here.  Be working on your projects based on the feedback you received today in our writing workshop.  III's - Hopefully you've received enough practice with short and long-form adjectives that you are clear on their use.  Keep studying your vocabulary and the grammar concepts we have focused on in this unit.  You may also want to review long-form adjectives in cases; that grammar is an important related topic.

English II

We will finish The Stranger when we return from break.  If you have any late work to turn in, make sure that it gets turned in tomorrow no later than 2:40 so that I can finalize my grades.  You have no work to complete over break, but you might want to get started on your extra credit project for the last quarter.

B Day Student Homework - 3/22/2016

AP English III

For our next class you should read and annotate your copies of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".  If you were not in class today you can find it at this link.  Remember that since it's an allegory everything is symbolic - consider especially the sun, the fire, the darkness, the cave, and the idea of blinding.  This lines up explicitly with what we discussed today in class related to Invisible Man so hopefully you're able to make sense of both as you read.

After you finish the reading, consider this video about Plato and his allegory.  You may want to watch this as you complete your confusion card.

Lastly, we have our reading for Spring Break and our papers to settle.  Remember that you are expected to read Chapter 23-25 over Break.  You will not read the Epilogue.  You should complete your blogs the week we return with your final analysis post (23-25) and synthesis post (end section of the novel).  We will finish our mural project during the week of the 11th.

English II

By this point we are basically done for the quarter.  Make sure that if there's anything missing for the quarter that you have it turned in by Thursday at 3:00 so that I can grade it for this quarter.

You should be focused on revising your essays and continuing to build them as we move forward into the 4th nine weeks.  We'll be going to the library next class to select book for our extra credit project.

Homework for A Day Students - 21 March 2016

Russian I

For tonight you should finish putting together your presentation on your presidential candidate and practice reading aloud your sentences.  This will be your final grade for the quarter.

Additionally, remember that you should start your study program for spring break.  There are several days that you have where you can spend your time reviewing concepts and completing exercises to review the content in Lessons 1 and 2.  Remember to try to focus on a few new vocabulary words every day.  Complete a few exercises to help you review the concepts.

If you want some online resources I recommend the UCLA Online Textbook, Master Russian, or the audio files for our textbook at the links in this post.

Russian II and III

II's - Tonight you should be finishing the rough drafts of your writing about the weather and the needed clothing for that particular weather.  Make sure that you are also discussing the weather for the following day.  Additionally, we have the grammar exercises for this chapter that review cases in general - exercise 7.1 and 7.2.  I would recommend working through these the best that you can to review the cases of Russian grammar and where they are used.  This will be very important as we move on into our work on plurals.

III's - Tonight you should be focusing on finishing the exercise on short-form versus long-form adjectives.  Complete the exercise sentences that we did not complete in class.  Notice the cases used along side of short-form adjectives.  Even though the adjective itself is nominative case, it can work in conjunction with other cases.

Make sure that you all are working on your new vocabulary!

English II

For any of you that did not turn in a full rough draft today of your essay, make sure that it gets in to me before our next class so that I can give you notes and feedback on your writing.  For tonight, you should spend some time with the progress reports I gave you.  First, make sure you have not missed an assignment that you need to do.  If so, you have Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday to get that done.  Second, if you have rubles it's time to cash in.  Remember that I'll add one point to a homework for 10 Rubles, one point to a quiz for 50 rubles and one point to a test for 100 Rubles.  We will do exchanges next class.

Lastly, make sure that you're caught up with the reading of The Stranger.  We'll be finishing the book before we leave for break.

Homework for the Weekend - B Day - 18 March

English II

Make sure that if you are going on the field trip in May that you have submitted your permission slip by Tuesday.  I'll be opening space on the bus to other classes after Tuesday.

For the weekend make sure that you read Chapter Four and that you complete your detail grabber and vocabulary for the chapter.  Also, you have your progress reports.  If there is late work that you want to do for credit, take care of that.  I'll collect rubles next week from anyone who wants to bring up their grades with those extra credit points.

Make sure as well, everyone, that you have finished all four paragraphs of your essay.  I know that some of you are behind on this.  This will be the final grade for the quarter and needs to be complete.

AP English III

For the weekend you have your reading of Chapters 20 through 22.  This will be our last section of reading before Spring Break.  You'll also need to do the analysis post for these chapters based on your motifs.  Pay close attention to Tod Clifton - he's so important here.

If you were absent today you must make sure to complete the AP Multiple Choice practice before Thursday's class.  Tuesday afternoon is a good time for you to make up this assessment.  Also - make sure that if you haven't conferenced with me about your paper that you settle that on Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Homework for A-Day Students: Weekend Edition - 17 March 2016

Remember that when we return next week we will have a four day week.  The grading period ends on Thursday, and I will leave for Europe on Friday meaning that the last day you have to do anything for your grade is Thursday.

Russian II/III

Russian II Students should finish working on the rough draft for the weather report.  Follow the format and use the vocabulary from the new unit since this is the vocabulary that you will need to know for upcoming quizzes and tests.  Remember to focus on using the dative case appropriately, as well as adjectives versus adverbs.  I'll check your work next class.

Russian III Students should finish the exercise we began in the textbook.  Please remember to write out all of the forms of the short form adjective and to mark the stresses.  This will help us to complete the other practice exercise on this topic.

Russian I

I'm very impressed at how much faster a lot of you are getting with your work on cases.  Keep practicing!  It's the only way to get faster.  This weekend you should write the rough draft (черновик) for your political candidate.  Remember to cover all of the information and to use your adjectives and your cases.  Remember to use vocabulary that you know and focus on sentence structures.  Next week we will put these together and move on to finishing this unit.  I am looking at you having your unit exam the week we return from Spring Break.

English II

For homework you should begin the drafting of Paragraphs Three and Four for your mini-essay.  The third paragraph focuses on your example from The Stranger and your last paragraph is your conclusion.  Use the outline that we created in class.

You should also read Chapter Three.  It's a bit lengthy.  Fill in your detail organizers as you read and make sure to find any new vocabulary that you can use.

Homework for A Day Students - 15 March 2016

Russian II/III

Tonight all of you should continue spending time working on your vocabulary for the new unit.  Your homework is geared to have you continue this work.

Russian II Students - Using your new knowledge of the dative case work through exercises four and five.  In exercise four you need to write out everything including the numbers.  In exercise five, pay attention to the use of adjectives versus adverbs.

Russian III Students - Finish working through the first exercise on nationalities and then read pages 460 to 464 and take notes on the concept before we talk through it next class.

Russian I

Tonight I want to make sure that you all do a few things for me.  First, to any of you who didn't finish the writing about your bedroom in class, make sure that is complete for me next class.  Evidence of translator use will result in a zero on this assignment.  Second, make sure that you are working with your charts tonight - start to memorize and start to practice so that this information starts to stick in your head.

We likely won't do the unit exam until after Spring Break.  That being said, we will have a final speaking assignment to go over all of this.  That is exercise twenty-two.  Select a presidential candidate and plan a eight sentence description.  For tonight you should complete a vocabulary list to describe your candidate.  I will check your vocabulary list next class.

English II

Tonight you have two things to do:  First, finish reading Chapter One - we have about three pages left to finish.  Many of you didn't get your sound imagery from the chapter - pay attention to the voices.  That'll work for the sound imagery.  Then, make sure that you go on and read Chapter Two - complete your detail grabbers as you read.

The other work for tonight is for you all to finish your writing planning sheets.  Either from Chapter One of Part Two or from Chapters One through Six of Part One you should be able to find one quotation.  Once you've found your quote that relates to your thesis statement, start working through the steps.  First put it in your own words, then explain it so that I can see how it applies to your main idea.  This will be the meat of your third paragraph which we will work on next class.

14 March 2016 - B Day Homework

English II

The important things for you all to do tonight are to read Chapter Two of The Stranger and complete your detail grabber and your vocabulary for the chapter.  Additionally, make sure that you have finished the back of your writing planning sheet - we'll have time next class to really work through the back and to start drafting those paragraphs.

The other thing to work on tonight is Study Island.  I've unlocked one assignment for you all on theme.  Feel free to work through this to collect your ribbons.  I'll start paying you out for them soon.

AP English III

In the post below you have access to your collaborative vocabulary slides - start to put those together as soon as possible.  Remember that you can do it on paper if you have issues with the posting.  For tonight, you should all continue working on your rough drafts and final drafts of the research paper - I'll have documents for you next class to help you with the development of these.

Your next reading checkpoint with Invisible Man is next Tuesday - we'll need to be through Chapter 22.  You'll need to have your analysis post done for that section of chapters.

AP English III Vocabulary Slides

AP Students - Please use these links to complete your vocabulary assignment.

2nd Period - B Day Vocabulary Slides

3rd Period - B Day Vocabulary Slides

Remember that your slides are due by Friday.  If you have a problem with posting then complete your work on paper and submit it.

Homework for A Day Students - 3/11/2016 - The Weekend

Russian II/III

We had our unit exam today so the homework for the weekend is generally light.  Begin studying your new vocabulary for the chapter.  Start to make flashcards/study aides and to use the vocabulary as quickly as you can.  The words are very useful, so you should be able to work them into your regular routines quickly.

Remember to read through your chapter.  Russian II - Pay attention to the use of the dative case, and the rules for creating plurals in the cases.  Russian III - Pay attention to short form adjectives.  There's a lot of nitpicky grammar here for Russian III; it'll be really fun.

Russian I

Over the weekend you're working through exercise nine.  For the exercise you have different cases that you're working through using all of the charts we've created in Russian I.  Remember that for each case you need to write four more complete sentence answers as we did today in class.  For all of the other words/sentences/questions you just have to change the words in parenthesis to the appropriate case.  We'll keep pushing back the quiz/exam until I feel that you're ready for it.

English II

Over the weekend make sure to complete the back of your writing planning sheet.  Follow the instructions in the post for the B-Day students to do this.  Remember that you can use information from Part One or from Part Two - depending on what you've read so far.

Weekend Homework - B Day Students - 10 March 2016

Yay for the beautiful weather and the weekend!  It's going to be a good one!  Here are your reminders for the weekend.

English II

Your quiz scores are in.  To those of you whose essays I have misplaced, my apologies.  Come check in with me tomorrow and I'll hopefully have your essay with my feedback or I can get a new copy from you and redo the work.

This weekend your goal is to finish the back of your writing planning sheet so that we can move on to draft paragraph three and the conclusion next week.  Remember that you want to find a quotation from The Stranger which will help you to prove your thesis.  Think about the book and try to find a scene that relates to your point, then find the specific quote.

Once you have your quote, you can go through the steps.  We'll turn this into a paragraph next week.

Be sure as well that all of your other work is turned in.  Don't fall behind this close to the end.

AP English III

This weekend you will be working on your blogs and your reading of Invisible Man.  You will be reading Chapters 16 through 19 this weekend.  Focus on the Brotherhood and the new characters that the Invisible Man meets - especially Brother Tod Clifton.  He's a very important character.  You should post your analysis post on your blog by the time we meet for class on Monday.

You also need to make sure to post your synthesis assignment for Chapters 8-15.  Remember the goal of the post is to consider the meaning and purpose of the motifs.  Consider your previous synthesis post as you do this - is it the same?  different?  stronger?  weaker?  What's going on with this?

Lastly, don't forget your research papers!  You should be constantly revising and working more to push them forward.

Homework for A-Day Students - 9 March 2016

Russian II/III

We will be having our unit exam next class on verbs of motion with prefixes (III) or non-prefixed (II).  Make sure that you are thoroughly preparing your knowledge of cases and prepositions paired with verbs of motion.  Additionally, make sure that you know how to conjugate these verbs in the past and in the present tense.

Russian III Students - Know your prefixes and how the prefixes combine with the verbs.  Don't forget about spelling shifts or inserted letters.

Use your vocabulary card to prepare for the writing assignment in Russian.  Remember with Russian III we are giving directions using verbs of motion from your house to the mall, to downtown, and to a park.  Russian II - You have to talk about getting around before and after getting a license.

Russian I

We will NOT be having our quiz next class.  We need to do some more work to prepare.  Next class we'll finish our writing assignments that we started today and I'll collect them for a grade.  We will also take a look at some new charts with adjectives and nouns to understand some of our case issues.

Make sure to take a look at Exercise Nine in Chapter Two.  There are a lot of exercises here to work with cases that will help you to work through the changes and the reasons behind those changes.

Keep studying and working.

English II

Next class we have our quiz on Part One of The Stranger as well as "After the Deluge" and "The Myth of Sisyphus" - study your notes and vocabulary.  Be prepared!

Homework for B-Day Students: 8 March 2016

English II

Next class we have our quiz on The Stranger, "After the Deluge" by Soyinka, and "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus.  You'll want to make sure that you've reviewed your notes on these stories and the information we went over in today's review game.

Pay close attention to vocabulary from Soyinka and from The Stranger.  That'll be an important part of the quiz.

For tonight - you should make sure that you are studying and that you complete your writing planning sheet - especially the back.  Make sure that you have found yourself a quotation from the book and thought about how this quote from The Stranger applies to your overall idea in your essay.  Remember that this will follow up your personal example paragraph.

AP English III

There's a lot for you all to take care of today and I'll go through that in order of when it is due.

Next class we'll finish our seminar on Chapters 11-15 and we will discuss "Two Ways to Belong in America" - the article is at this link and in 50 Essays.  Since we'll finish the seminar next class you will not have to post your analysis and synthesis posts until after next class.  Make sure that you read Mukherjee and annotate it carefully.  You have your next chunk of Invisible Man reading on Monday.

We're working through our rough drafts and writing conferences.  Remember that the final due date for these packets is the first day after Spring Break.  You must turn in all components in your final packet.  I'll have the final rubric for you soon for the paper so that you have it for your final edits.  Remember that the week of March 21 - 24 is free for second conferences by drop-in.

Keep in find the final project for our motifs and blogs.  Hopefully you were able to settle down some of the key ideas for your murals.

Homework for A Day Students - 7 March 2016

English II

Good class today reading through Chapter Six of The Stranger.  Now we're done with the first part and we can prepare for the quiz on Friday.  Your quiz will cover Part One, Soyinka and "The Myth of Sisyphus" - we're going to review on Wednesday.

Tonight, make sure that your writing is done for the writing workshop.  You should have the full writing planning sheet done with all steps filled in.  You should have written your introduction and first body paragraph - use the outline that we discussed in class.

Russian I

Tonight you have some reading to do in the textbook.  Read pages 81-85 and take note of the cultural information related to names in Russian.  You should know how to form a Russian's last name for male and female members of the same family.  You should know about middle names in Russian and you should know a bit about making first names into nicknames.

Russian II/III

For homework tonight make sure that you are working through the reading assignment (III) or the extra exercises with verbs of motion (II).  We'll have more time on Wednesday to review in advance of the unit examination on Friday.

Homework for the Weekend - B Day - 4 March 2016

English II

Great reading group today y'all!  I'm impressed by how engaged you all were and how rich our discussion was of the final chapter.  Good work!  For the weekend - I need you all to finish up with your essays and writing planning sheet.

Make sure that you have finished your introduction paragraph and personal example paragraph.  Remember to use the writing planning sheet as well as the outline we discussed last class.  I've posted it below.  You can type this rough draft or hand write it.

Move on to finishing the back of the writing planning sheet as well since we've finished the first part of The Stranger.  For step seven - begin by thinking of a scene from the book that aligns with your main idea/thesis - then reexamine that section to find yourself a quotation.  Once you have the quotation, then go to step eight and rewrite the quotation in your own words so that you understand what it is saying.  Lastly, step nine - explain the way that the quote relates to your main idea in the essay.

If you want to put this together as your third body paragraph - go ahead.  If not, we will do that next class as we type our essays.

AP English III

I will be reading and grading your timed writings this weekend.  So far I've enjoyed what I've seen - you are applying what we've learned about the writing process and the technicalities of writing a synthesis.  Good!

For the weekend you have two things to accomplish - first, make sure that you have completed your fifty percent draft so that you have it ready to submit for Tuesday.  You will be graded on your conference and I've attached the rubric here.  For those of you coming on Monday morning I'll have a copy of the rubric ready for you.  Make sure that you have prepared distinct questions for me to answer with this conference - I won't have the time in 15 minutes to read your whole paper.  Also, don't be late.

The other work that you have this weekend is to keep up with your reading of Invisible Man.  Your next checkpoint is on Tuesday - to be to the end of Chapter Fifteen.  We'll deal with Chapters 11 through 15 on Tuesday as well as a bit of Staples to finish him up.

Homework for A-Day Classes - 3/3/2016 - Weekend Edition

English II

Remember what we learn about choices.  Make choices, change your life.  Make no choices, get nothing.  This weekend you have your rough drafts of your introduction and body paragraph one.  You'll be turning the front of your writing guide into full paragraphs.  Follow the outline in the post below to complete this work.  We will be peer editing and working through these next class.  This is a major homework assignment since the test on part one will be this mini-essay.  See me if you need help.

Russian I

This weekend you have exercise fourteen to complete at the end of Chapter Two.  In this exercise you'll be working with the vocabulary we reviewed today as well as the vocabulary in Chapter One and Chapter Two and all six cases for nouns.  If you need a review of the case work for nouns, go back to Chapter One and look at page 28.

Remember that in order to accomplish this exercise and earn full credit you must write out the questions and the answers.  If the answer has multiple answers you must write out the full sentence for each new answer.

I will begin class next time by checking this work.  It will help you to prepare for our quiz.

Russian II/III

We have exercises to complete working with verbs of motion.  For Russian II - make sure that you can conjugate the verb of motion in the sentence to fit the situation, also be able to translate and explain how the grammar is working in each sentence.  Make sure that on the back you write five additional sentences with verbs of motion.  For Russian III - make sure that you are able to fill in the blank with the conjugated verb of motion, translate the situation and explain the grammar.  You don't have to write anything extra - there are enough exercises to keep you busy.

Make sure that you are studying regularly as we have our unit exam coming up soon.

Homework for B-Day Students: 2 March 2016

English II

Tonight you're going to take the work that you've done on your writing planning sheets and put it all together for your first two paragraphs of your four paragraph essay.  Remember that you will be using the information in steps one and two to create your thesis and introduction paragraph.  You'll be using the information in steps four and five to create your first body paragraph.

Your introduction should:

• state the topic of your essay - use the overall statement for this - create a question, image, or find a quote that relates to this idea.
• state your thesis - make sure that you have your stance on this belief, what the belief is, and why you have this stance

Your body paragraph should:

• introduce the topic of the paragraph and its connection to the thesis
• state your personal example in a way that engages the reader (imagery)
• explain how the personal example proves your thesis

You do not have to type this work - having a written draft will be great.  We'll finish the rest of the essay after we finish reading Part One.  Remember that this essay will be your test on Part One of The Stranger.

AP English III

For next class we have the reading of Chapters Eleven and Twelve.  Chapter Eleven is very strange - get through it the best that you can.  Generate questions.  Chapter Twelve is much more straight forward - pay attention to the biblical allusions throughout the chapter - I think they're pretty significant.  Don't forget your blogging analysis post for Chapters Eleven and Twelve.

Next class our heavy lifting will be the Synthesis timed writing.  We'll treat this just like the actual synthesis prompt for the AP Examination - you'll have fifteen minutes to read and prepare your documents and then forty minutes to write your essay.

Lastly, don't forget our writing conferences beginning next week and rough drafts due on Tuesday.  I will begin conferences on Monday for anyone who needs to come early.  Make sure that you have your draft prepared.  If you need a new grade for your outline, make sure to bring this to your conference.  You will need your introduction paragraph and two sequential body paragraphs and your works cited page for the conference.

Homework for A-Day Classes - 3/1/2016

With today's ACT testing the day was a bit off for Russian II/III and Russian I students.  If you weren't in class today make sure that I check your work next class.

Russian I

Make sure that you have completed the writing of exercise fifteen and sixteen from Chapter Two.  You should be able to work with the pronouns to fill in the blanks in both sentences.  Think about your case knowledge and what job is being done in the sentences.  Make sure that you are also checking in with your vocabulary and grammar - we'll have a quiz next week on these new tables.

If you haven't finished your floor plan project that is a must do.

Russian II/III

Today we did some enrichment using the reading and dialogue for Russian III.  We will have a full review class of our topics next class.  Make sure that Russian III students complete the exercise number fourteen at the end of Chapter Ten.  It will have you write with conditionals and hypotheticals using verbs of motion.

English II

I hope that all of you appreciated the in-class workshop.  Many of you got a lot done and I appreciate that.  Make sure that if you have anything left to finish that you get it in immediately.  For tonight, make sure that you have read Chapters 4 and 5 of The Stranger for next class.  We'll also be finishing up the poem "After the Deluge" next class, so make sure that you keep that with you.