3 June - It's LDOC

English 11

Happy LDOC everyone! Today we met together to close out the year. We did our raffle for prizes, did a little bit of work, and I told you a few answers to some of your burning questions. We'll see each other again next week on Monday the 9th. Be ready for the multiple choice portion of your final exam. Remember that the texts and the ideas of the questions are posted, so prepare as you need to. Bring your Chromebook and be ready to rumble.

If you still have to submit your design challenge, it will be accepted. I will not be on campus the rest of the week since I'm working for College Board as an AP Exam Scoring Leader. Be in touch via email and submit items to Schoology for me to score.

30 May - Almost LDOC - Final Friday!

English 11

Easy day today as we focused on finishing up our tasks for Quarter 4. For many of you, this is your design challenge. I'm really glad to see the way which you're crafting arguments about problems that impact you in some way. This is why we do English class, so that we can craft arguments that convince. That's the main skill.

If you need any additional time to close out Quarter 4, then we have Tuesday - LDOC. The last day of class. Sign up for something to bring for our end of the year gathering and celebration. I'm excited to celebrate a great year and send you off to your futures and senior year. If you haven't yet taken your final exam, then remember that the exam will be on June 6. We're the second exam block that day. You'll need your school computer to take the final, so be sure that you have it!

21 May - Wacky Wednesday

English 11

Great days at the end of the year in English 11. Today was a day for us to focus on creating and finalizing some of the evidence we'll need for our design challenge. I am excited to see what you all are creating as you explore a problem and potential solution. As we are closing out the year, be in touch about your grades or any questions. I appreciate that so many of you are using Lion Time now to get extra help that you need.

Next class, Friday, some of you will be presenting your work to me. Others of you will present the week after, the final day to turn in items related to the Design Challenge is the last day of class. Be sure to study for your final vocabulary quiz. We'll vhae it on Friday. It covers list eight. The link to the study materials has been posted. Let's finish strong! We're nearly there!

19 May - Kicking Off the Week

English 11

Whoo! What a day! I love when we have days like today when it feels like everyone is making some forward momentum and progress. We're all in some different places, but that's called life, what matters is that we're all pushing forward in the way that we need to. Our main focus for today's class was focused on our final writing assignment - The Design Challenge - and understanding the requirements for our final exam.

Your Design Challenge could be finished this week. Next class will be a class focused on creating. I'm hoping that we'll be in workshop mode as we make and produce and revise with feedback. The goal is that you can submit your "text" by Friday for us to review together. If you can't make Friday, then you have several other deadlines. The final deadline is June 3. The last day of class.

We also discussed the final examination today. Your essay will fall on May 28. You'll have the whole class to write. If you are planning to take the exam early, you'll need to make a plan for Lion Time to complete the reading portion. I've given and posted the review materials, so prepare as you need to!

As always, reach out with any questions. I'm looking forward to supporting you in your creations on Wednesday. We'll take our Vocabulary Quiz Eight on Friday. Study and prepare! This is the final quiz! I'll see you soon. I'm always here to help!

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.

5 March - Happy Spring!

English 11

Happy Wednesday Everyone! It was great to be back with you all today. Today was a bit of an everything class, but we were focused on assessment of learning and improving our skills for the future. We started things off by completing our vocabulary review and studying before our quiz. I've updated the grades in the gradebook based on your most recent demonstration of your skill. Remember, if you didn't complete the review activity then the quiz will count for both. If you missed today's quiz or you'd like a retake, just make an appointment for Friday, and we'll settle it up.

After the quiz we rolled into some feedback and review on our upcoming presentations. We did a great lesson on the different types of argument because I see a lot of you needing to extend your skill to meet a new need. Think about the flavor of argument that you're presenting and be sure to include key language related to that. We also focused on the idea of defining key words and phrases with specificity and the important distinction between EFFECT and AFFECT. 

At the end of class, we took time as we needed for questions and concerns and to develop the ideas of our project. I'll begin presentations starting March 17. You can come during lunch, Lion Time, or we can do it during class. When you're ready, we'll complete the task. Remember you're getting writing grades and oral communication. Next week we'll be focused on our creative book projects - this is your reading score. If you're missing your quiz, please get that turned in by Friday to avoid a zero. The last major grade we have for this quarter is our Poetry Test. This will happen in the last weeks of the quarter. We'll do a bit more study and review before.

Let's keep crushing our goals as we move to the end of the quarter. Come visit at Lion Time for the extras you may need.

28 January - Registration Day

English 11

Easy day today - it was course registration day. We met with counselors to decide on classes for senior year. There was no official lesson for today's class. If you were missing an assignment, it was a final chance to get caught up and submit work. Grades are finalized on Friday. If you were absent today, please check in about how you can still complete your tasks and get credit.

Right now the goal is to keep reading and to prepare for your upcoming quiz. On Friday you'll have your List 4 Quiz. If you're signing up for the Honors option for English 11, you'll see a new type of question. Make sure to stay focused on learning definitions of the words. We'll also be diving more into writing on Friday and in the first part of Quarter 3 since we have our state writing exam soon. 

As always, be in touch about how I can help. I'm here to support as we cross into second semester.

24 January - The Return of Mr. Miller

English 11

It was so absolutely wonderful to be with you all today and finish this week. Given how I spent last class trapped in a metal tube on the Atlanta airport runway, this was a marked improvement. We did a few different activities today - note that these are grades for Quarter 2, so if you were absent, you need to complete them.

First we had our vocabulary practice. See the slides and the assignment posted in Unit 3. I want you to work on a few words to review their meaning to prepare for next week's quiz. The quiz will be on Friday. Focus on learning meaning of the words and using them. The practice assignment was aligned to this. After vocabulary, we went into book work. The quiz is a bit of a different beast - see the discussion board and reply to your group's thread if you were absent. Remember that this is just temporary for now - you can change your topic/idea down the road. The main thing is to keep reading! Get your content down and behind you. We'll keep working with these books more and more over the next days.

Next class will be our registration meetings with counselors. If you're interested in moving to the Honors English option for second semester, you'll have that conversation with them on Tuesday. If you have any missing major assignments, these are due by Tuesday. We're moving to third quarter, so we need to finish up our residuals. Please make your appointment for Lion Time on Tuesday! I really appreciate those of you who came in today and so far.

15 January - Wacky Wednesday

English 11

Welcome to Wacky Wednesday, y'all! Today was a great day because we were collaborating, critically thinking, and communicating a lot about our books and elements of their rhetorical situation today. I really enjoyed seeing you all do your author research, read further into your books, and engage in some analysis of political cartoons. We did some feedback today as well on our recent writing assignments. If you would like to revise your letter, or if you need to complete it, please make an appointment for LT on Wednesday the 22nd. Remember that you have until the 28th to complete any redos or missing assignments.

We took a bit of time for reading before lunch and then kept going through our vocabulary for this list. We'll likely have a vocabulary quiz to open up Quarter 3, so be prepared! For tonight, keep reading so that you can meet your goals. I've posted audiobook versions in our unit folder, and I'm looking for more. Next class we'll be spending more time with our books so that we can start to understand how they do what they do and what narrative elements the authors are choosing to employ. See you on Friday!

13 January - Happy New Year

English 11

Great day today, y'all. It was so good to see everyone and reconnect after the extended winter break. Today we had a bit of a strange class because we divided at the beginning, but then we came back together and finished strong as a whole group. The main focus of this unit will be our book studies. We'll be doing a lot of reading, thinking, discussing, and processing of these books and what they're telling us about the United States. Today we looked at the major assignments that we'll be completing related to this book and began to make our group contract. We finished class with some vocabulary work.

I also gave out progress reports today for the end of the quarter. If you are missing a major assignment, it's important to get that in as soon as possible. If you are interested in retaking the reading test or in revising your letter, these are also available to you to raise your scores at the end of the quarter. I'm available for Lion Time on Wednesday and Friday to help with retakes, revisions, or with dropping zeroes. Please put in a pass as soon as you can. Enjoy your books! Enjoy your day! I'll see you on Wednesday!

30 October - Last Grey Day

English 11

Thanks for a great end of the week today in English 11. Today's class was focused on writing and especially on the development of our topics for our research work in this unit. We discussed the importance of specificity when it comes to our research topics. We need to be as specific as possible when it comes to the scope and context of our problem. Remember to ask questions like Where? When? What type or kind? Who? These questions will help you to focus in on a particular part of a larger problem that you can really examine in an assignment like this.

By the end of the weekend, be sure that you've completed your brainstorming assignment. I'll take a look and give feedback to the good of the group next class. We'll revise from there. We'll also take some time next class to have our discussion on our unit and texts so far. There are a few more readings that we have ahead of us, but this is a great time for us to review what we've read so far before moving on. Great work this quarter, everyone! I'm excited to move us forward into Q2.

28 October - Happy Monday and End of Quarter 1

English 11

Ugh! Unfortunately there's no recording of today's great class because of a technical issue. I'm sorry about that. At least we have records and learning artifacts, right? I'm really proud of the way that you all worked through two texts with a similar vibe - Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" and then Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July." We explored the way in which both of these texts use tone to express arguments about topics. We also focused in on understanding how Douglass was crafting an effective argument.

We looked at the speech in three phases - his introduction, body, and conclusion. We remembered the elements of each phase of writing and then saw the way in which Douglass did just that. Remember that everything is an argument - so everything has a thesis, body with assertions, evidence, and commentary, clear connections between paragraphs, and a conclusion. We'll be focused a lot on writing in this unit, so we'll be doing a lot of this work to understand reading as writing.

We ended the day with vocabulary and began List 3. If you have any grades to raise here at the end of the quarter, now is the time. If you have anything missing (reading tasks, vocabulary quiz) please come in and make sure that those tasks are complete. As always, be in touch with any questions or concerns. Next class we'll be focused mostly on writing.

24 October - End of the Week

English 11

Not the most exciting day today in English 11 because we had to take an online reading test. I appreciate all of you working hard to show me your skills and abilities. I'll share results with you once I have them and know what they mean. If you weren't able to finish your test today we can set up a time at Lion Time next week or after school. You do need to finish the test by November 8. This is very important.

As you think about the weekend, there are a few options for you. Remember that you can raise your reading grades by the project (first time submission and revision) OR you can do the retake of the reading test. Let me know what I can do for you as you are working in the last part of the quarter. I've also posted the brainstorming assignment to start our research work. Please do not turn this in until we work on it in class next week, but you can start getting some ideas together now if you'd like.

Have the best weekend! Think of me on Sunday morning - I have my race, and I'm trying to go fast!