Please remember that you have two extra credit opportunities: you may come to the after-school showing of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (which will end at 5:15 PM on Friday), and you may sign up for the mock PSAT on Saturday.

In class, we discussed Odysseus’s preparations for battle and reunion with his son, and then we covered pronouns (and puns!).

Homework for tonight is to read Books 18, 19, and 20 (11-books-18-19-and-20) and to complete the reading guide (books-18-19-and-20-reading-guide).

We watched a quick video on the possible true origins of the Circe myth in the Odyssey.

Afterwards, we had a discussion based on Books 13 and 14 about Odysseus’s arrival in Ithaca. We also talked about the vocabulary in Odyssey List 3.

Homework for tonight is to read Books 15, 16, and 17 (10-books-15-16-and-17) and to finish the reading guide (books-15-16-and-17-reading-guide).

We started today with our vocabulary and grammar quiz. Here is a distribution of those scores:

(You all did so well! I’m really proud of you. The average score was an 89, and we had 9 people who made perfect scores!)

Homework for tonight is to read Books 13 and 14 (9-books-13-and-14) and to complete the reading guide (books-13-and-14-reading-guide).

To reward those of you who check the website regularly, I’m going to make the strong suggestion that you review these items in particular in preparation for your quiz on Monday:

1. Be able to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs within a sentence.
2. Know what a common noun is.
3. Know what a definite article is.
4. Know what conjugation means.
5. Know what first-person plural looks like.
6. Know what tense is.
7. Know what past tense looks like.
8. Know what consistency of tense means.
9. Know what subject-verb agreement means.
10. Know what a modifier is.
11. Know the rules for making comparative and superlative adjectives, depending on the number of syllables in the adjective.
12. Know when you should use commas to separate strings of adjectives.
13. Know what writers should keep in mind when deciding whether to use adjectives or adverbs.
14. Know what parts of speech an adverb can modify.

I think that making a study guide for yourself focusing on these items would be a very smart way to prepare for the quiz. Hint, hint, HINT.

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:

• Intro to adjectives
• Meet the adjective
• Intro to adverbs
• Meet the adverb
• Using adjectives and adverbs
• Commas and adjectives
• Intro to the comparative and superlative
• Forming comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs
• Comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs

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.