Students – if you took a biography from my room, you need to bring it back! Those are library books that I need to return, and students in other class periods need to use them.

Today in class, we will begin our research on heroes for a big project that we will complete in the spring semester. The research notes that you take will count for a major grade and will be due on Friday. Students will have all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in class to complete this assignment (and your only homework will be to work on this).

Here is the assignment instruction sheet – hero-research-project-assignment-sheet.

And here is the template for the notes that you will need to take – research-notes-template. (Notice that you will ultimately need to print these out after you have typed the notes that you need.)

I have a huge collection of biographies in my room, which you will use to complete this assignment.

Here’s the quiz distribution from today. The average score across all classes was an 82.

The only thing that you need to do tonight is to submit your revision of your revenge essay by clicking on the link a few posts down on this website. You’ll turn in the rubric tomorrow in class.

We’re participating in the pet food drive to benefit Bellaire’s PAWs (People for Animal Welfare) Club. Bring in cans or bags of pet food (a small bag = 5 cans; a large bag = 10 cans), and you class could win a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie party!

PAWs has asked us to make sure that the pet food is of medium quality (such as Pedigree, Purina, or Alpo) – is doesn’t have to be gourmet, but they want to make sure that there aren’t any ingredients that could hurt the animals.

Submit your essay on revenge by clicking on this link. You must turn this in by the beginning of your class period on Tuesday!

And happy Friday! We began today with a discussion of the penultimate CMC reading guide. The next (and last!) one is due on Monday (cmc-reading-guide-10).

We also discussed infinitives – please come get a paper copy of the notes.

Finally, please make sure that you study for your quiz on Monday – it will be over the vocabulary from The Black Count (only that vocab list – not any of the ones from CMC), participles, and infinitives.

Remember that we’re having an extra credit showing of The Count of Monte Cristo tomorrow afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30 PM!

Today in class, we discussed present and past participles. If you were absent, please come pick up a copy of the notes (unfortunately, I do not have an electronic copy). We also went over the vocabulary list from The Black Count. Participles, the vocabulary, and infinitives (which we will cover tomorrow) will be on the quiz on Monday.

We began today with a discussion of all of the juicy developments in The Count of Monte Cristo. You next reading guide (cmc-reading-guide-9) is due on Friday.

With the rest of today, we talked about revising your essays on revenge. Students exchanged papers to write peer reviews (essay-revision). Your completed revision is due as a Google Doc on Tuesday, December 6 (I’ll post instructions for how to submit it later, but you’ll be turning it in electronically).

Students read an excerpt from the biographer of the father of Alexandre Dumas (who is, confusingly, also named Alexandre Dumas). (the-black-count-reading-guide and the-black-count-reading)

Please make sure that you have your CMC reading guide ready to discuss tomorrow!

Happy return from Thanksgiving break! We’re only three weeks away from the end of the semester!

Today students took their quiz over the last set of vocabulary words from The Count of Monte Cristo and gerunds. As I type this, 7th period is still testing, so I don’t have the chart yet, but thus far the scores have not been what I had hoped (and I think some of you were disappointed as well).

If you found this quiz to be difficult, it’s a good sign that you need to do more studying for the final, as you’ll be seeing the material that was on it again for that exam (which is worth the equivalent of a cycle grade, and will count for 25% of your semester grade).

So here is what you can do to raise your grade on this quiz if you were unhappy with what you earned:

• Attend the extra credit film on Friday (the movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo) for 10 points.
• Master (at 100%) the Count of Monte Cristo vocabulary lists at Vocabulary.com. I will give you 5 extra points for each of the lists that you master. You must complete this by Friday, December 2, and you must come in to see me during lunch tutorials on Friday so that I can verify with you that you have completed them.

Homework for tonight and tomorrow is to complete Reading Guide 8 (cmc-reading-guide-8 – due Wednesday).