October 22-26, 2012

Greetings Students: APE's, Other Seniors, and APE's in Training!

I hope you all had a restful weekend and are ready to plunge into new literary depths. I have spent two days at an awesome teacher training session, and I have some great ideas to make our classes even better! I'm excited to move forward with learning!

Below you will find this week's particular plans for your classes:

Pre-APEnglish 10

Study your new vocabulary for your weekly quiz on Friday.


This Tuesday is the Plan Test. I know you've all been working hard preparing for it. Remember, this test is key in determining  your placement in AP classes, so do your best. On Monday we will have one final grammar review. Then you homework from me is to get a good night's sleep and wake up in time to eat a good breakfast, preferably high in protein. Drink plenty of water to hydrate your brain.

Beginning on Tuesday of this week we will continue our study of Julius Caesar.  The e-text provides a side-by-side translation from Early Modern to Modern English. Use the e-text at home to help in your understanding. We will read the original in class together. I hope to complete Act I and progress well into Act II.

Expect short tests or alternative checks after each act.

Our goal this week is to explain the actions of various characters and to infer the reasons behind those actions. While reading, you should identify and also compare and contrast dramatic foils.
We will also discuss characterization and use textual evidence to support our claims about characters.
And finally, we will examine the grammatical structure of certain passages. 

See you in class!

English 12

Study your new vocabulary for your weekly quiz on Friday.

This week we will read the remaining passages from Beowulf in your online text. We will also use the questions in your text to facilitate a class discussion. You will take the reading check text from your online text, and complete the grammar activities associated with the text. Also, we will read commentary from the authors of two translators of Beowulf and discuss their differing approaches.

Be sure to check Edmodo daily for updates. I will alert you to any reading or outside assignments.

See you in class!

APEnglish Literature and Composition

We have much to do this week! As I mentioned earlier, I attended a great teacher conference and got some great ideas for this class. I hope to start using some of them right away. With that end in mind, and with my awareness that poetry is a challenge for many students, I want to begin by directing you to a really cool website called Poetry 180. As you can probably surmise from the title, it's a site with 180 poems--one for each school day. Now I'm not going to use all 180 in this class, but I do want to choose a few to get us started in our poetry studies. We will use some of these very accessible poems to take baby steps towards poetry analysis.

We will also incorporate regular poetry reading days into class. That's right. YOU will be selecting poems (with some guiding criteria) to introduce and read in class. I'm hoping to have three coffee house days this year.

So, your first poetry assignment for the remainder of the year is to visit Poetry 180 and find FIVE poems that you want to share in class. I will model for you how to write a FOCUS STATEMENT for each of your five poems. You will turn in all of your statements, but you will choose one of your poems for class discussion.

I may also, on occasion, (maybe once a week) use a short poem for a bell ringer. You will write responses to the poem and create focus statements to share. These focus statements, I hope, will prepare you to write those poetry analysis essays on the exam. Those of you who are in tech will need to write your poem exercises outside of class.

While we are discussing poetry in class, I need you to do some outside reading. I have some hard copies of Atonement, but not enough for everyone. I did, however, find a digital copy of the novel. If you need a hard copy, you may check one out, but you must pay for it if it is lost.

I would like you to begin reading part one. We will schedule a class discussion for the end of next week.

Don't forget your vocabulary quiz on Friday.

See you in class!