A few notes:

1. I have entered your vocabulary quiz grades from yesterday. The average score keeps improving, so I’m pleased that as a whole you are doing better and better.
2. List 4 for EMP is now up on Vocabulary.com if you would like to start studying for next week.
3. As an experiment, I will be holding a vocabulary review session in my room during lunch on Thursday. If you attend, I will also add 10 points to your next quiz score. Some ground rules:
   1. You must be there by 11:45 and must stay the the entire time.
   2. You must be actively participating. No sleeping, working on other classwork, causing a ruckus, etc. – if you’re not there to work, I will tell you to leave and you will not receive the extra 10 points.
   3. Bring your vocabulary list. If you lost the one I gave you on Monday, print another one.
   4. If you eat lunch in my room, clean up after yourself.

On Monday we took a vocabulary quiz! Afterwards, students read self-selected nonfiction articles on current events in preparation for expository essays.

On Tuesday, we went over our Ella Minnow Pea reading guides 2 and 3. Then, we began talking about the Odyssey. We read page 1204 and discussed this PowerPoint: The Odyssey Book 1

Homework was optional extra credit (10 points on this week’s vocabulary quiz) – students need to make a one page study guide for the reading section of the PSAT and a one page study guide for the writing section of the PSAT (which students will take tomorrow). I gave you the official PSAT study guide to help you out, and you also have the mock test that you took a couple of weeks ago.

Good luck tomorrow!

Today we finished up our Hero’s Journey posters. If for some reason your group is still not done, please come in during lunch on Monday.

Homework for this weekend is to spend an hour studying the Ella Minnow Pea Vocabulary List 3 on vocabulary.com, and get a note from your parent to that effect. The quiz will be on Monday. If you have misplaced your list, check the Vocabulary section of this website.

Have a good weekend! Tonight I’m making turkey mole, and tomorrow night I’m going to see Dracula at the Alley. Come back with stories to tell me about what adventures you have been up to! 🙂

Students and Parents:

It appears as though many teacher email accounts have been down since late yesterday – I am not currently able to check my email. I know our tech support people are working on this right now, and I hope that everything will be back to normal soon!

We spent almost all of today working on your Hero’s Journey posters. I’ll give you time to finish them in class tomorrow, but if you’re nervous about having enough time, you may want to come in during lunch.

Lots of important announcements today!

1. The library books that we checked out on September 26 are due tomorrow. Please bring your book to class if you would like to turn it back in, and I will send a cart down to the library. If you are not finished with your book and you still want to continue reading it, please bring it and renew it at the library so that you don’t get a fine.
2. The last HUB assignments are due electronically at 10:00 PM tonight, and in printed version tomorrow.
3. Here is the third Ella Minnow Pea reading guide: EMP Reading Guide 3 It’s due on Tuesday.
4. You’ll have some time tomorrow in class to finish your poster, but if you think that will not be enough, you should have someone from your group come work on it during lunch.
5. If you did not finish the English (reading and writing) sections of your practice PSAT, please come do that tomorrow during lunch.

Today we finished up our discussion of the Trojan War (see yesterday’s post for the PowerPoint). We watched a quick clip of the Trojan Horse episode:

Next, we talked about the Hero’s Journey. Here was the short TED Talk intro that we watched:

We looked at a few notes and handouts – here are electronic copies: Christopher Vogler – The Hero’s Journey and

Then we broke up into small groups and started work on a Hero’s Journey poster project. You will have all of tomorrow to complete it: The Hero’s Cycle Poster Project

After reviewing some of your graded writing assignments, we spent almost all of today on STORYTIME! As we are about to begin the Odyssey, we talked about the prequel to that adventure – the story of the Trojan War. Here is a PowerPoint with some notes about that story (The Trojan War), although I think that our discussion in class was much more detailed and colorful! If you were absent, you might want to ask someone to borrow their notes.

We actually didn’t finish this story in any of our classes, so we’ll continue on with it tomorrow. No homework tonight! (But don’t get used to that!)

Today we had our PIE celebration, and students got to snack on your delicious confections as they took the vocabulary quiz. (I think it was probably the sweetest quiz you will take all year.) Speaking of quizzes, here is an announcement that I made today:

If you would like to improve your last vocabulary quiz score, you can raise it to an 80 by writing sentences for every word on the list, and bringing them to me tomorrow by the end of lunch. Your sentences must be high-quality and demonstrate that you understand the meaning of the word. If you’re just throwing words into a sentence willy-nilly, I won’t give you any credit whatsoever.

No homework for tonight, but you can be reading your free choice book and doing your second Ella Minnow Pea reading guide: EMP Reading Guide 2

Today in class, we began with 10-or-so minutes of free choice reading for a warm-up. Next, we talked about the first 35 pages of Ella Minnow Pea using your discussion guides. Finally, we took notes on a writing method called PIE, which you will be using very frequently from this point on. Here is that PowerPoint if you would like to review: The PIE Method for Building Paragraphs

Homework for tonight is to either: 1) read your free choice book for 45 minutes, 2) practice using Vocabulary.com for 45 minutes, or 3) do both of those things (each one for 45 minutes) for an extra 10 points. You must bring a signed note from a parent telling me what you did.

Also, I think I mentioned this in all of the classes, but just in case, your printed HUB pages are due on Monday, since we won’t have class on Friday.

Today we took the English (reading and writing) portion of the PSAT, in preparation for the real thing, which you will take on October 15. I told you about a couple of different options that are available to you if you would like to further prepare for that exam: Testmasters (which is very expensive, although I think it can be effective), as well as the free PSAT and SAT offered by Mr. Wolf after school on Monday and Wednesday.

Homework for tonight was just to finish your reading guide for Ella Minnow Pea. I told you that if you did not yet have yours, you can borrow one of the few that I have during lunch.