We took our last JLC vocab quiz today – results looked very good! With the remaining time, students got started on their homework for tonight (jlc-rg-9-rice-husband).

I passed out papers with information about Wednesday’s PSAT – make sure you keep that (or a copy of it) so that you know what room to go to that morning. Please make sure that you arrive on time – if you’re late, you’ll have to go to the late start room (which means a late lunch!).

I will be helping out with organizing the testing on Wednesday, so you will have a substitute. Her name in Mrs. Wu, and she’s very nice. She might even teach you some Chinese!

Also, if you would like to purchase a copy of our next book, The Count of Monte Cristo, you can bring $6.50 to school some time between tomorrow and next Monday (October 24). Please note that we read a special abridged edition of this book, so if you purchase a copy independently, make sure that it’s the right one!

Woohoo! Happy Early-Release Friday! 🙂

Today, we went over the vocabulary words from List 3 in preparation for your quiz on Monday. Homework is to complete the review chart for JLC (the-joy-luck-club-midway-review) – hopefully this will help with keeping names and such straight as we finish out the book.

Please remember that I will be doing a red vocabulary folder check on Monday while you’re taking the quiz! I am looking for the following things:

1. that you have the red folder.
2. that you have all of the lists I have given you, since the beginning of the year, with the first on top and the last on the bottom within the brads.
3. that you have been taking notes on the lists as we discuss them in class.
4. and that you are not storing any unnecessary papers in the folder.

Students completed the rhetorical analysis of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother today in class. Homework is the 8th reading guide for JLC (jlc-rg-8-two-kinds).

Happy mini-weekend!

We talked about Ying-ying’s story today in class. Afterwards, students began annotating sections from The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (the-battle-hymn-of-the-tiger-mother) in preparation for our class on Thursday.

Homework is Reading and Discussion Guide 7 for the next short story (jlc-rg-7-half-and-half).

See you Thursday! And Happy Yom Kippur to those of you who celebrate!

We began today with a discussion of the first short story in the second section of JLC. After that, students took their vocabulary quizzes (the scores from first period looked phenomenal – I’ll post a distribution tomorrow!).

Homework for tonight is JLC Reading Guide 6 (jlc-rg-6-the-voice-from-the-wall).

Students talked about “The Moon Lady” in class today in their groups. We used the second half of class to go over the JLC Vocabulary List 2, which will be on your quiz on Monday (and to students’ delight, there will NOT be grammar on Monday’s quiz).

Homework for the weekend is to read the next story in the book and complete the individual portion of the reading guide (jlc-rg-5-rules-of-the-game).

Just as a reminder, we’ll have an extra credit film to watch tomorrow after school. It should be over by 5:15 PM. You can check out the trailer here:

Today we discussed last night’s chapter from JLC and continued the rhetorical analysis of The Rape of Nanking. Tonight you should read the short story “The Moon Lady” and answer the individual portion of the reading guide. I’m having trouble posting the file of that for some reason, but please email me if you need it, and I can send it to you that way.

EDIT: Update – here’s the reading guide for the fourth short story (jlc-rg-4-the-moon-lady).

As I mentioned in class, the West U Rotary Club is sponsoring a scholarship program to send students to other countries for either the summer or an entire academic school year. A representative from their organization will be coming to the Bellaire HS library to talk with interested students and parents on Thursday, October 13, at 6:00 PM. Please send me an email if you would like to attend so that I can make sure that we have enough copies of materials.

We continued our small group discussions of The Joy Luck Club today. For the second half of the period, students continued to work with their groups to do a rhetorical analysis of The Rape of Nanking. Homework for tonight is to prepare the individual portion of the discussion guide for the third short story, “The Red Candle” (jlc-rg-3-the-red-candle).