Homework for A Day Classes - 27 September 2016

Russian II

Tonight for homework I want you working with the new knowledge around ходить/быть/гулять and our review of cases.  Write five situations in Russian using one of these verbs.  Write a full sentence using the verb and the proper case.  Then, write a sentence which is synonymous with a new verb.  You will have to change cases most likely.  Total, you'll be turning in ten sentences.

Russian III

Tonight you are focusing on dates and times in your life.  First, think about five significant dates in your life and write them out in Russian.  Only use words, no numbers.  Follow the rules in your textbook for cases to use with this.  Then, from these dates, make them more simple and tell me only about a year or month on which the event occurred.

After that, tell me about three moments of your daily routine.  Write the times both in standard format (hour/minute) and then in the Russian way.

Russian IV

Tonight you should finish the exercises on verbal adverbs and study the information in your textbook on verbal adverbs and participles (they are related concepts).  Be able to understand how they are used and the meaning that they carry.  These show up rarely in Russian, but they are good to know.

Russian II-IV:  We will resubmit on the verb quiz next week - use this time to study and review and to ask me for help.

Russian I:

Tonight you should be spending time with your greetings and introductions vocabulary to prepare for our dialogue day next class.  Additionally, you may find it helpful to view this video about the Russian alphabet and the sounds of the alphabet.

Use the video here to help you review.  Remember that you have to find the space for yourself to review and work with the language in order to get stronger.

English II:

Tonight you should take the time to finish any of your missing assignments that you didn't finish during the in-class workshop.  Additionally, we have a question to consider.  From our reading today of Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail" what do you think that King would say to Helmuth about his internal conflict?  Why do you think that King would say that?

Homework for B-Day Students - 26 September 2016

English II

No official homework for tonight - however if you did not finish the rewrite of your paragraph then you should finish that tonight for Wednesday.  We'll be having a workshop on Wednesday to go over missing assignments and give you a chance to finish them in class.  We will also be going on to work on some reading next class related to our main idea on conformity and breaking laws.

AP English III

This week we have a large assignment due for us at the end of the week.  This Friday we will be working on our rough drafts from our outlines.  You will all need to bring a hard copy of your rough draft to class for workshopping.  On Friday you'll get your final draft rubric and cover sheet which will help you get everything together for the final draft.  Remember that as a minimum you should have a full introduction paragraph with argument as well as a completely developed topic (you understand that this is more than just one paragraph, I hope).

For Wednesday we will have the beginning of our work on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  We will need to have books in class on Wednesday.  Bring them.  If you need to check one out, we will have some.

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.

A Day Homework - 21 September 2016

English II

We will have some time to finish up our vocabulary study on Monday.  For tonight, you should all focus on the rewrite of your paragraphs.  Take what comments I gave you and what I discussed with you during the conference to rewrite and resubmit your paragraph for a new grade.  Remember to use the statements, our class activity, and our example paragraph to help you with your rewrite.  You'll turn these in on Friday and get new grades before progress reports.

Russian I

Today we had our quiz on the alphabet.  If you need to resubmit or redo a part of it, start studying and reviewing now so that you can resubmit next week.  Keep reading and working on your vocabulary!  Next class we'll be watching a film.

Russian II - IV

You should be continuing to work on your Global Simulation character and developing him or her.  Don't forget that you will be working with new vocabulary next class and watching a Russian television show to develop your listening skills.  If you need to keep working on verbs and stems, keep up that work and see me next week to resubmit your quiz.

B-Day Homework: 20 September 2016

English II

Wonderful job today everyone!  Great writing!  Great thinking!  Great discussing!  Keep it going.  Tonight you should start reading in The Boy Who Dared to page fifty-five.  We will begin working on the book more next week.  This reading will be due on Wednesday.

AP English III

If you did not submit your resubmission of your outline today, please get that in ASAP so that we can get you your feedback.  On Thursday, we will begin working on rough drafts and developing introduction paragraphs.  On Monday, you will have your assessment on In Cold Blood as well as the pieces by Didion, Welty, and Erickson.  You'll want to bring your copy of In Cold Blood if you need your annotations checked or re-checked.

This assessment is going to focus on the rhetorical triangle and the rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos) with each of the texts we have studied in this introductory unit.  We will discuss more on Thursday to prepare you.

Lastly, we'll be starting Huck Finn next week - you may want to get yourself a copy sooner rather than later.

Homework for A-Day Students: 19 September 2016

English II

Next class we'll be reading a bit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior's "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail" - that way we can see what he thinks about breaking the law to do the right thing.  Tonight you should keep reading The Boy Who Dared.  We want you to be to the end of page fifty-five by next week.

Russian I

Next class we'll be having our quiz on the alphabet and your first vocabulary list.  You should be able to recognize and produce all of the letters of the Russian alphabet.  You should also feel comfortable with the classroom/school vocabulary and the phrases around greetings and introductions.

Also, don't forget to finish submitting your work on Google classroom.  I'll be checking everything again tomorrow morning.

Advanced Russian

You also have a quiz next class on verbs and their stems.  Remember today's warm-up as you study and prepare.  From an infinitive and conjugation you should be able to determine a stem.  We'll focus on this next class and then hopefully have time to keep working on our characters.

Don't forget to submit your work on Google classroom before midnight tonight.  That is when the assignments will close.

B-Day Homework - Weekend Edition - 16 September 2016

English II

No official homework this weekend, but do spend time thinking about our final question today related to breaking the law in order to do the right thing.  Do you know anyone who has done this?  Maybe in your social life or in history?  Why would someone do this?  Will we see Helmuth do this later?  Think and ask - and remember to keep reviewing the work we do in class every day!

AP English III

Every one should be submitting a new outline on Tuesday to me and Ms. McCormick that shows how you are already progressing as a writer.  Make sure to take our commentary into account as you are making your changes.  Many of you had great ideas and great evidence, you were just presenting it in a way that didn't go far enough or didn't connect clearly to a main idea.

If you need help, please see one of us on Monday.  Everyone should have something new to turn in on Tuesday - if you need additional time, that works, but make sure that you have something new so that we know you are working forward in good faith.

Also, we will soon be starting our study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - you may want to get your copy now to give time for shipping.  You can get any edition of the text you would like, but make sure that it is unabridged and complete.

Homework for 15 September - A Day

English II

Keep thinking this weekend about our final question - Is it ever okay to break the law?  Think about examples of people in your life or in history who have done this.  Why are they doing it?  Were they successful in getting what they wanted?

Russian I

I hope that you all enjoyed the game today with Russian celebrities and greetings.  Keep practicing your new vocabulary - the goal would be for you to learn it this weekend.

If you finished your name poster then you have no real homework for the weekend other than to keep practicing your reading and writing of Russian.  If you have not turned in your name poster, then you would need to finish that to turn in on Monday.

Your quiz on the alphabet and handwriting will be on Wednesday.

Advanced Russian

Over the weekend practice with the various verbs and stems that you have been learning in advance of our quiz on WEDNESDAY of next week.  The quiz will cover transcription, verb conjugation in past and present tense as well as stem knowledge.  You should be using the level specific stems to guide your practice.  If I were to give you a verb with that stem or a conjugation of that verb you should be able to determine what to do with that verb.

Additionally, remember your new vocabulary lists.  Work with these regularly to learn your new words.

Homework for B-Day Students: 14 September 2016

English II

Tonight we have our next section of reading to complete.  Please read pages twenty-seven through to forty-one in The Boy Who Dared.  As you're reading, you may find it helpful to take notes about how Germany is changing as Hitler comes to power.  What is happening on the streets?  What is happening to Helmuth and his family?

Continue your reading!

AP English III

Today we have started the long and arduous process of developing our writing into college-ready writing.  Take all that you were taught today about arguments, topics, evidence, and explanation and apply it to your summer assignments.  Resubmissions of outlines will be collected on Tuesday.  You'll want to either retype and resubmit with the original, or mark changes on the original.  Make sure that your updates are clear to me and Ms. McCormick.  This will be our final step before we move on to developing these outlines into drafts.

Also, for Friday we have our vocabulary slides due (Google Classroom) and our reading of Welty (see the post below).  Make sure that you are ready for this.  If you need additional help revising your outline, please let me or Ms. McCormick know.

Homework for A-Day: 13 September 2016

English II

Given what Ms. McCormick and I saw today about reading outside of class, I think that we're going to follow through on Thursday about making sure that everyone has read.  Tonight you need to read from page twenty-seven to forty-one.  You'll want to pay attention to how things are changing for Helmuth and for Germany as a whole.  Take notes as you read - write things down as you notice these changes.

Remember to keep drawing what you say about the characters and events by tying your ideas back to what the book actually says.

Russian I

On Thursday I'll be handing back your handwriting packets and we'll spend some time looking at a few places where we need some improvement (hooked letters are a bother).  Don't forget that we'll have our first quiz on Monday which will cover the sounds of the alphabet and handwriting.

Tonight, you should keep practicing your reading and writing with our new vocabulary words.  You have words which are useful for names and around school as well as phrases.  Write each one at least once on your handout or in your notes (or both).  Mark stresses.  Read.  Use the words with your family and friends.  Add a Russian keyboard on your phones!  Listen to Russian music on Spotify and read the titles.  Use the Russian you're learning.

Advanced Russian

We started moving on to the new topics to cover in this unit (reviewing our last unit for Russian III and IV) and getting our new vocabulary together.  Tonight, we've got a few things to do with our vocabulary and with the new grammar.

Russian IV - Read the passages and hunt for participles.  Use the ending chart to organize them by types.  Work backwards.  What are the verbs?  What are the который phrases?  What do these things mean?  Where are cases?  Also, start reading Толстой - check out the first few pages.

Russian III - Complete the exercises on reflexive pronouns.  Remember to write out the sentences to practice fully with the grammar.  Translate and understand what is being said.  What cases are being used?  You may find it helpful to diagram the sentences and find the subject when using reflexive pronouns.

Russian II - Complete the verb work we started looking at today if you did not finish it already.  Also the exercise B which we nearly finished reviewing today.

All Classes II-IV - With your new vocabulary you will see verbs and their stems identified.  Hopefully now you are able to fully make sense of what the glossary is telling you.  Work with four new verbs, try to work with four different stems.  Do what we have been doing with our examples - What's the stem?  What are the endings?  How do mutations come into effect, if at all?  What is the meaning of the verb?  What are some cases we use with this?

Homework for 12 September - B Day

English II

Tonight for homework you have the next section of our book The Boy Who Dared to read.  You'll be reading from where we stopped on page fifteen on to page twenty-seven.  As you read, take note of the reading guide and complete it.  You have work to do on the characters and then assessing the positives and negatives of Hitler's leadership in Germany.

Remember that if we have a quiz on our reading, you'll be able to use the reading guide.

AP English III

You have nothing due next class.  Everything in this post is due for Friday's class.  First, please finish the work that we began today in Google Classroom - upload the rest of your word slides and have them finalized for Friday.  Remember to use your resources - www.dictionary.com and www.etymonline.com.  You should consider yourself a bit of an expert on these words by then.  Additionally, please read and annotate Eudora Welty's "Listening".  You can find it in 50 Essays or at this link.

Next class we will begin the process of revising our essay outlines for new grades.  Be ready for some heavy lifting!

Homework for the Weekend - 9 September - A Day

Russian II-IV

First things first we will have our first assessment on transcription and verb stems on Monday, September 19.  Make sure that you are preparing for this assessment.  To help you prepare and finish your learning on this concept, we have our homework this weekend.  Only complete parts A and B in the instructions.  We will continue to work on these verbs next week.  Remember that you have to complete the verbs for your level and below you.  My recommendation is to do each verb on a card, that way you have a study card for each type of verb stem.  Use your overview sheet to help you complete this.

Also, continue working on your Global Simulation work in Google Classroom.  Try to have that submitted if you can, if not, we'll have a chance to finish it in the computer lab soon.

Russian I

We also have Global Simulation work to try and finish if possible - you should be deciding on your Russian name as well as settling the debate between Moscow and St. Petersburg.  These assignments are in Google Classroom.  Beyond this, you should spend your weekend finishing your handwriting packet and practicing your reading of cognates and sounds.

I will be collecting your handwriting on Tuesday for a grade.

English II

Today we started reading our novel, The Boy Who Dared - we completed the first fifteen pages and discussed the main character (protagonist) and his family.  Over the weekend, read pages fifteen through twenty-seven and complete your reading guide as you do this.  Remember that if we have a quiz in class for our warm-up, it will cover these pages.  You may use your reading guide on the quiz if we have it.

Homework for A Day Students - 7 September 2016

Russian II-IV

As we are getting more comfortable with the different stems, I want you to continue to practice with them to learn this system.  Today we went over the (N/S -a) and (-a) stems.  Use your glossary to find a verb of each type and take it through its conjugations.  Work with these and learn them.

Don't forget you have a quiz coming next week.

Russian I

Tonight you will basically finish the whole handwriting packet with the exception of the word searches and the other exercises I told you to skip.  You should finish writing all of the letters of the Russian alphabet.

English II

Today as we worked in the computer lab, Ms. McCormick and I saw a lot of good things going on.  I'm glad you were all able to get logged in to our Google Classroom.  Please make sure that you have finished the front side of the worksheet/planning.  We'll be returning to the computer lab next week to keep working on these writing assignments.

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 B-Day Students: 1 September 2016

Happy birthday to my Oma!  I'm calling her right after I finish writing this.  Here are your reminders for the long weekend in which we celebrate the Labor movement (go workers!) and my birthday!

English II

There's nothing for you to complete this weekend - if you were newly added to class, please complete your forms.  If you are interested in learning more about the Holocaust and other genocides around the world, the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum has some really great resources.  See their website at https://www.ushmm.org/learn.

On Tuesday we'll start watching our film and work more with new vocabulary.

AP English III

This weekend we're going to continue reviewing Capote's text and do some close study of new vocabulary from the text.  On Tuesday, we'll be discussing Section II of the text - "Persons Unknown" as well as getting to Didion.  To prepare, review your annotations and maybe reannotate some passages based on our very wonderful discussions today.

Also, you have your vocabulary for the book to begin to study.  As you look over the list, follow the instructions on the bottom to work through this assignment.  Find the context, decide the meaning, investigate the structure isolate any known word parts (including prefixes, roots, and suffixes - morphemes of all types).  I highly suggest working in that order.  We'll start to investigate them as a class on Tuesday and work with some very productive ones from the list.

Homework for A Day - 31 August 2016

Russian II-IV

Tonight keep working on your five verbs.  Tonight you should be able to find the stem for each of your five verbs.  Practice writing out the process by which the stem joins with the ending to create the infinitive.  Show if it is addition or truncation.  Use your glossaries to find the stems and the verbs.

Russian I

Make sure that you are continuing to work through your handwriting packets.  You should complete the second and third pages tonight.  Keep reading!

English II

If you haven't turned in your forms, try to get them in to me on Friday.  Be sure that you think about our key vocabulary for the unit - you'll see it again on Friday.  Keep in mind ideas like inhumanity, genocide, prefixes, suffixes, and morphemes.  We'll keep learning more on Friday and start our film study.

Homework for 30 August - B Day Kids

Hello B-Day Students!  Welcome back!  It was great getting to know you and to start working with you for the year.  Please see the reminders below for your work tonight.

AP English III

Tonight we have two things to complete to prepare for our next class.  First, make sure that you have reviewed In Cold Blood - section one "The Last to See Them Alive".  As you are reviewing, consider your annotations.  You may see something that you missed before, mark it now.  Secondly, we have our article by Joan Didion called "On Keeping a Notebook" which is found at this link.


Please read the article. Take notes on paper or print the article and annotate it. Be sure to organize your notes by paragraph numbers. As you read, consider the questions we discussed at the end of class today:
1. Why does Didon write? Why does Capote write? Are their goals similar or different? How?

2. Does art have to be true? Can there be numerous kinds of truths?

Outside of this - have your parent contact form and your honor code pledge.

English II

Don't forget to complete your parent contact form and to get your supplies for this class.  After that, remember our key question from today:  What happens when there is no respect in the world?  Try to consider this as a jumping off point for Thursday's class.

Homework for 29 August - A Day - First Day of School

Welcome back everyone!  I'm very glad to get to know you or to get to know you better as the case may be.  Please read below for reminders about class and to prepare for next class.

Russian II-IV

Tonight you need to start learning STRUCTURAL TRANSCRIPTION of the Cyrillic alphabet.  Take five verbs that you remember and write them in ST.  Account for hardness and softness.  Try to identify the root and the ending.  What is the meaning of the verb?  What cases are associated with this verb?  Pull out all that you remember!  Have this on paper for us to work from next time.

Russian I

Tonight begin to work on your handwriting.  Please complete page one of your handwriting packet.

English II

Remember our key question from today:  What happens when there is no respect in the world?  Try to consider this as a jumping off point for Wednesday's class.

For All Classes:  Please remember to complete your parent communication forms (online version below) and to get your school supplies!

Our Online Presence! 2016/2017

Hello Parents and Students!


In this class I like to maintain a large online presence.  So, I've got a few online resources for you this year and I'll put them here.  These are for all classes in the 2016-2017 school year.


All Classes


Parent Contact Form - This is the same as the paper form, so if you'd rather fill this out here, go ahead.  Please return the paper form to me and write the word ONLINE at the top.  All of the classes also have a REMIND code and a Google classroom page.


Russian I


Remind:  Text @hde6hd to 81010
Google Classroom:  Please use the code:  pk3iyno


Advanced Russian


Remind:  Text @6ebaead to 81010
Google Classroom:  Please use the code:  uybgwsg


AP English III


Remind:  Text @43e9aa to 81010
Google Classroom:  If you're in 2B, use the code:  d6xa5qr.  If you're in 3B, use the code:  ovf1nt. 


English II


Remind:  Text @bkek8 to 81010
Google Classroom:  If you're in 4B, please use the code: ymhzby.  If you're in 4A, please use the code:  mmiee2.


Special Note - For Google Classroom you need to be logged in to your DPS gmail account.  Please familiarize yourself with how to access this.  You can go to - http://www.google.com/a/dpsnc.net and use your school login and password to access this. 


Be aware that I regularly update PowerSchool with grades and progress updates.  Please stay regularly checked in with PowerSchool and let me know if you have questions about grades.

English II Final Grades

I have uploaded all of the final grades for English II with three exceptions - you three still have an INC (incomplete) because I'm waiting on the state to finish your exam grading.  I'm very sorry about this.  You may receive a report card which says INC for your grade, in that case you should refer to PowerSchool for the update or contact the school for the updated grade.

This is likely going to be my final post for the year - it's been a good one.  I'm looking forward to the summer and to next year.  Enjoy the summer, read a lot!

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.