Class News 2019-20
Class news is listed below, scroll down for older material.
Semester 2 News
May 22- June 17
Web Design and Final- These final classes will be dedicated to developing a web-based showcase for students' projects, and for some review. Students will apply all the skills they they have developed over the course of the year to their website, with a focus on writing, understanding audience, revising and editing, adapting text, and integration of various media. The final exam will be an ELA exam format and take place over the last two class blocks of each day (A&B).
April 29- May 21
Media Literacy- This final unit ties together many themes and ideas we have worked with throughout the year. We begin with a viewing of the film Miss Representation which examines how media affects our perceptions of women. These topics are globalized to media's role in our lives and society with a goal of students being aware of and able to articulate that role. We will examine a variety of media formats and how they work, considering some basic theories. You can see the power point notes on this here. We will also be finalizing the semester papers, with individual writing conferences the week of 5/6-5/10. Final drafts will be due 5/20-21.
April 1-18
Advocacy & Project Compilation-In the run up to April break students will be working on two activities. First, we will begin compiling the single page topic papers we have written into a master document to create their semester project. This will involve careful editing, development of transitions, and planning out and creating a transition. A draft will be due to me on May 2/3.
Students will also be creating an Advocacy project, alone or with a partner. For it, we will learn about rhetorical approaches and connecting with an audience. Students will then advocate for a cause they believe in via open letters, social media, video, posters and graphics, or some other form that they identify as the best method to reach their audience.
March 19-29
Survival Lessons- Students are preparing lessons about a central idea or theme in their survival book to present to the class over the first week and presenting them in the second of this period. We will also be reviewing the results of our ELA practice exam and comparing them to portions we tried earlier this year. The goal is for students to develop clear understanding of their exam writing practices and to identify areas for improvement. Success of these goals will be re-assessed at the end of the year when we take an ELA exam as a final activity. Outside of class, students should be preparing a page of their project each week. Students who do not keep up on this will struggle to both write and edit in the last quarter, so please encourage everyone to keep writing!
February 25- March 15
ELA Exam Prep, Projects and Survival- Having wrapped up Of Mice & Men, we are moving on to new material. Students have self-selected books for our survival themed unit, and have set up reading schedules that will get the books read by mid-March. The goal will be for students to identify an important theme, writing technique, or other interesting aspect of the text and work collaboratively to develop a lesson about it that they will teach to the rest of the class. While independent reading is completed outside class, we will be working in class to analyze and practice skills necessary for success on the ELA Regents exam student will take next January. Early preparation a is a key to success on this important required assessment. Please note that independent project work will also continue outside class, with one page on their project topic due at the end of each week.
February 4-15
Of Mice & Men, Continued Project Work. An apology for this late update. With all the delays over the past weeks it slipped through the cracks. Students finished Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and most blocks will complete the unit assessment before break. Only block 7 will need to complete the test when we return. By this point student should also have completed their introduction and one subtopic for their project, another subtopic page should be developed over break. When we return on the 25th students will begin a new unit around the theme of survival, to be accompanied by focused writing skills work and an introduction to the ELA Regents exam they will take next January.
January 28-February 1
Semester two begins! Of Mice and Men and Project Planning. As we roll into semester two students will begin reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Our approach will be traditional, working to apply previously acquired literary language to describe the author's language and structure. The goal is to improve development in writing, and to move literary discussion from simple observations about the text to a richer discussion of technique, motive, and effect of the written word. The book is short, and most reading will be completed in class. Students will also be nailing down their semester project and submitting project proposals next week. More info in the project then!
This year's social science research papers will be available on the site shortly, you can view them here when I get them posted, hopefully on 1/31.
Web Design and Final- These final classes will be dedicated to developing a web-based showcase for students' projects, and for some review. Students will apply all the skills they they have developed over the course of the year to their website, with a focus on writing, understanding audience, revising and editing, adapting text, and integration of various media. The final exam will be an ELA exam format and take place over the last two class blocks of each day (A&B).
April 29- May 21
Media Literacy- This final unit ties together many themes and ideas we have worked with throughout the year. We begin with a viewing of the film Miss Representation which examines how media affects our perceptions of women. These topics are globalized to media's role in our lives and society with a goal of students being aware of and able to articulate that role. We will examine a variety of media formats and how they work, considering some basic theories. You can see the power point notes on this here. We will also be finalizing the semester papers, with individual writing conferences the week of 5/6-5/10. Final drafts will be due 5/20-21.
April 1-18
Advocacy & Project Compilation-In the run up to April break students will be working on two activities. First, we will begin compiling the single page topic papers we have written into a master document to create their semester project. This will involve careful editing, development of transitions, and planning out and creating a transition. A draft will be due to me on May 2/3.
Students will also be creating an Advocacy project, alone or with a partner. For it, we will learn about rhetorical approaches and connecting with an audience. Students will then advocate for a cause they believe in via open letters, social media, video, posters and graphics, or some other form that they identify as the best method to reach their audience.
March 19-29
Survival Lessons- Students are preparing lessons about a central idea or theme in their survival book to present to the class over the first week and presenting them in the second of this period. We will also be reviewing the results of our ELA practice exam and comparing them to portions we tried earlier this year. The goal is for students to develop clear understanding of their exam writing practices and to identify areas for improvement. Success of these goals will be re-assessed at the end of the year when we take an ELA exam as a final activity. Outside of class, students should be preparing a page of their project each week. Students who do not keep up on this will struggle to both write and edit in the last quarter, so please encourage everyone to keep writing!
February 25- March 15
ELA Exam Prep, Projects and Survival- Having wrapped up Of Mice & Men, we are moving on to new material. Students have self-selected books for our survival themed unit, and have set up reading schedules that will get the books read by mid-March. The goal will be for students to identify an important theme, writing technique, or other interesting aspect of the text and work collaboratively to develop a lesson about it that they will teach to the rest of the class. While independent reading is completed outside class, we will be working in class to analyze and practice skills necessary for success on the ELA Regents exam student will take next January. Early preparation a is a key to success on this important required assessment. Please note that independent project work will also continue outside class, with one page on their project topic due at the end of each week.
February 4-15
Of Mice & Men, Continued Project Work. An apology for this late update. With all the delays over the past weeks it slipped through the cracks. Students finished Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and most blocks will complete the unit assessment before break. Only block 7 will need to complete the test when we return. By this point student should also have completed their introduction and one subtopic for their project, another subtopic page should be developed over break. When we return on the 25th students will begin a new unit around the theme of survival, to be accompanied by focused writing skills work and an introduction to the ELA Regents exam they will take next January.
January 28-February 1
Semester two begins! Of Mice and Men and Project Planning. As we roll into semester two students will begin reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Our approach will be traditional, working to apply previously acquired literary language to describe the author's language and structure. The goal is to improve development in writing, and to move literary discussion from simple observations about the text to a richer discussion of technique, motive, and effect of the written word. The book is short, and most reading will be completed in class. Students will also be nailing down their semester project and submitting project proposals next week. More info in the project then!
This year's social science research papers will be available on the site shortly, you can view them here when I get them posted, hopefully on 1/31.
Semester 1 News
September 5-14
Welcome back! In the first weeks of school we will be learning the course basics and syllabus (see that as an overview on the Course Info page). Students will read Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif." You can read an annotated version of that tale here. Students will consider issues of Content, Context, Connections, Questions, and Construction. We will study different approaches to reading by looking at some forms of literary criticism as well. Notes on Cornerstones and Literary Criticism are available on the Resources page.
September 17-21
Our first project. Students have a four day week, with Wednesday off for a teacher's Conference Day. Student will spend the first of their two class days this week collaborating to create presentations that apply critical theories to classic fairy tales, and classes on Thursday and Friday to share those presentations. Students in A-day classes will take their first quiz on Tuesday, B-day students took it last week. Just a reminder that if you have any grade concerns, please feel free to contact me! Our poetry unit begins next week.
September 24-28
A new unit. Monday and Tuesday we wrap-up presentations from our introductory unit, and students self assess their learning so far. We will also dive in to poetry, with an introductory activity that makes students forensic investigators,close reading the text of works by Walt Whitman & Emily Dickinson to build personality profiles of the poets. This attention to text is the gateway to further work on poetry as a genre. Over the unit students will create their own anthology of favorite poems, and write an in-depth paper on a poem of their choice. In the paper they will be responsible for understanding the content of the poem, the form it takes, literary techniques used, and how the effect the poem has on the reader.
October 1-5
It's Poetry season! This week the poetry unit gets into full swing. Following work on Whitman & Dickinson, students begin to branch out on their own to find poets in collections provided in class. Encourage kids to look on-line at home, though I'll note that not all poets online are of the same caliber, to put it mildly. On that note, be aware that because lyric poetry can be personal, some poets may consider ideas and content that could potentially be objectionable or even offensive, depending on the reader. We have discussed this in class, and students have been encouraged to stick to material they feel comfortable with. If they come across something that offends, they can drop it and pick up something else. The major assignments can be found on the Resources page.
October 9-12
Poetry continues... This week students will push toward completion of their poetry anthology and begin work on their first major paper. To that end, we will be developing a shared process for examining texts (close reading) along with using a writing process with generous peer support and editing. By the end of the week, students should have their paper topic poem, and have begun writing. We will shoot to have a draft done by next week for peer editing. Progress reports are available of school tool Wednesday evening.
October 15-26
Writing, Revising, & Conferencing. Over these two weeks students will be assembling their first three to five page paper, one of four of this length or longer they will complete this year. The 15th through 19th were dedicated to the organizing and drafting process, the 22nd through 26th will cover conferencing and revising. All students should complete a peer review of their paper, see the power point on peer review over on the resources page.
October 29-November 9
The quarter ends, Macbeth begins. During this transitional week students should be handing in their final drafts of poetry papers. I encourage all to check School Tool to verify all grades are recorded properly as the quarter is ending. If you see an issue, please contact me. To begin work on Macbeth we are watching Scotland, PA, a modern adaptation that preserves the characters and general plot. This gives students more room to focus on the language of the text, as they will already have an understanding of the story arc of the play. After reading and working with the text, students will compare Shakespeare's themes to the writing of Niccolo Machiavelli, who they read last year in Social Studies. The final assessment will be a traditional test, to be written in class.
November 13-29
More Macbeth and a CFA. This period will be broken up by Thanks giving break and even some potential snow days. We will be doing our level best to finish reading Macbeth and complete an in-class essay that compares the behavior of Shakepeare's characters with Machiavelli's idea of an ideal prince. The essay will ask students to identify whether Shakespeare gives us an answer to the question of whether it is better for a leader to be feared or loved. All tenth grade students will also be completing a Common Formative Assessment, or CFA. This is an effort to gather data to inform how we teach the skills necessary to succeed on next year's ELA Regents exam. The test will be low-stakes and not affect grades strongly, but will be graded. Evaluation of the score will shape how I approach our ELA Regents strategies unit next semester.
December 3-7
iGen begins/CFA- The CFA mentioned above will be pushed into this week and next because of the snow days that have already (!) put us a bit behind schedule. Students will begin reading iGen and critiquing Jean Twenge's approach to writing and using data. We will also begin the process of designing our own data based study project in each class. Students will be researching studies of their topic, gathering their own data, using analysis skills to draw conclusions, and designing reports and presentations of their findings. Students are asked to talk with parents and grandparents to get a sense of how generational expectations of behavior and maturity may have changed.
December 10-21
Continuing iGen- In these two weeks before break students are identifying topics for social science research as well as continuing with iGen. We will move into new seating groups that connect students will similar research topics so they can share information. Groups will be responsible for reading and teaching the class about one chapter from iGen as well. In terms of the big picture, social science papers will be drafted after the holiday break and shared via the website, so everyone can see what students are achieving.
January 2-18
Social Science Research and Semester's End- This update covers three weeks of time as we wrap up the first semester. The short week back from break will provide students time to work on their social science research and on their group presentations of an assigned chapter from iGen. Peer review drafts of papers will be due on January 7 or 8, depending which day students have class. We will use that class day for peer review and revisions. Final drafts will be submitted both electronically and in hard copy by January 15 or 16, again depending which day students have class. Please be aware there will be no late papers or re-submissions accepted because this is at the very end of the semester. Between the 7th and the 15th students will be presenting their chapters of iGen to the class.
Welcome back! In the first weeks of school we will be learning the course basics and syllabus (see that as an overview on the Course Info page). Students will read Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif." You can read an annotated version of that tale here. Students will consider issues of Content, Context, Connections, Questions, and Construction. We will study different approaches to reading by looking at some forms of literary criticism as well. Notes on Cornerstones and Literary Criticism are available on the Resources page.
September 17-21
Our first project. Students have a four day week, with Wednesday off for a teacher's Conference Day. Student will spend the first of their two class days this week collaborating to create presentations that apply critical theories to classic fairy tales, and classes on Thursday and Friday to share those presentations. Students in A-day classes will take their first quiz on Tuesday, B-day students took it last week. Just a reminder that if you have any grade concerns, please feel free to contact me! Our poetry unit begins next week.
September 24-28
A new unit. Monday and Tuesday we wrap-up presentations from our introductory unit, and students self assess their learning so far. We will also dive in to poetry, with an introductory activity that makes students forensic investigators,close reading the text of works by Walt Whitman & Emily Dickinson to build personality profiles of the poets. This attention to text is the gateway to further work on poetry as a genre. Over the unit students will create their own anthology of favorite poems, and write an in-depth paper on a poem of their choice. In the paper they will be responsible for understanding the content of the poem, the form it takes, literary techniques used, and how the effect the poem has on the reader.
October 1-5
It's Poetry season! This week the poetry unit gets into full swing. Following work on Whitman & Dickinson, students begin to branch out on their own to find poets in collections provided in class. Encourage kids to look on-line at home, though I'll note that not all poets online are of the same caliber, to put it mildly. On that note, be aware that because lyric poetry can be personal, some poets may consider ideas and content that could potentially be objectionable or even offensive, depending on the reader. We have discussed this in class, and students have been encouraged to stick to material they feel comfortable with. If they come across something that offends, they can drop it and pick up something else. The major assignments can be found on the Resources page.
October 9-12
Poetry continues... This week students will push toward completion of their poetry anthology and begin work on their first major paper. To that end, we will be developing a shared process for examining texts (close reading) along with using a writing process with generous peer support and editing. By the end of the week, students should have their paper topic poem, and have begun writing. We will shoot to have a draft done by next week for peer editing. Progress reports are available of school tool Wednesday evening.
October 15-26
Writing, Revising, & Conferencing. Over these two weeks students will be assembling their first three to five page paper, one of four of this length or longer they will complete this year. The 15th through 19th were dedicated to the organizing and drafting process, the 22nd through 26th will cover conferencing and revising. All students should complete a peer review of their paper, see the power point on peer review over on the resources page.
October 29-November 9
The quarter ends, Macbeth begins. During this transitional week students should be handing in their final drafts of poetry papers. I encourage all to check School Tool to verify all grades are recorded properly as the quarter is ending. If you see an issue, please contact me. To begin work on Macbeth we are watching Scotland, PA, a modern adaptation that preserves the characters and general plot. This gives students more room to focus on the language of the text, as they will already have an understanding of the story arc of the play. After reading and working with the text, students will compare Shakespeare's themes to the writing of Niccolo Machiavelli, who they read last year in Social Studies. The final assessment will be a traditional test, to be written in class.
November 13-29
More Macbeth and a CFA. This period will be broken up by Thanks giving break and even some potential snow days. We will be doing our level best to finish reading Macbeth and complete an in-class essay that compares the behavior of Shakepeare's characters with Machiavelli's idea of an ideal prince. The essay will ask students to identify whether Shakespeare gives us an answer to the question of whether it is better for a leader to be feared or loved. All tenth grade students will also be completing a Common Formative Assessment, or CFA. This is an effort to gather data to inform how we teach the skills necessary to succeed on next year's ELA Regents exam. The test will be low-stakes and not affect grades strongly, but will be graded. Evaluation of the score will shape how I approach our ELA Regents strategies unit next semester.
December 3-7
iGen begins/CFA- The CFA mentioned above will be pushed into this week and next because of the snow days that have already (!) put us a bit behind schedule. Students will begin reading iGen and critiquing Jean Twenge's approach to writing and using data. We will also begin the process of designing our own data based study project in each class. Students will be researching studies of their topic, gathering their own data, using analysis skills to draw conclusions, and designing reports and presentations of their findings. Students are asked to talk with parents and grandparents to get a sense of how generational expectations of behavior and maturity may have changed.
December 10-21
Continuing iGen- In these two weeks before break students are identifying topics for social science research as well as continuing with iGen. We will move into new seating groups that connect students will similar research topics so they can share information. Groups will be responsible for reading and teaching the class about one chapter from iGen as well. In terms of the big picture, social science papers will be drafted after the holiday break and shared via the website, so everyone can see what students are achieving.
January 2-18
Social Science Research and Semester's End- This update covers three weeks of time as we wrap up the first semester. The short week back from break will provide students time to work on their social science research and on their group presentations of an assigned chapter from iGen. Peer review drafts of papers will be due on January 7 or 8, depending which day students have class. We will use that class day for peer review and revisions. Final drafts will be submitted both electronically and in hard copy by January 15 or 16, again depending which day students have class. Please be aware there will be no late papers or re-submissions accepted because this is at the very end of the semester. Between the 7th and the 15th students will be presenting their chapters of iGen to the class.