L.A. 8
We're starting off the new year with a group art project! Students have divided into two "families" - Capulets and Montagues. They made family crests using symbols to represent their personalities. I am encouraging the families to be competitive, modeling some of the animosity between the two families in Romeo and Juliet. Families will be awarded points based on good behavior and other attributes, and maybe there will be a prize for the winning family!
We are also starting on Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet. This includes the famous Balcony Scene. Along with working on Shakespeare's language, we will also be discussing theme, motifs, symbols, and imagery.
Contemporary Lit.
We finished reading Macbeth before the holiday break, and now we are wrapping up our unit with a Literary Analysis Essay. Students will pick between four themes (Power, Ambition, Appearances & Reality, and Fate & Free Will) and write about how that theme works in the play. The essay will be due on January 15th. Students will have plenty of work time in class and have been provided with an outline packet that will guide them through the process.
Writing Lab.
Students are finishing up their Narrative Essays this week. We will be doing peer edits today, then completing the final drafts. Narrative Essays are not formal essays - they are stories about students' lives that they write into a more formal, polished piece. Narrative Essays include all of the traditional plot points - exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. However, in this case, students must write a true story that happened to them.