We discussed Odysseus’s descent to the Underworld today in class. Then we discussed adjectives and adverbs using the materials under the grammar section of the website. Finally, students wrote PIE paragraphs about Circe using both the text and a poem (pie-paragraph-3).
Homework for the weekend (due on Monday) is to read Book 12 (8-book-12) and complete the reading guide (book-12-reading-guide). Please also make sure that you are prepared for your quiz!
Important reminder: please be ready to turn in your second summer reading essay tomorrow!
Today in class we talked about the Odyssey Vocabulary List 2, which will be on your quiz on Monday. Afterwards, students had about 25 minutes to read Book 11 (7-book-11) and work on the reading guide (book-11-reading-guide), which is due tomorrow.
We have a few extra credit opportunities that I wanted to mention:
Friday, September 9: Come see the second half of the film version of The Odyssey! We’ll start watching the film at 3:30 PM in my room and should be finished by 5:00 PM. I would recommend coming if it’s possible because we’ll be reading the second half of the Odyssey next week. This opportunity is worth an extra 10 points on your upcoming quiz.
Friday, September 16: We’ll be watching O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a retelling of the Odyssey story. It’s also a very funny musical that students typically enjoy. We’ll start watching the film at 3:30 and be finished by 5:15 PM. This opportunity is worth an extra 10 points on the following week’s quiz.
Saturday, September 17: Come take a mock PSAT to prepare for the real thing. Students must register ahead of time at this link and arrive at the Bellaire MPR by 7:45 AM (you should be finished around 11:30 or so). This opportunity is worth an extra 10 points on your Odyssey exam (which is a major grade).
We started class by discussing the Circe episode of the Odyssey. Students then took a Lexile test to determine their beginning-of-the-year Lexile score. Homework for tonight is to get a Khan Academy account and complete some of the exercises for adjectives and adverbs.
To join Khan Academy:
Sign up using a Google account (with your real first and last name so that I can give you credit).
Go to www.khanacademy.org/coaches and enter the code for your class period in the “Add a coach” field:
Period 1: WQ85H3
Period 6: PY3GNC
Period 7: SQVYGM
Go to the Grammar section of the class website. Scroll down to the Adjectives and Adverbs section, and click #5 – Khan Academy. The link will take you to a section called “The Modifier,” which is another term for adjectives and adverbs. I want you to complete the following videos/activities for homework:
All of the videos come out to be about 23 minutes, and I’m going to guess that the exercises will take an additional 10 minutes.
I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend!
We took our quiz over the Odyssey Vocab List 1 and verbs today. Here is a graph of the distribution of scores:
Homework for tonight was to read Book 10 of the Odyssey (6-book-10) and to complete the reading guide (book-10-reading-guide).
We’ll have another extra credit film this Friday – it will be the second half of The Odyssey.
Woohoo! We made it through the week, and now we have a three-day weekend!
I took up summer reading essays today in class, and reminded you that if you have not yet brought your classroom community item, to please see if you can get it this weekend.
We then discussed one of the most famous parts of the Odyssey – the cave of the cyclops. Students read the short story “Blindness” (Blindness Story) and answered some questions (turned in during class – please see me to make this up).
Homework for the weekend was to finish PIE Paragraph #2 (PIE Paragraph 2) and to study for your quiz on Tuesday (over Odyssey Vocabulary List 1, verbs, and some review questions on nouns). I showed you some resources for studying under the “Vocabulary” and “Grammar” tabs of the website.
After going over Books 6, 7, and 8, we spent the rest of class discussing the Odyssey Vocabulary List 1. I’ve put that on the Vocabulary section of the website, along with a link to the Vocabulary.com list so that you can practice. Please remember that we will have a quiz on Tuesday, September 6, which will cover:
Please remember that your first summer reading essay is due tomorrow! It must be printed and ready to go at the start of class! Also, we’ll have an extra credit film – the first half of the Odyssey – tomorrow from 3:30 to 5:00 PM.
Homework was the Book 9 Reading Guide (5-book-9; book-9-reading-guide).
Ms. Chapman's Class (Pre-AP) 
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