After our discussion of last night’s reading, we listened to a podcast (listening guide: lore-podcast; listen here) about the history of vampire legends. Students continued to work on their theses. Homework for the weekend is to read Chapter 8 (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-8).

We had a nice viewing party for Nosferatu this afternoon (and a big thanks to the parent who donated the popcorn and the water – how sweet! the students enjoyed it!)

In class, we talked about the elements of a strong thesis and students began drafting one in response to a prompt about self-sacrifice (please come get paper copies if you need them). We’ll work on that essay over the course of the next week or so, and it will count for a major grade.

Homework for tonight is to read Chapter 7, the story of the ill-fated Demeter (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-7).

After talking about Dracula, we had a lesson and some practice with direct and indirect objects; check the grammar section of the website for the materials, and make sure that you are ready for these items to be on your quiz on Tuesday.

Homework for tonight is Chapter 6 and its reading guide (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-6) – please make sure that you go to the Dracula section of the class website to look at the background for this chapter.

We had some interesting discussions today about why Dracula is drawn towards England – it sounds like you pulled in some of your world geography conversations about immigration!

After that, we practiced reasoning in multiple choice style questions with a nonfiction article about “vampire” burials. (villagers-buried-suspected-vampires-with-blades)

And with the remainder of class, we looked at the second Dracula vocabulary list.

Homework for tonight is to read Chapter 5 and complete the reading guide (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-5).

Today we took our quiz over Dracula Vocabulary List 1 and subjects and predicates. Here is that distribution:

Homework tonight is to read Chapter 4 and complete the reading guide (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-4).

Today we discussed Dracula’s character at the beginning of class. I told you that the chapter that you will read for homework this weekend – Chapter 3 – will be, in my opinion, the scariest from the entire book, so maybe don’t read it at night! Here (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-3) is the reading guide for that.

Please make sure to study Dracula Vocabulary List 1 and subjects and predicates for your quiz on Monday. Remember that there will be review grammar questions – I highly recommend that you make sure that you are familiar with gerunds, participles, infinitives, appositives, and prepositional phrases.

We began today with a discussion of Chapter 1 – students had some interesting insights. With the rest of our time, we went over the first list of Dracula vocabulary words. We will have a quiz over those (as well as a grammar objective – subjects and predicates) this upcoming Monday.

Remember that we’re watching Dracula Untold tomorrow after school, if you would like to join us! It will be finished a little after 5:00 PM.

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a relaxing break. 🙂

We began our Dracula unit today. If you have not already done so, please check out the “Dracula” tab of the website – I’ve put a lot of information up there to help set the mood.

Today we went over some background information about the novel (dracula-schema-guide). Homework for tonight is to read Chapter 1 and complete the reading guide (dracula-reading-guide-chapter-1) so that you are ready for our discussion tomorrow. Remember that I’ve given you a lot of help in the Chapter Backgrounds section of the Dracula page.

Also, we’re having our first extra credit film of the the new year on Friday: Dracula Untold. It’s Dracula’s origin story – how he goes from a (human) Transylvanian prince to an immortal monster.

Remember to bring your grammar and vocabulary folders for the rest of this week.