T-minus seven days!

In class today, we:

1. talked about our last extra credit film, Shakespeare in Love, and discussed how you will need a permission slip if you would like to join us for this.
2. went over the requirements for all levels of English 2 (10th grade English) summer reading (Incoming 10th Grade Required Summer Reading 2017) – I told you that if you are unable to get copies of those books, to please speak with me privately.
3. discussed the multigenre review project, which you will be working on for the rest of our class time (Final Review Multi-Genre Project).
4. analyzed a sonnet, which I highly recommended that you review before the final.
5. acted out the death scene from Romeo and Juliet, which I also highly recommend you review before the final.

Happy Monday! Today in class, students wrote their final exam essays. There were a couple of students who were absent – it that’s you, please come write your essay tomorrow (Tuesday) during lunch.

Speaking of the final exam, I’d like to give you a run-down of what will be on it. The test will be entirely multiple choice and matching and will be a total of 100 questions, including:

• 10 close reading questions over an excerpt from Dracula
• 10 close reading questions over a Shakespearean sonnet
• 10 close reading questions over an article about Ebola
• 10 close reading questions over a biographical article
• 6 close reading questions over a scene from Romeo and Juliet
• 4 close reading questions over an excerpt from a book by Jeanette Walls (not The Glass Castle, but similar in style)
• 30 questions over grammar
• 20 questions over vocabulary from the spring semester

Some of the close reading questions will be over texts we have read in class; some will be over texts that are similar in style and genre to what we covered in class but which you have not read before.

I am going to particularly recommend that you prepare yourself by being able to do the following things:

• understand how the following terms apply to a piece of literature: epistolary, character foil, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, quatrain, couplet, alliteration, ethos, logos, pathos, allusion, verbal irony, dramatic irony, situational irony, author’s purpose, gender bias
• identify all of the parts of speech as used in a paragraph
• determine whether a clause is independent or dependent
• identify whether a sentence is simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex
• identify whether a sentence is declarative, imperative, interrogative, or exclamatory
• use commas to separate series of adjectives
• identify appositive, gerundive, infinitive, and participial phrases
• identify direct and indirect objects
• identify predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives
• complete a sentence by selecting the appropriate vocabulary word

I also gave you a list of all of the words that could appear on the vocabulary section (Pre-AP ELA 1 2017 Spring Vocab Final Study Words). I recommend that you prepare so that you would be able to use any of those words in a sentence.

Happy Friday!

We practiced more multiple choice questions with Romeo and Juliet today. After that, we analyzed a couple of sonnets – I asked you to work on annotating Sonnet 73 in the same method that we learned in class.

I also gave you the prompt for our final exam essay (Persuasive Essay Prompt Love Hate), which you will write in class on Monday. You may prepare by outlining, brainstorming, or pre-writing, but you may not bring a completed essay to class. Please remember that this essay will make up half of your final exam score!

We continued to watch and read Romeo and Juliet today – if you were absent, please pick up a copy of the multiple choice questions from my room.

Hey y’all, would you help me get the word out on this week’s extra credit movie, because I haven’t done a good job of publicizing it?

We’re going to watch the 2013 version of Romeo and Juliet in its entirety as a way of helping to solidify our understanding of the plot. It will be worth the equivalent of 10 points on a quiz (although I might attach it to a different kind of assignment).

I think coming to this, if you can, would be a good way to prepare for the R&J section of the final.

If you missed any of our Romeo and Juliet readings, please come pick up a copy from my room. We also started looking at sonnets – here is that PowerPoint (Sonnet Introduction).

Happy weekend! We spent half of today reviewing for your grammar exam as a class, and for the other half, students had a chance to create their study guides with their groups.

I told first period that if you want, you can come ask me questions at 7:25 on Monday. For sixth and seventh periods, you can come review with me during lunch.

Today we did a review of the objectives that will be over your grammar exam (Skill Review for Grammar Exam). I told you that I would like for you to collaborate in groups of up to five using Google Docs to create a study guide to help you prepare. We’ll keep talking about this and reviewing in class tomorrow.

No film tomorrow, but we will have Shakespeare in Love next Friday!

Hello, students –

I’m hoping that you have recovered from the excitement of the past two days of testing. I’m going to talk to you tomorrow in class, but I wanted to give you a little more lead time on something important coming up.

On Monday, May 8 (that’s this upcoming Monday), we will have a comprehensive grammar exam. It’s going to be a review of everything grammar-related that we have done this year. This assessment will not only tell you what you need to study for the final exam but also should indicate how prepared for Pre-AP English 2 you are.

I’m going to give you all of tomorrow in class for working on a study guide, but I feel confident that most of you are already well-prepared. It won’t be a tricky test, and I think a lot of the questions (which might have seemed difficult six months ago) will now feel pretty easy.

We’ll talk more tomorrow, but for now, you might want to start reviewing the grammar section of the website.

We had a thrilling day of taking vocabulary and grammar quizzes today! 😉

I won’t see you on Tuesday or Wednesday because of STAAR testing, so good luck! We’ll get back to Romeo and Juliet on Thursday. 🙂