We made it through Week 1! I wanted to say thank you to all of my students for a really great first week – I have been bragging to all of the other teachers, as well as my friends and family outside of Bellaire, that I think I have an amazing batch of students.

I also wanted to say that I am really enjoying reading and responding to your introductory emails. You all are telling me some very cool stories about yourselves, and I feel like the information you are sharing is going to help me be a better teacher to you over the course of the year. If I haven’t had a chance to respond yet to your email, I’m very sorry for the delay – I have read about 2/3 of the emails I have received so far, and I should get to yours shortly (I have 197 students at this point, so it just takes a while to read and write back to everyone).

So, Friday:

We took our syllabus quiz and reviewed some of the most important rules and procedures. Then we finished the vocabulary PowerPoint (it was posted a few days ago, so you can download it if you missed some words). Those exercises are going to be due Tuesday at the start of class, before you take your vocabulary quiz. And I’ll post the list of words in the vocabulary section.

We talked about the Matrix Moment assignment (also due Tuesday), and it seemed like everyone was on the right track.

Then we began discussing the Hunger Games Characterization Project, in which you will build a Hunger Games-style tribute as a way of learning about direct and indirect characterization. Remember, that project is for a major grade, and it’s due on September 8. We’ll continue working on this next week. Here’s an electronic copy of that assignment. Characterization in the Hunger Games – Building a Tribute

Some of you came to my room after school to watch The Truman Show – that was a lot of fun! If you weren’t able to come, you can still watch it and take notes for 10 points of extra credit on your vocabulary quiz on Tuesday.

Have a fantastic Labor Day weekend, and I’ll see you on Tuesday. 🙂