Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Report cards go home today!
I'd like to publicly congratulate the following students who are in one of my classes or advisories on their academic accomplishments. Great job!
Principal List: Abby F. and Rachel B.
Honor Roll: Pat H., Reed M., Katie B. and Alice Lin

Period 1:
Review vocabulary
Cannery Row test
Work on Iran research

Period 2:
Review vocabulary
Postcolonial Literature Test

Period 3:
Auditions for Our Town

Period 5:
Writing Prompt: "Hungry"
Share/Respond
Work on individual writing

Thought for the day...
"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." - Mary Pickford

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Period 1:
Review Cannery Row
Share community maps

Period 2:
Review Heart of Darkness
Finish discussing "The Second Coming"
Reviewed Things Fall Apart

Go to: African Scramble and read The Dark Places on Earth and Racism in the Heart of Darkness. Please comment on THIS blog whether you agree/disagree and why. Consider what you know about postcolonial literature and the writers' positions as you respond.

Period 3:
Our Town work
Independent Film/Novel Project selections due

Period 5:
Writing Prompt: "If I could..."
Share/Respond
Work on own writing

Thought for the day...
"We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies"
- Emily Dickinson, "We Never Know How High We Are"

Monday, April 6, 2009

Period 1:
Cannery Row reading quiz and discussion
Continue work on community maps - due tomorrow!!!
Iran research (prepwork for Persepolis)

Period 2:
Discuss/review Heart of Darkness
Revisit "The Second Coming"
Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant"

Period 3:
Our Town prepwork - AUDITIONS ARE THURSDAY DURING LUNCH - Come be a movie star!
Select second Independent Film Project novels

Period 5:
Writing prompt: Write about something you threw away.
Share/Respond
Work on personal writing

Thought for the day...
"Were I called to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' " - Edgar Allen Poe

Friday, April 3, 2009

Period 1:
Vocabulary quiz
Cannery Row quiz
Work on community maps
Begin Iran research

Period 2:
Vocabulary quiz
Review Heart of Darkness, Ch. 1

Period 3:
Our Town: Reviewing script

Period 5:
Publish or Perish
Workshop

Thought for the day...
To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too.
—Walt Whitman, NOTES LEFT OVER

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Happy April Fool's Day.... Try not to be anyone's fool. :)

Period 1:

Review vocabulary

Cannery Row quiz & discussion

Work on community maps, begin developing anecdotes for maps

Period 2:

Review vocabulary

Discuss Things Fall Apart

Review postcolonial literature themes

Introduce Heart of Darkness & Joseph Conrad

Period 3:

Congrats, Nicole, on getting your license!

Our Town

Period 5:

Writing prompt: Begin at the end

Share/Respond

Work on writing

Thought for the day...

"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around." - Thoreau

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Period 1:
Review Cannery Row
Continuing to build the mosiac
Work on community maps

Period 2:
Share Things Fall Apart passages
Analyzing Yeats' "The Second Coming"

Period 3:
Our Town

Period 5:
Writing Prompt: Slam Poetry
Share/Respond
Finish Workshops

Thought for the day...
"These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves." - Gilbert Highet

Monday, March 30, 2009

What a dreary, rainy day!

Period 1:
Cannery Row quiz on Ch. 1-6
The novel as a mosaic
Examining the roles & relationships that make a community
Begin community maps

Period 2:
Share passages from Things Fall Apart
Discuss how culture changes
Review changes in novel
Begin analyzing Yeats' "The Second Coming"

Period 3:
Work on Our Town, using Celtx

Period 5:
Writing prompt: "Liar, liar" - writing from the persepective of someone who always lies
Workshops

Thought for the day...
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. - Thoreau

Friday, March 27, 2009

It's Spirit Day and the last day of World Cultures Week.

Period 1:
Vocabulary quiz
Discuss Cannery Row
What is a family?
Building a community

Period 2:
Vocabulary quiz
Things Fall Apart Part One Quiz
Discuss Things Fall Apart

Period 3:
Our Town work continues...

Period 5:
Publish or Perish
Small group workshops

Thought for the day...
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
-M. C. Escher

Wednesday, March 24, 2009

Period 1:
Finish Animoto videos & share
Discuss Breathing Underwater - What should you know?
What is happiness? Success? How do you measure it?

Period 2:
The culture of the Ibos
What role do values play in literature?
How do the myths illuminate the culture?
What is Things Fall Apart about?

Period 3:
Share responses to AI
Work on "Our Town"

Period 5:
Writing prompt
Share
Feedback for Lauren & Rachel

Thought for the day...
To find something you can enjoy is far better than finding something you can possess.
— Glenn Holm

Thursday, February 28

Good morning, all.

Sorry about not posting yesterday. The 2-hour delay took away my planning period when I normally try and post.

Today:

Block 1:
Students will take their Cannery Row test and present their current events. Tomorrow we start literature circles!

Block 3:
Students will finish their group work activities and discuss how groups work.

Block 5:
Students will finish their "shimmering moments" writing, complete teacher conferences and read a short essay. Weekly essays are due tomorrow.

Block 6:
Students will present their current events, check in on their Kindness Projects and discuss the reading.

Now, here's your quote:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
— Frederick Douglass

What do you think this means? What does it mean to you?

SNOW DAY!

Hi, all,

As you all know, today is a snow day and because of Winter Carnival, I will not be meeting with many of you before break.

Period 1:
Complete final drafts of your brochure and your 2 maps (Cannery Row & your community). If you need paper or to pick up the final draft you have started, please stop by my classroom on Thursday or Friday.

Period 3:
Work and practice those college speeches. Make sure your speech has a point and don't forget to dress for success on Monday when we return.

Period 5:
We will be meeting on Friday morning. Don't forget to bring a revised draft of an essay to class.

Period 6:
We will be meeting on Friday and you will take your Things Fall Apart test. Here is your essay prompt (the essay is due on Friday, typed & doublespaced):

At the end of the novel, we learn that the District Commissioner is writing a book called, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. He notes that "the story of ...[the] man who...killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate." (Achebe 208-209) Contrast this with Achebe writing a whole book on Okonkwo. What does this tell us about how the imperialists viewed the native cultures? How did Achebe feel about imperialism?


Today's quote to consider:
"Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it." - Irving Berlin
Do you agree? What do you think?

Enjoy your snow day!

Mrs. Tyler

Monday, February 11th

Today is an early release day, which means many classes are being held out of order.

Period 1:

Today we discussed the reading over the weekend (Ch. 9-11), and the development of Gay. We also discussed Frankie, automobiles in the 1930s and read Ch. 12 as a class.
Students then continued work on their community maps. Several students have begun final drafts.

Period 3:

We are working on speeches to inform. Students are researching colleges which they will be presenting to the class after break.

Period 5:

This week we are working on revision activities and students will be turning in a revised paper on Wednesday.

Period 6:

Students completed a school environment survey and we discussed William Butler Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming," and its relationship to Things Fall Apart.

Question:
Is it human nature to want more than you have?

OR...

What color is love?

Snow, snow & more snow!

I apologize for the lack of posts.

This week we have been busy doing lots of work while contending with a changing schedule.

Period 1:
We are finished with A Step from Heaven and have begun Steinbeck's Cannery Row. As a companion project, students will be creating maps of Cannery Row (Abbeville) and of their own communities. These maps will be accompanied by community brochures highlighting key characters or events, and places.

Period 3:
Students will be wrapping up their 3-minute speeches, and we will be doing more community building exercises and confidence builders. This week we are also focusing on listening skills.

Period 5:
Students are workshopping peer essays, and examining their own essays for content and details. Thank you, Ben & Rachel, for sharing your essays with the class.

Period 6:
We are reading Things Fall Apart and exploring the Ibo culture. Students began their topic presentations yesterday and will be finishing today.


Mrs. Tyler