This week:  2/10-2/14 all classes will be working on an essay about the joys and shortcoming of living in the Adirondack Park.  Rough drafts will be created Monday and Tuesday.  Peer review will happen on Wednesday followed by revision and editing. Final drafts will be done by Friday.

Outline for the essay is as follows:

I. Introduction - describe where you live

II. Advantage to living here #1

III. Advantage #2

IV. Advantage #3

V.Conclusion

Below are some of the notes we have gathered.  

Living in the Adirondacks              English 8 -10 min. list

Animals – viewing wildlife, hunting, fishing, trapping, opportunities

        Resurgence of nearly extinct animals and returning animals

Weather – Summers aren’t too hot

        Swimming holes and other sites

        Beautiful autumn

        Skiing opportunities

        Mountains to climb

        Practice survival skills

        Camping

        Snow shoeing

Environmental – Quiet

        No traffic

        Semi-clean

        Few disruptive people

        S P A C E

Homework:  Reading for 30 minutes each night...book of your choosing.

English 9

Nonfiction slideshow presentations will be given on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Below is the order in which they will be given.
1.  Sage
2.  Heather
3.  Spencer
4.  Hope
5.  Zach
6.  Trystin
7.  Austen
8.  Connor
9.  Skylar
10. Anthony
11. Dylan
12.  Nicki
13. Jenna
Be ready!

English 7

Students received their graded writer's notebooks and rough drafts with suggestions for improvement this morning. Then we worked on revision of Peak essays. 

Students may have been helped by review comments left by their classmates.  They are strongly encouraged to take the suggestions offered by their teacher! These suggestions will help them to maximize the points they earn as defined by the rubric.  Revision is the hardest part of writing!

Homework - read 30 minutes plus continue revising

Rubric for Peak essay

Writer’s name:_____________________

_____1.  Character is totally conistent with author’s intent.

_____2.  Perspective is totally first person.

_____3.  Mixture of dialogue, narration and internal monologue.

_____4.  Consideration of revision suggestions from classmates and your teacher.

_____5.  Original component shown – details we didn’t “know” while reading Peak.

_____ Total pts.

Book Orders! 

I will be sending out book orders on Friday, 31 January 2014 if you are interested.  Bring either cash or check made out to Scholastic. There is an online ordering option which I haven't investigated yet. Let me know in a comment if you are interested in ordering that way!

English 7
We continued work on Peak journals today.  Most finished peer review.  I reviewed and commented on many papers.  The rest I will return tomorrow in class when we will complete final drafts.  Bring a pen and plan to write final drafts in your own "Moleskine."

No reading logs tomorrow; just revising, editing and final draft writing on this last day of the quarter.

Read for 30 minutes tonight.

English 8
Confused completion of our group peer review activity.  Several groups will be broken up so individual work can continue on Jason's Gold scripts.  I am reviewing a copy of everyone's rough draft tonight, will return them for final draft completion tomorrow in class.

Read for 30 minutes tonight.

30 January 2014

English 9 Slideshow preparation. 

Here is one last writer’s notebook topic to write about:

Among the topics you have selected to research, we see representation from the following areas:

Academia - 1

Financial world – 1

Historical – 2

Entertainment – 2

Sports – 4

Would you say that your class’s selections are a fair representation of the kinds of heroes Americans respect?

Homework - read for 30 minutes.  Slideshow presentations will be made Monday and Tuesday, Feb 3-4.  Writer's notebooks are really due tomorrow with this 4th assignment and we will have more slideshow time in the computer lab.

For a few extra credit points at this crucial period of time, comment on this blog post.  Be sure I can identify you either from the email you leave or put your name in the post.

29 January 2014

Update Writer's notebooks which are due Jan 30

1/21 - Things that make me smile
1/16 - Plan for slideshow
1/7 - Poem

In class today we worked on laptops creating electronic slideshow presentations.  Some are using Powerpoint, while others are using prezi.com.

To access our class prezi account, the following information is necessary:
Go to prezi.com.
username:  hscott@mail.fehb.org
password: roomb105

Slideshow presentations will be made Mon and Tues Feb 3-4.