Vocabulary for the College Bound

Starting this week, students will study one lesson per week from their worktext, Vocabulary for the College Bound.  Each lesson includes ten new words with four exercises to go along with them.  In addition to completing these exercises (some in class, some for homework), we will complete 2-3 ten minute exercises together during the week to help us learn the words.
New lessons will be introduced on Monday, and tests on the words will be given on Fridays.

Study the words a little each night for best results!! 

You should know the word's definition, part of speech, and how to use it correctly in a sentence (if it's an adjective, don't use it as a noun!) 

All vocabulary grades will count for READING.

Good luck on your first test this Friday!

The Devil's Arithmetic Web Quest

Today in class, you will embark on a journey into a part of history that will expose you to both the best and worst of humanity.  With your clock partners, you will explore different aspects of Jewish culture, the Holocaust, and World War II, as this is the context of The Devil's Arithmetic.  Although you'll work with three different partners during the class period, you are each responsible for completing your own Quest worksheet and submitting your own individual assignment. 

You will need to finish the Quest over the weekend and be ready to submit your completed worksheet on Monday.  It should be clear in your responses that you read the resources and articles you were directed to during the Quest and that you put thought and effort into your responses.

To begin the quest, click this link:


http://www2.fultonschools.org/teacher/ottg/Devil%27s_Arithmetic/Devil%27s_Arithmetic.htm

Your Quest sheet is due on Monday and is worth a CLASSWORK grade in Reading.  Good luck!

An exciting opportunity!!

I have been completely absorbed in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins - I've flown through the first two books in the past week or so and am starting the last book today.  Several students have also read the series, and I'm encouraging everyone to pick these up because they are IMPOSSIBLE to put down and are worth a smacking 15 AR points each!!!!

Scholastic Book Club flyers for January and February are being sent home today with instructions for easy online ordering - purchasing books through Scholastic online is a great way to build personal libraries because the selections are much cheaper than bookstore prices, and with each online order, we earn free books for our classroom library!

Also, an exciting opportunity for budding authors - Scholastic is having a writing contest, and the Grand Prize is a trip to the premiere of the movie The Hunger Games, which comes out on March 23, 2012!!

The story must be a dystopian tale that is originally your own. 

Follow this link for contest details, and visit this site and this Wikipedia entry to read more about what a "dystopian" story is.

The Story of an Hour

This week are taking the district's mock assessment for the new ARMT Plus, which basically combines our old ARMT with the SAT-10. 

The test is quite long and includes a lot of writing, so I've divided it into three sections.  We took the first section (grammar and reading comprehension benchmarks) yesterday, and today we are annotating a non-fiction article and writing an essay to respond to a prompt (If you could change one thing in the world to make it better, what would it be?  Explain with reasons and/or specific examples).

For tomorrow's section, students will read the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and write an essay to address direct and indirect characterization of the main character, Mrs. Mallard.

This is a short story that is typically read and studied in the latter high school years, so it is going to be a challenge to read it AND write an essay on it in one class period. 

It will be extremely helpful for students to visit the link below before tomorrow to familiarize themselves with the story.  The full text is linked from this site, as well as a graphic short story version.

http://www.katechopin.org/the-story-of-an-hour.shtml

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me at clairehardin@hotmail.com.