General Information
Today is the last day of our first semester! I've loved getting to know your students and watching them grow through the first half of the year, and I'm excited about what the next few months will bring. At this point, I have finished grading all assignments that have been turned in that will count toward semester 1 grades. Students can turn missing work today or email it to me tomorrow. If your student believes they have turned in an assignment that has not been entered into the gradebook, they can check the "no name" pile or come talk to me. Thanks for a great first semester!
L. A. 8
Eighth graders are still working through Romeo and Juliet. We are almost done with Act 2, which puts us close to halfway through the text. This week, we did some writing and acting. Students wrote dialogue that they imagined would've happened between Juliet and her Nurse the night after she met Romeo. Then, they acted it out in pairs. We had some very creative sketches! We've also continued to review figurative language in the play and work on our school-wide goal of improving our understanding of complex texts.
Contemporary Lit.
This week, we learned how to write concluding paragraphs for our Literary Analysis Essays. Essays were due Tuesday night. Wednesday, we started our new unit: Rhetorical Analysis. Students will be looking at the different ways authors create persuasive arguments in multi-modal formats. First, we are analyzing commercials, using an Observe and Interpret protocol. Later, we will be analyzing the rhetorical strategies that brands use in social media, politicians use in political advertisements, and orators use in famous speeches throughout history. The unit is very quick and acts mainly as an introduction to rhetorical analysis, as they will continue to work on this skill more in-depth next year.
Writing Lab.
Students finished their Free Verse Poem this week, and we are now working on writing Persuasive Essays. Students are asked to think of an argument that is relevant to the subject of the "Gift of Gratitude" Scrapbook. They can write about why people should be friends with their best friend; why their fathers are the best cooks; or more objective topics, like why family dinners are important for bonding. No matter what topic students choose, they will be using the MELCon format to write a 5-paragraph essay.