Thursday 18 March

Today the students participated in their Second Literature Circle meeting. The reading assignments were as follows:

• A Farewell to Arms, Chapters 7-10
• The Great Gatsby, Chapter 2

Wednesday 17 March

Today I gave students time to work on their Freewrite assignment and their papers in the lab. Students shared their papers with their Lit Circle group and then began to edit their papers together.

* Reminder * the Freewrite assignment is due Friday.

The blog is not allowing anyone to post comments for some reason, so you must now UPLOAD your 2 freewrites to GOOGLE DOCS.

Tuesday 16 March

Today is Tuesday so we began today with a Mini-Lesson on several Latin Prefixes. The notes will be on the Mini-Lesson page.

I then directed the students to view a powerpoint on Persuasive technique and asked them to revise their papers with that powerpoint in mind. The Powerpoint is on Google Apps for them to view again if they need to see it.
I gave the students time with the netbooks to work on papers, work on their Freewrite assignment, or to peer review their papers.

If you were absent be sure you check your Google Apps account.

Monday 15 March

Today was Literature Circle Meeting 1.

If you were absent you must still have your worksheet completed for the next class period and we will talk about the discussion points.

Friday 12 March

Friday was SSR. The students were allowed to read their Literature Circle books and then work on the corresponding worksheet. There was no learning log today

Thursday 11 March

Students recieved their Literature Circle books today. They chose which book of the two options they will be reading and there will be a final project that they will be working on after Spring break!!!
The students are either reading The Great Gatsby or A Farewell to Arms.

The first three Literature Circle Meeting assignments are
Meeting 1--March 15 
Farewell read Chapters 1-6
Gatsby read Chapter 1

Meeting 2--March 18
Farewell read Chapters 7-10
Gatsby read Chapter 2

Meeting 3--March 31
Farewell read Chapters 11-14
Gatsby read Chapter 3

Wednesday 10 March

Today I handed out the new Peer Review sheets that are designed specifically for Google Docs. You can view this document at the link below.
Peer Review for Google Docs
I explained the checklist and went over it with the class.
I explained the small writing groups that I will be putting them in for both the Literature Circle and the Research paper.
We then had time in the Computer lab for the students to continue to work on their papers.

Tuesday 9 March

I gave the students several important reminders about behavior and dress code as we head toward warmer weather.

Today we had our usual Vocabulary Mini-Lesson. The notes for the Vocab mini-lesson can be found on the Mini-Lesson page. See menu above!

We also had a Mini-Lesson on Revising and Proofreading. The notes for that mini-lesson are in the slide show embedded below.


For the remainder of class I gave the students time with the Netbooks to check their grades and work on their papers.


After both Mini-Lessons

Monday 8 March 2010

We began with a FreeWrite, and then I introduced The Great Gatsby to the class. WE will be reading The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms in Literature Circle Groups starting on Thursday of this week.

The inspiration for the Freewrite is included in the Powerpoint embedded below.


After seeing both the Farewell to Arms Presentation and The Great Gatsby presentation students choose which book they will read. I will put the Literature Circle groups together by the student's choice of book.

The Farewell to Arms Presentation

Friday 5 March

1st Hour, 4th Hour, 5th Hour, 7th Hour
Today these students will have a "Last Chance" writing session in the computer labs. The first draft of the paper is due uploaded to Google Apps by 6pm tonight.

3rd Hour and 6th Hour
Today is SSR for you.
The Learning Log is as follows:

• Learning Log    5/3/2010
• Title of Book:     Number of Pages Read:
• Finish this phrase
• The topic of what I read today is . . .       I am interested in this because . . .

Thursday 4 March

1st Hour
Freewrite on the poem posted below.

After the freewrite we viewed a slide show on A Farewell to Arms

3rd Hour and 6th Hour
We went to the Library to work on our papers. This is the last in class work day before the 1st draft is due tomorrow at 6 pm.

4th, 5th, 7th hour
Freewrite on the stimulus below...

We also viewed a Slideshow on A Farewell to Arms

Wednesday 3 March

ALL HOURS 
We are starting with a Freewrite today: You are to write about whatever comes to your mind as you read this poem. Don't try to analyze just respond to the poem. We'll write for 10 minutes today.
***First Hour will do the freewrite tomorrow***



After we finish the freewrite, we are going to graph the number of words we have written for all the freewrites this quarter. I will also be checking how many Freewrites, Mini-lessons, and Learning Logs each student has done.

Monday 1 March

We have the netbooks in class today.

I showed students sections of the Owl at Purdue site. We looked at MLA style for In-text Citations and how to incorporate more research into a paper.


View the links here....MLA Works Cited Page
                                 MLA In Text Citations

Friday 26 February

Today the students were provided with time in the computer lab to work on their papers.