8 April - Terrific Tuesday

English 11

You all were crushing it today in English 11. We started off by discussing author's purpose and brainstorming some of the reasons why an author would choose to keep key details like characters and settings ambiguous instead of specific. This took us into our study of John Dos Passos's U.S.A. We studied the "Prelude" to his larger novel to understand the role of the main character as a symbol for the blue collar American worker. We also discussed the stylistics in the text like listing, lower case letters, and shifts that made meaning clear.

From there, we focused on our SOL Reading Bank and processed the text. Today's text, as an allegory or short story, provided us a lot of conflict, symbolism, and character. We also were able to identify irony and tragedy as this text dealt with the tragedy of American capitalism. As you keep reading your plays, I hope that you'll take some time to process them with this tool.

We ended the day with vocabulary. The assignments will stay open for the rest of the week. If you did not finish your vocabulary assessment in class, please make that a priority. Next class we're going to take the time to complete our FCPS Reading Test. This will help me to prepare us for the Reading SOL since it tests your reading ability. Be sure to have your FCPS laptop to take the test. If you finish the test before the end of class, then you'll have time to finish any other assignments. 

4 April - End of the Week

English 11

Great end to the week today in English 11 - the only bad thing was that we were missing so many of you! If you're away, I hope that today's post, the recording, and the resources posted help keep you caught up. We started the day by working through our SOL Reading Review Bank. I went through Joy Harjo's poem "Anchorage" and was able to find several devices. You can feel free to use what I did. Remember that as you're reading and studying throughout the rest of this unit, the goal is to collect your devices. This is how you study for our SOL since most of the questions will focus on devices, topics, and themes.

After that, we got into our choice plays. It is my hope that you finish your play by the time we go out on Spring Break. We did a creative activity for a grade where we created the cover of the Playbill for this play. I was happy to see your Reading Interpretation skills take a new form. From there, we went into a rich conversation about our various plays. It was great hearing the connections that you were building about struggle, overcoming adversity, and the American Dream. We'll continue these conversations as we keep reading.

For the weekend, focus on reading your plays! Keep processing them using your SOL Reading Review Bank. Don't forget that we'll have a vocabulary assessment on Tuesday - so study up! Next week is the last week before Spring Break!

2 April - Kicking Off A New Unit

English 11

Today was all about new beginnings as we kicked off both Quarter 4 and Unit 4 - Drama and Character. In this next unit we'll be studying dramas and a few short stories in order to investigate the ways in which authors create meaning through characters. We're going to see how characters are representative of ideas, so when characters are having discussion and conflict, it's more ideas that are having discussion and conflict. All of this will help us to further understand themes and messages and the ways in which they're created.

If you have any work to complete for Quarter 3, now is the time. Please see me by Friday Lion Time to avoid any last zeroes. Remember that in Quarter 4, your grade is the grade that's reported! Let's play hard here at the end to ensure we finish the year strongly. 

We've got two major assignments that we'll be working on throughout the month of April. Our Drama Project and our SOL Reading Review Bank. I think that the Reading Review Bank is one of the most important assignments you'll complete all year. As we read we'll be scrubbing to review literary devices because that's the bulk of your SOL Exam. Once this is complete, turn it in! Use it to prepare and study actively for our exam.

Outside of that, be reading your new plays! Study for your upcoming Vocabulary Examination. I'm excited for class on Friday! We'll be reading and getting into our characters in our dramas. I'm excited to see what we come up with!

25 March - End of the Quarter

English 11

An easy day to end the quarter today, everyone! I hope that you had a great day getting the time that you needed to finish up major assignments, presentations, and extend your knowledge and skills around poetry. If you were absent, we do have next week to finish up this quarter. I'm available on Wednesday, April 2, to complete any last assignments for Quarter Three. Please be in touch and make an appointment if needed. I'll continue to accept work submitted online.

Next class we'll be starting our work on Drama and Character - Unit 4. I've got some videos for you to explore, author research, and some discussion boards. I won't be with you, so you'll need to complete all of your tasks online. I posted your video to go over your tasks for Thursday's class on Schoology. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of the plays we have coming up! As always, if you have questions, please reach out!

21 March - End of the Week/Quarter

English 11

A simple day in English 11 as we took our Poetry Unit Exam today. In the examination I gave you a poem and asked several questions about literary devices to include the themes of the poem. I'll be returning your work to you soon. This weekend is a great weekend to submit your major assignments. Tuesday is the last day for us to do this work. Many of you were absent today, so I would recommend coming to Lion Time on Tuesday to make up the work you need to do. 

I'll have progress reports ready for you on Tuesday. This will give you the chance to take care of any missing assignments or retakes on Tuesday. Reach out with any questions. I'll be working this weekend, so I'll respond fast. Have a great weekend, and, as always, Go Tarheels!

19 March - Another Wacky Wednesday

English 11

A great day in English 11 as we started our conclusion with poetry and with our third quarter tasks. We did a quick grammar review at the beginning of class - mostly focused on commas and sentence structure - before going into our review for our poetry exam on Friday. 

The most important thing to focus on learning before Friday are the literary devices. Reviewing our slides and our recordings will help with this. I would also recommend reviewing your theme checklist. Remember that theme is the message or whole statement about the topic. What does the author want the audience to know about the topic? What is the author's opinion on the topic? My best advice to prepare is to review your devices from our unit, read more poetry, and consider the topics and messages. 

The end of class was all about our final tasks - presentations and book projects. I'm glad that each day more and more final tasks are submitted for me to review. Remember that the final day for presentations is next week on Tuesday. We'll be transitioning to our new unit on Thursday. I'll have all grades updated next week for you. As always, reach out with any questions or concerns. I'll be available Thursday (March 20) after school if you need that.

17 March - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

English 11

Today was a really fun start to the week in English 11. You all gave me a lot of energy to recover from almost no sleep last night. Now I can go home and crash out on the couch. The class for today was all about poetry, poetic devices, and the way in which authors use them to shape messages. We did some learning around new literary devices (use the slides and recording to review) and we practiced by looking at some songs. I looked over your work and updated scores - if you didn't have the chance to finish during class, please get your chart and/or discussion board post in as soon as possible.

All of this practice and collaboration will take us forward into Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday we're going to do a replacement of the quiz we took last week. A few of you who missed it will get the chance to replace the missing score, others will raise their scores, and some others will confirm mastery before the test on Friday. Friday's test is almost all multiple choice. It's meant to be very similar to the SOL. In order to prepare, study your devices and practice with theme statements.

We ended the day with vocabulary and choice working time. Remember that presentations and book projects are due by the 25th. Make your appointments, submit your tasks, and let's get everything settled with style. We'll take a bit more of class on Wednesday to work on these major grades. The vocabulary words are all posted in the slide, sorry for missing them with the recording. We won't take the quiz on List Six unitl April.

As always, reach out with questions. I'm here to help!

13 March - End of the Week

English 11

Solid end of the week today in English 11. We are focused right now on finishing up our independent novel work with our research based presentations and our creative book projects. Today was a day for us to start (and in some cases finish) our reading projects. Remember that the goal of the project is to demonstrate your ability to read and comprehend a text. No matter the choice of project you're focused on demonstrating those key skills. Think about the evidence that you'll use from the book and what you'll say about that evidence. Feel free to use your previous resources and work that you've done to support you with this. Note that projects are due by March 25.

After that we did a review on our most recent poetry quizzes. Next week we'll have more feedback in the form of a lesson and activity. For now, we looked at the idea of the right answer versus the best answer and how to tell the difference. Don't get tricked! After lunch we did some vocabulary and then ended class as we needed with choice working time.

Over the weekend, focus on your book tasks. This is a great time for your projects and presentations. Go ahead and make your appointment pass for your presentation slot (if necessary). I'm so excited to see the outcomes from your learning! Have a great weekend!

11 March - Thankful for Tuesday

English 11

Wonderful version of a Tuesday today in English 11. We got so much done and really worked through items related to our upcoming presentations and our study of poetry. Let's do a quick review and recap of the day.

We started with presentations. Remember that these presentations are going to count as EIGHT grades for you. We've got THREE for Oral Communication and FIVE for writing. We reviewed the rubrics and scoring guidelines for each element. Remember that if you're working on a team, you'll share the Writing: Central Idea score as the thesis should be owned by all members of the group. Consider the most approachable type of presentation for you. Will you record yourself? Do a video? A slides with a recording? Or will you do it live? Think about what you'll write and what you'll say. We'll keep prepping and working through this into next class and next week.

From there we did our quick poetry study of Phillis Wheatley and then our quiz to check for understanding. Sorry for the error with Question 2 and 3 - that's what happens with Performance Matters, sometimes. I'll review your work and we'll review for our test. The main thing that I'm seeing is that I need to teach some more literary devices related to poetry.

We didn't get around to vocabulary today because of the time constraints, so we'll do that next time. Remember that we'll also start working on Book Projects next class. If you need special materials, I'd recommend bringing them. As always, reach out with any questions or concerns.

7 March - End of the Week with Emily Dickinson

English 11

And with that, the week is complete. Great work this week, y'all. I'm really excited to see these presentations that you all are putting together based on your books. I appreciate the way that you're focused on presenting your own argument, digging into source material and information, and putting various viewpoints together to support your overall idea. Each team/person is in a slightly different place, and that's totally okay. Next week we'll focus on taking some time to finish our planning and put the final product together. We'll start presenting week after next - remember that you can sign up for any date you'd like - but all presentations must be completed by March 25th.

After our start with our presentations, we moved into reading and studying poetry. We looked at a famous American poet - Emily Dickinson - and we discussed diction, imagery, and figurative language. These poems stretch our brains a bit because they read like riddles, but using the clues the author provides, we were able to figure it out.

We ended the day with vocabulary and began our study of List Six. If you missed the vocabulary quiz, please make an appointment to get that settled. At the end of the quarter, it's important that we settle missing work as soon as possible. 

I look forward to seeing you next week. We'll be finishing our book study next week, so if you have a missing quiz or need to finish reading, make that the priority for the weekend! You may also want to begin to pull together any materials that you'll need for your project.