We started our next major work, MAUS, in class today! We discussed both graphic novels and World War II as a warm up. Over the next week, students will be reading the book and completing reading guides IN CLASS (not at home). Your homework for this week, then, is to be working on your comic book project: Comic Book Project. This project is due on April 20 – I emphasized the importance of working on it bit by bit instead of waiting until the last minute. Tonight, I asked students to begin thinking about their heroes/main characters for their comic books.

Today we continued to work on our Dracula essays. Please have them printed and ready to go for tomorrow!

Also, we’re beginning our unit on graphic novels. Check out this great webcomic as a preview!

I’m sorry for the late post!

We finished up viewing and discussing the humor in Dracula: Dead and Loving It. To close up our Dracula unit, students need to complete their literary criticism essays. Dracula Critical Essay Assignment Page

I gave out another sheet to help you with developing that essay: scaffolding for lit crit essay

That essay will be due on Tuesday, April 7. I’m giving you all of class time on Monday to complete it.

Today in class, students wrote essays about essays: How to Write an Essay.

One more day until STAAR!

We practiced a few more multiple choice sections today at the beginning of class. Students need to complete an essay about virtue: Virtue Essay Prompt (Please make sure you have a metaphor, imagery/sensory details, and folksy wisdom.)

Today in class, we focused on adding voice to expository writing. Here was the rubric and the prompt for today’s essay: Technology Essay Prompt and Voice in Expository Writing Rubric

Welcome back! I hope that everybody had a restful and productive Spring Break!

We’re T-minus one week from the STAAR test, so we’re really going to work hard over the next seven days. I reminded everyone that I have extra credit tutorials going on during lunch. The focus this week will be reading multiple choice. I highly recommend that you take advantage of this extra opportunity for preparation!

Today in class, we began by practicing a revising and editing multiple choice selection on Shakespeare. Next, we began writing an essay about friendship (due tomorrow). Here is that prompt: Friendship Essay Prompt To shake things up, I asked students to reverse the order of their two examples (so, personal example first, then real-world example) and reflect on what effect that had on their writing. Please come to class tomorrow with something smart to say!

Happy Spring Break!

In class today, students wrote essays about altruism. If you were absent, please make sure that I get yours on the Monday you get back.

Also, I had some suggestions for how you could spend your time over the next week in both fun and productive ways:

Things to Do Over Spring Break So That Your Brain Does Not Rot:

In exchange for me not assigning homework over Spring Break, I want you to think about taking responsibility for your brain by choosing from some of the items below:

1. With your parents’ permission, watch the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola version of Dracula. (It’s rated R, so please make sure that you check.) It’s pretty faithful to the book, and it’s fun to see how it was adapted for the screen.
2. Read a free choice book from the library, or swindle your parents into taking you to Barnes and Noble. (It’s my personal belief that every time you read a book, you make yourself a slightly better and smarter person.)
3. Listen to a podcast. Some that I like are Radiolab, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Serial, and This American Life, but there are lots of others. They should all be available for free online.
4. Read the news. Find out about what is going on in the world. (This would be particularly smart preparation for STAAR, as you could use these examples in your essay.)
5. Watch a documentary. There are tons available online (particularly if you have Netflix), and it’s another good way to learn a lot about a subject so that you could incorporate that example into your expository essay. Some documentaries I like are Blackfish, Cosmos, Food Inc., The Order of Myths, The Rape of Europa, and Dear Zachary (warning – this one is very, very sad) – but choose one that you find interesting.
6. Go for a walk. The best writers often use the time during a quiet stroll to mull over ideas for their projects.
7. Write a letter – a real, pen-and-paper, stamped letter – to someone for whom you care (a friend, a relative, etc.). Most people love to get something handwritten in the mail, and you just might get a response back yourself.
8. Visit a museum! Houston has a wealth of them – art, contemporary art, natural science, weather, health, printing, and even funeral history! Thursday is often a free day, where visitors don’t have to pay for admission (but double check for wherever you’re going).

Have a very nice break!

Today we read the fantastic sonnet “Ozymandius.” Ozymandius Students need to finish reading Dracula and use both the poem and the novel to answer tonight’s SAR: Dracula Chapter 27 SAR