Today we took our Hunger Games exam. If you missed it, schedule a time with me to come make it up.

Also, three more important things:

1. I gave everyone instructions for how they can improve their grades on the vocabulary quizzes if they would like.

2. Vocabulary List (Pre-AP) – List 5

Vocabulary List (Academic and CP) – List 5

Here are your vocabulary lists for the week. We’re going to begin reading the short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” so these words come from that text.

3. Your homework is to read this article: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/2013/04/02/benevolent-sexism/

Then write about a paragraph in response to these questions: What is “benevolent sexism?” What is the problem with it? Answer using examples from the article and your own experience/observation. I recommend you write at least six sentences. At the end of your paper, write one thing that you can do to make benevolent sexism less of a problem. Underline this.

Your paragraph is due at the start of class tomorrow.

Hey there!

Since we’ve gone over the answers to the quizzes in class, here are the instructions you need to improve your vocabulary quiz score, should you choose to do so. Note that these are due no later than Friday!

Also, if you missed a quiz due to an absence it must be made up no later than Friday (you can make an appointment with me to come in during lunch or after school), or the grade may be recorded as a zero.

Vocabulary Quiz Correction Instructions

Habits of the Mind Summer Reading Project

Habits_of_Mind_Summary_Outline

If so, here they are (again).

Period 1:

We discussed the Katniss and Peeta-in-a-cave scene, and explored how Katniss is changing as a person as a result of her experiences in the Hunger Games.

We also finished our study of all of the vocabulary.

Periods 3, 4, 6, and 7:

We finished at different places in pretty much every single class! Everyone had a chance to talk about the week’s words through #25 – the last five are up to you to do over this weekend. (The PowerPoint with the questions and the word list is in Monday’s post – and remember, your answers to those questions are due on Monday before your test.)

With our remaining time, we continued our discussion of gender in The Hunger Games, looking specifically at how both Katniss and Peeta conform to and defy stereotypes about what girls and boys are supposed to be like. In periods 3 and 4, we got the chance to begin comparing and contrasting how gender and teen relationships are depicted in HG as opposed to the Twilight saga – in 6 and 7, we’ll discuss this next week.

I also had two big reminders for you – first, that your secondary summer reading project is due on Wednesday (the instructions are in an earlier post in case you lost your paper copy). And second, our test over The Hunger Games and the vocabulary from this week will be on Monday.

As promised, here is a mini-study guide for The Hunger Games exam – some things that are important for you to keep in mind as you study:

• This will be a STAAR-type exam that assesses your comprehension of the book. So it’s not a “gotcha” type of test, where you need to recall what color shirt someone was wearing. Don’t try to memorize details, but instead make sure you understand what happened over the course of the book and why. One of the things that I often do in my own reading outside of school is, after I have finished a book, I go and read the Wikipedia plot summary and analysis. That way I can see if there’s anything that I didn’t pick up on, parts of the book that I wasn’t able to appreciate on my own. Then I go back and look at the sections that were particularly different from my interpretation.
• Be comfortable with thinking of the book in terms of “flashback” (when the narrator interrupts the present action to tell you about previous events) “symbol” (when something stands for more than itself) “figurative language” (as opposed to literal description), “sensory language” and “imagery” (the ways that a writer will describe the world in terms of the five senses), and “characterization” (the way that a character is developed over the course of a story).
• Think particularly about the themes of power and resistence in the book.

Finally, I HIGHLY (highly! hiiiiiiiiiiighly!) recommend that you do the optional vocabulary study guide that I gave you in class on Friday. If I could clone you, then place your second version in an alternate universe, and have your second hald do that study guide and you just tear it up and use it for gerbil shavings, I predict your doppelganger would do much better than you would on the exam.

“But Ms. Chapman,” you say. “I foolishly left my vocabulary study guide in my locker and cannot retrieve it this weekend.”

Here’s an electronic copy. Boom. I’m not saying I am the best and kindest teacher in the universe, but you can.

HG Vocabulary List 4 Review

Have a good weekend! 🙂

Hi there!

Since yesterday was such a short day, we didn’t have time to do much other than review for vocabulary.

For Period 1:

We read some Junot Diaz and talked about the conflicts in Dominican and Dominican-American and American culture – I’m really enjoying talking about this with y’all. We also looked at Rue’s death scene in HG.

For Periods 3, 4, 6, and 7:

But today, in my opinion, was much more exciting! First we discussed our Google Trends word homework, and you guys shared your most interesting finds and analysis. I think my favorite discovery of the day was the usage of the word “war,” (I don’t remember who suggested that, but you are a smart cookie!) which we learned is actually used more frequently to refer to videogames than to actual wars. Another cool one was “fireworks,” which at first seemed perplexing – there was a big spike every July, which makes sense because of the Fourth of July, but then there’s another spike in November (not, as someone hypothesized, in January to celebrate the new year). Then we figured out it was because of Guy Fawkes Day in Great Britain (the “Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot…” story that is in V for Vendetta). Good work, you guys! I hope that this was fun and that you learned something, and that you’ll use Google Trends from time to time.

We spent the majority of today discussing gender and The Hunger Games, though. We had fantastic discussions in every period. I don’t think we actually finished in any of the classes, but we’ll tie things up tomorrow – the paper that we’ve been talking about with the notes in the margins is going to be due as soon as we finish, for a completion/participation grade. Tomorrow, we’ll also compare the romantic relationships in The Hunger Games to those in Twilight, as they relate to gender roles.

I’m looking forward to talking with you tomorrow, my sweet students! You guys are awesome! 🙂

Period 1:

Today we talked about our vocabulary words (see the post from yesterday for the list and PowerPoint) and analyzed the Trackerjacker passage from the Hunger Games. (Chapter 14)

Period 3, 4, 6, and 7:

• Vocabulary (words 1-8)
• HG – Katniss-in-the-tree-scene and revising your Reaping POV scene
• Test over The Hunger Games next Monday (September 30)
• Homework: Google Trends, due THURSDAY – see below for instructions if you lost the sheet I gave you
• Second Summer Reading (Kite Runner, Joy Luck Club, or Life of Pi) Project is due a week from Wednesday (October 2) – must be printed and turned in (my email can’t handle that many submissions)
• I *think* your reaping scene final drafts are going to be due on NEXT Friday (October 4)

Homework for September 24, 2013 – Word Usage, Trends, and Cycles

1.     Go to www.google.com/trends

2.     Search for a word that you think will bring up interesting results.

3.     Play with and adjust the results criteria right underneath the search box, particularly search location (are you looking worldwide or just in a particular country?) and search dates (between what two dates do you want the data?).

4.     Print off the page.

5.     Annotate it – make notes about interesting things that you find, and analyze the data – are at a unique conclusion, and tell me something interesting about this. You can comment on a) the cycle or pattern displayed in the graph, the geographic locations in which the search is most prevalent, or the related searches that are popular (or all of them!).

6.     Repeat for one other word.

Staple your two word sheets together. Put your name and period on the top. If your printer is broken/out of ink/home to a family or gerbils, you can print this in the library. You cannot ask me to go print this in the library the class period that it’s due. Speaking of which, this is due Thursday, September 26.

**As a final note – really, really try to choose interesting words. As in our Google etymology homework, they do not need to be words that you don’t know – what I am most looking for is that you have chosen words that will give you a good mental exercise, kind of an a-ha! moment!

Today we took our third vocabulary quiz and discussed the correct choices. If you missed it because you were absent, please come in on Wendesday or Friday (but preferably Wednesday) to make it up during lunch tutorials.

For Pre-AP classes, our homework for this evening was to read the Wikipedia summaries of Twilight, since we’re going to be comparing the romance in that book with Hunger Games. You can find the website for those summaries here.

I also passed out the vocabulary lists for this week. Here are electronic copies:

Vocabulary List (Academic and CP) – List 4

Vocabulary List (Pre-AP) – Week 4

And here is the PowerPoint with the discussion questions – as a reminder, if you are absent, it is your responsibilty to still look at these questions and answer them:

List 4 Vocabulary Presentation

Hunger Games Reaping Rewrite Scenes should absolutely have been turned in by this point. If you are for some reason still missing yours, you can get an electronic copy of the instructions in the posts from last week.

It’s looking like my post about what we did yesterday during class (Wednesday, September 18) didn’t go through for some reason – did anyone see it? Hmmm… if I can’t figure out what happened with it, I’ll post a new summary.

Today in class we continued with vocabulary, worked on our Reaping POV rough drafts, and (in most of the classes, depending on time) we looked at chapter 11 of Hunger Games, in which we get some surprising insight’s into Katniss’s character regarding her strength and sensitivity.

Rough drafts of your Hunger Games POV Reaping scene are due tomorrow, along with your two prewriting sheets. All of those items will count for grades, so please be sure to turn them in. Reaping Scene Rough Draft Instructions <- I’m putting the instructions for that assignment in this post – I included them in yesterday’s phantom post, but I’m not sure if people had a chance to access it in case yesterday’s summary really has disappeared. And here are the two prewriting sheets again, just in case:

Expanded Moment Planning and Pre-Writing

POV Reaping Pre-Writing – Page 1

Hope everyone is staying dry!

Today we took the BOY (beginning-of-year exam)! It’s not the most exciting thing we’ll ever do in English, but it is important, and I want to thank you, students, for taking it so seriously and doing your best work.

If you were absent, make an appointment to come by and make it up – looking at my schedule for the rest of the week right now, I think the only time I am going to be free in Friday during lunch tutorials (I have meetings at lunch Wednesday and Thursday, I’m helping to proctor the PSAT tomorrow afternoon and have a meetings Thursday and Friday after school). If Friday during lunch won’t work, let’s see if we can get you done with the exam early next week.

Also – many of you have been asking about when your Reaping scene rewrite is due – we’ll talk more about that tomorrow! I just don’t want you fretting – it’s not for homework tonight.

I’m going to go ahead an attach our word list and PowerPoint for this week, just in case you feel like getting an early start.

List 3 Vocabulary Presentation

Vocabulary List (Pre-AP) – Week 4

It was great to see everyone after this long weekend! I enjoyed the time off, but to be honest, I missed y’all!

We spent the bulk of our time today taking our vocabulary quiz, which included an essay comparing the situation in Syria to the plot of The Hunger Games using some of the words we studied last week. I have graded two periods of quizzes so far, and I’ve been impressed with your insights! If you were absent today, please come to tutorials during lunch on Wednesday or Friday to make up your quiz. We also graded the multiple-choice portion of the quizzes from today and last week – I’m reviewing your sentences and essays to see if you used the words in context correctly.

Just some notes on some things I’ve seen so far from your quizzes:

• I have noticed that collectively (one of our words from the first list, and one that many people seemed to have a little trouble with – it doesn’t mean that you are good at collecting things, but rather, “as a group”) one of the issues students seem to be facing is that you’re more confident in identifying the words as you are reading than composing sentences of your own using them. I would suggest that you really study the notes from the PowerPoints that we take, in addition to paying particular attention to how the words are used in example sentences.
• I’ve also noticed a relationship between the quality of notes that people are taking as we talk each day about the words, and their final scores on the quizzes. I wonder what could be at work there… 🙂

No homework for tonight!