Today's Menu ~ April 30

Today, may we work on the following:

1. Check this list of blog topics. Is your blog current?
2. Twelve-sentence story for your duck...will this be the literary work you submit for publication or are you working on another?
3. Group Review...Presentations are Tuesday!

On TUESDAY:

• Presentations.
• Assign synthesis essay...this one will be an essy per group essay that requires a survey using Google Forms. I know....coolness!
• Review for test.

On Thursday:

• Unit test.
• Work on synthesis essay and survey.

Duck Anthology Contest!

Please click on the above "Contest" page to enter your recommended title!

Thanks!

Today's Menu ~ April 28

National Poetry Month and our thematic unit continues with "Mirror," which I shared with you (check your Google Docs). REMINDER: "Make a copy." Then please read, complete the TPCASTT, and then share with me.

Ponder on this quote: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."

• What literary/figurative language term(s) is/are used within Orwell's quote?

NEW BLOG Post: Now that we have completed Animal Farm, write a post about the effectiveness of Orwell's using animal to portray his message about utopias.

Finalize presentations...ready, set, present.

HOMEWORK: Duck Time! Complete a twelve-sentence short story worthy of printing in our anthology. Check here for guidelines for each sentence.

Today's Menu ~ April 26

First, let me say thanks for your kindness and understanding as I have dealt with my mother's situation. She is getting to go home today after nearly a two-week stay in the hospital, and I am nearly as excited as she is!

While I am gone today:

1. Animal Farm quiz!
2. Work in your groups to prepare your final presentations for Wednesday. Yes, you may use your mini's...as long as you remain on task. Thanks, in advance, for being responsible.
3. Read "Shooting an Elephant."

On Wednesday:

• Presentations
• Review for Test.

Homework:

• Finalize and practice your presentation.

Today's Menu ~ April 22

In honor of this month being National Poetry Month and today being Earth Day and tomorrow being William Shakespeare's birthday...time for poetry!

• For Earth Day..."Mending Wall" by Robert Frost.
• Happy birthday, Mr. Shakespeare! In honor of his birthday...Sonnet 18.

Group Presentations ~ The Giver ~ Today!

Work Time: Animal Farm Presentations

Today's Menu ~ April 20

National Poetry Month continues with "I Can Dance."

AUTHORS:

Let's meet Lois Lowery: via a word from her (check your Google Docs), here via interviews with her, and her blog Lowery Updates. Please add her blog to your Google Reader.

• I really like this blog post...


• Now go to your blog: on what might someone cross-examine you? Draft your thoughts there.

Let's meet George Orwell.

Now research in your groups for the following definitons:

1. What is a fable?
2. What is an allegory?
3. What is a fairy tale?

Animal Farm Group Projects:

1. This time each team must prepare a question to ask as each team completes its presentation.

Assignment:

1. Finish Animal Farm for Monday.
   

Today's Menu ~ April 16

Today, I am attending the Arkansas Student Council State Convention...

Please complete...

1. Quiz: Chapters 1-2.
2. The handout...and turn in.
3. Read chapters 3-4 for Tuesday.

Today's Menu ~ April 14

More about The Giver:

1. My theme from my previous school: "Remember, it's all in your presentation!" Now remember that as you present today!


2. Let's meet Lois Lowery: via a word from her (check your Google Docs) and her blog Lowery Updates. Please add her blog to your Google Reader.


3. Discuss characterization and your group's created Utopias.
   

"The Red Wheelbarrow"...please share your version!

Homework:

Today's Menu ~ April 12

On being socially responsible, please read Six Career Killing Facebook Mistakes.

In celebration, please read "Hands UP!"

NEW blog topic: For what can you celebrate? No, your response does NOT have to be in poetic format, BUT to do so would be a nice challenge!

Ducks GALORE Returns!

Choose or create a selection for our class anthology.

Enter one of two contests:

1. Enter a title for our anthology.
2. Create a cover for our anthology.

The Giver

• Quiz!
• Work on group presentation....present!
• Let's meet Lois Lowery: via a word from her (check your Google Docs) and her blog Lowery Updates. Please add her blog to your Google Reader.


• Discuss characterization and your group's created Utopias.


• "The Red Wheelbarrow"...check here for some interpretations of this novel.


• NEW BLOG POST TOPIC: Your turn...write a poem modeled after William Carlos Williams' poem.

Homework:

• Work on blog assignments.
• Study Animal Farm vocabulary.

Today's Menu ~ April 8

I'm in a meeting today...so, please...

• complete the packet of info I left relating to novel.
• Hand in when your work is completed and read The Giver.

Today's Menu ~ April 6

Planning time for your presentations...remember to practice! Yes, it is all in your presentation today! Think positive!

The Giver:

How much do you know about chapters 1-12?

Work on The Giver Vocabulary Google Presentation.

This novel's group presentation topics....

1. What is it about Jonas's community that seems appealing? At what point are we convinced that, actually, something is wrong in with their way of life?
2. The Giver asks whether it's worth sacrificing freedom, choice, and individuality for peace, contentment, and ease. Well…is it?
3. This question is a little more complicated than we just portrayed . Life is not exactly a black and white choice between pain and freedom or happiness and subjugation. So where do we draw the line? How much freedom can we sacrifice in the name of safety? How much risk do we want to take for the sake of choice?
4. Why does the community portrayed in The Giver sacrifice individual identity? What do differences have to do with instability?
5. Rationalize, based on the novel, the setting (time, place, and culture) of this novel.

Today's Menu ~ April 2, 2010

I completed Days 1 and 2 of the 30-Day Challenge to write a poem-a-day! View my literary creations here (April 1) and here (April 2).

Please read this feel-good story...

Take few moments and review your vocabulary (you have a hard copy or you may access the words here also...TODAY IS TEST DAY!

In your group, practice a read-aloud of this poem:

Giggle Poem

Giggle giggle
Grin grin.
Let it out.
Don't hold it in.

Chuckle chuckle
Tee hee.
Louder now,
Set it free!

Ha-ha,
ha-ha,
ha-ha,
HA!

-Stephanie Calmenson
(Poem provided via a Random House newsletter, March 29, 2010)

INDEPENDENT GROUP PROJECTs: Plan a presentations (your group determines what tech tools to utilize for your presentation) for your assigned project for next Tuesday's class. If your group chooses, one of your minis may be linked to the LCD. In your presentation, DELIBERATELY plan a pathos and logos appeal....remember to plan ahead for this!

1. Defend Ayn Rand's choice of her title for the novel Anthem.
   
2. Research the Greek myths about Gaea and Prometheus, and explain why Ayn Rand chose these names for her characters in Anthem.
   
3. Prove or disprove this statement: Anthem is a heroic and inspiring story about the triumph of the individual’s independent spirit. Even though, at the end of the novel, Equality is greatly outnumbered, and modern society lies in ruins, it is a story of liberation and hope—not of despair.
   
4. To fully control a man, dictators must not only enslave his body, but also destroy his mind. Discuss how the leaders in Anthem seek to accomplish this tyrannical end.
   
5. Liberty chooses "Unconquered" as a fitting name for Equality. Similarly, William Henley's most famous poem is entitled "Invictus," which is Latin for "Unconquered." Develop a rationale for her choice. You may use the poem below or access other sources via the Internet to support your argument.
   
   Title: "Invictus"
   Poet: William Ernest Henley
   
   Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
   I thank whatever gods may be
   For my unconquerable soul.
   
   In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud.
   Under the bludgeonings of chance
   My head is bloody, but unbowed.
   
   Beyond this place of wrath and tears
   Looms but the horror of the shade,
   And yet the menace of the years
   Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
   
   It matters not how strait the gait,
   How charged with punishments the scroll,
   I am the master of my fate;
   I am the captain of my soul.
   
   William Ernest Henley
   

HOMEWORK:

• Read The Giver.
• Work on your vocabulary. Add definitions and sentences from novel to your slides in the Google Presentation.