Hello, students!

I’m sending you all positive vibes and hopes that you’re finding some silver linings in your social distancing.

Tuesday, March 31/Wednesday, April 1 will be our first official online instructional days (I’m posting this on Monday evening so that those of you who are up bright and early tomorrow can get a jump start).

For now, we’re not going to do anything “live” (I’d like to try that out later, but for now, I want to ease into all of the different platforms that we’re using). You are welcome to do you work for English during your assigned “period” or any other time that the mood strikes you so long as it’s in on time.

Some announcements:

1. Italian Pen Pals — I just today heard back from our teacher in Italy — she apologized for the delay for some of you in hearing from your pen pals. It just took her a little while to get in touch with all of her students, which is understandable given that they’re in the same sort of situation that we are. You should be hearing from your pen pal very soon if you haven’t already! She said that of her students who have already started talking to you, they said that it was very meaningful to them to get to talk with real American students (they are from a very small town and probably only know of our country from TV and movies). If you hear from your pen pal, please do not leave them hanging — give them a response!

2. The Hot Zone — The other Pre-AP English 1 teachers and I talked about this a lot, and we decided that we do want you to finish reading The Hot Zone. We know that it has become all too relevant right now, but ultimately, that book has a powerful message about how people can come together to defeat an epidemic, which is exactly what’s going to happen here. One week from now (next Monday/Tuesday), you will have an open book quiz over the last sections of the book that we did not get to go over in class. The reading guides should be helpful to you in preparing for that, but since it looks like we’re not going to be meeting in person any time soon, you will not need to turn those in. (Period 1, I know that you never got those from me, so I’m attaching them here.) ***If you checked out a copy of The Hot Zone, please do not lose or discard it — when we come back to Bellaire, even if that’s next August, I am going to ask you to return it!

3. This Week/Big Picture — We’re going to readjust a little in light of some of these new challenges. Our primary focus for our online learning time will be mastering (or getting closer to mastering) a fluency of Shakespeare. If you’ve ever felt a little intimidated by Shakespeare’s works, our goal is to make it so that you feel confident in your ability to read and understand any of his plays (although we will eventually be primarily focusing on Romeo and Juliet). We’re also going to continue doing some grammar stuff that you will need in preparation for Pre-AP English 2 next year.

Your To-Do List:

1. Over the next week, if you have not done so already, finish reading the Hot Zone.
2. Complete the Quill appositives activities that I posted last week (by Wednesday evening).
3. Complete the Shakespeare-related tasks that I post on Google Classroom (by Wednesday evening).