Syria Article PDF

Expanded Moment Planning and Pre-Writing

I hope that everyone is having a fantastic long weekend! I’m using the excuse of having a cold to curl up with a great book (Zadie Smith’s White Teeth – hilarious!) all day.

Some important reminders about what we did/talked about on Friday:

1. Students, you have a vocabulary quiz over our second list of words on Monday. If you left your list at school, go back and look at the earlier posts in the week to download another one. Two other important notes about vocabulary – your answers to the questions that we talked about in class for each word are due on Monday, before you take your quiz. If you missed any because you were absent or didn’t have enough time to answer, please go download the PowerPoint and use it to do the questions. Also, as a reminder for students in Pre-AP classes – your quiz is going to require you to analyze a news article about Syria. If you would like to read the article early to be better prepared, you can download it from the link above.
2. We also worked on the expanded moment graphic organizer portion of our Hunger Games Reaping POV scene rewrite. As a reminder, that assignment will require you to rewrite the scene of the Reaping from the perspective of a character other than Katniss (so it still needs to be in first person, just told from, for example, Peeta or Prim’s point-of-view). That graphic organizer needs to be completed by the start of class on Monday. (You do not need to have your scene written!)
3. Please continue reading The Hunger Games if you have not already finished it! The last chapter we talked about in class was 10, so you should be a little beyond there. Speaking of which…

Today in class, we are discussing the next five words on our vocabulary list in preparation for our quiz on Monday. Students are responsible for responding to the corresponding question for each word on the PowerPoint in a complete sentence – I’ll ask students to turn those responses in tomorrow (we’ll finish the last five words tomorrow for Pre-AP classes).

We’re also talking about the strategic use of narrative time – shaping a story by skipping over or condensing the parts of it that are less relevant, and taking the time to develop “expanded moments” for portions that are significant. We’re reading pages 124 to 130 of The Hunger Games in class as an example of a moment that doesn’t actually take a long time (30 minutes or so of Katniss’s life), but that is developed with sensory language, internal narration, dialogue, and other literary elements to help the reader feel like a part of this event.

Students are turning in their revised hyperbole paragraphs and their yearbook surveys. There is no homework for tonight, unless students have not finished any assignments that are overdue.

As a special reminder, we have yearbook pictures tomorrow! Please remember to bring your picture order form, if you would like to get a set of your photos.

POV Reaping Pre-Writing – Page 1

Vocabulary List (Pre-AP) – Week 3

Vocabulary List (Academic and CP) – Week 3

Today in class, we introduced this week’s vocabulary words (electronic copies of the lists are above). We’ll have our second vocabulary quiz on Monday over these.

We also went over the etymology of the first five words. Students answered the questions in the following PowerPoint about those words on a sheet of notebook paper (complete sentences!) – I’ll take those responses up at the end of the week for a grade.

Week 3 Vocabulary Presentation

Finally, we watched the “reaping” scene from the Hunger Games movie as a refresher for what we’ve read in the novel, in preparation for rewriting that scene from another character’s perspective. Students completed the pre-writing questions from the document at the top of this post.

A few reminders:

• Open House is tomorrow! Please encourage your parents to come.
• We will have yearbook pictures on Thursday during our class time. Make sure to wear an outfit in which you would like everyone to remember you! If your parents would like to purchase copies of your pictures, please have them return the order form to the photographer on Thursday.
• Yearbook questionnaires are due back tomorrow for a homework grade.
• For period 1, 3, 4, and 6, the hyperbole assignment revision is due tomorrow. For period 7, it will be due on Thursday.

Hyperbole Revision Assignment

Today we took our very first vocabulary quiz – woohoo! If you missed it, please come by and make it up during tutorials. I’m available during lunch and after school, but please let me know ahead of time if you are planning on coming so I can be sure to be there.

Also, we talked about revising your hyperbole assignments. For those of you in periods 1, 3, 4, and 6, your revisions are due on Wednesday. For those of you in period 7, your revision is due on Thursday.

I’m uploading an electronic copy of the Hyperbole Revision assignment and rubric if you misplace the paper one I gave you in class – click on the link to access it.

HG Chapter 1 Vocabulary – Pre-AP

HG Chapter 1 Vocabulary Discussion

Here is the vocabulary list and a PowerPoint discussion of the first 20 words! Good luck on your quiz on Monday!