After a thrilling Mock STAAR session this morning, 6th and 6th periods worked on their Dracula fan fiction (which is due tomorrow).

And I have to say – I have started reading some of them, and I am SO IMPRESSED! No exaggeration – your stories are the most interesting of any class of 9th graders I have had at Bellaire. If you haven’t had a chance to turn yours in via Google Classroom, please make sure to do that before the start of class tomorrow.

And remember – reading check over the rest of the novel on Wednesday!

I was talking with Ms. Linsley, and we’re thinking (THINKING!) of offering a field trip for IB 9th graders in May after all of your STAAR exams are over.

If you are in the IB program, please click here to give me some of your opinions on whether this trip would be a good idea and what would make it most enjoyable for you.

Today we went over the fantastic Shelley poem, “Ozymandius.” We had some fun with drawing images from it and answered some multiple choice questions.

If you were absent, please come get a copy.

Also, Dracula fan fiction! We’re trying out Google Classroom, so you’re going to submit this to me using that platform on Tuesday. Check out the Google Classroom page for our class to see the assignment specifications.

Today we read an excerpt from one of Lord Byron’s poems about a very tragic vampire. If you were absent, please come pick up a paper copy to read and practice answering the multiple choice questions.

After the poem, students had time to read the novel, work on their essays (which will be turned in tomorrow), and begin playing with Google Classroom.

As a reminder, we have the Mock STAAR on Monday! Please make sure to meet at the MPR on Monday morning at the very start of Period 1. Bring a pencil.

Also, a former student of mine (now a 10th grader at Bellaire) is spending her summer volunteering in a rural part of China. She wants to start a visual arts program for children in that community and is trying to collect working and gently-used digital cameras. If you or your family have any digital cameras that you are no longer using, please place them in a Ziploc bag (with your name and email address, if you would like to get some updates on the project and pictures from China). This would be a great way to recycle unwanted electronics and bring some beauty to the world!

Lots of important announcements today!

1. As a reminder, your hero essay is due on Friday. I would like a printed copy with your works cited page at the back and the rubric at the front.
2. If you would like to raise your grade on the grammar exam, you may come on Friday during lunch tutorials – bring your grammar notes – to do an activity to either add 10 points or bring your grade up to a 70.
3. You need to finish the rest of Dracula by next Wednesday; you’ll have a reading check over the last four chapters on that day.
4. In honor of African-American History Month, our film for this week will be Selma, the story of the iconic voting rights march. If you attend and complete the viewing guide, I will add 10 points to your next reading quiz.
5. We’re taking the Mock STAAR next week. You will miss periods 1 – 4 (your teachers have already been informed). Please meet at the MPR at the beginning of first period. The multiple choice section and the essay will each count as two major grades.

Today we reviewed for our grammar exam using Kahoot! Someone told me that if I posted the link, you would be able to practice by using two devices – one to run the game and one to answer. So here it is! Remember that there are also lots of grammar resources under the grammar section of the website. And please don’t forget to be reading Dracula – if you have been keeping up with it every night, you should only have to read one chapter this weekend.

After discussing how to integrate quotations into the body of an essay, students spent these two days drafting their hero essays.

Remember that we’re watching Dracula: Dead and Loving It tomorrow after school; I’ll apply 10 points of extra credit to your reading check grade next week if you attend.

We had a lot of important announcements today! Here’s a summary:

• We’re trying an experiment with regard to reading. You are responsible for reading chapters 19 through 23 by next Tuesday, but you will not have homework or reading guides. Instead, you’ll take a reading check on Tuesday.
• We’re having an exam over all of the grammar that we have covered this year on this upcoming Monday. You should have plenty of resources from which to study, but we’ll do a review day on Friday.
• We’re also going to be working on your hero essay over the next two weeks – that will be due on February 10.

After our discussion of Renfield, we looked at the requirements for your research-based essay on a hero (documented-essay-rubric-chapman-2016-17). We talked about what makes a strong introductory paragraph, and students used the remainder of the period to draft their introductions and theses.

Also, we’ll have our last film of the unit on Friday! It will be Dracula: Dead and Loving It. I’ve seen this film perhaps a dozen times and it still makes me laugh. Since we’re not having a vocabulary quiz next week, let me mull over how much extra credit to give for this…