Friday, September 17, 2010
"Epilogue: Women Like Us" Blog
"Caroline's Wedding" Blog
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Blog Posting Expectations and Evaluation
Wordly Wise Lesson 1 Quiz
Fall Farm Weeks
English Work for Farm Weeks—Fall 2010
During the fifth floor farm weeks, you will work on several long-term English assignments. This work includes homework for the next few weeks as well as class work both for school and farm. While the amount of work is certainly manageable, it is important that you spread this work out over the two weeks! Please email me if you have any questions at tgrattan@manhattancountryschool.org.
Triplets
- Read the following stories from your Stories of Modern-Day Immigration Packet: “Caroline’s Wedding,” “Epilogue: Women Like Us” & “First Crossing” – Due Monday, 10/4
- Answer blog posts for both “Caroline’s Wedding” and “Epilogue: Women Like Us” – Due Monday, 10/4
- Write a piece, no shorter than a page in length, focusing on the connections between two of the stories we’ve read.
- Choose two of the stories— “Double Face,” “Caroline’s Wedding,” “Women Like Us” or “First Crossing”—that in your opinion have a significant similarity or connection. The similarity can be in tone, theme, symbol or experience. Find examples from each story to support your thinking. Use at least two direct quotes. Your piece should include an introduction that highlights the similarity you’ve chosen to focus on, two body paragraphs providing evidence of the similarity and a brief conclusion. While I am asking you to provide an intro and a conclusion, the heart of this assignment is to show your thinking about how two of the stories connect as well as how you provide evidence to support your thinking. For tips on how to incorporate quotes in MLA format, please go to the following link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/
7th Grade Writing
Writing
Your writing work needs to take place at the farm, so be sure to bring your three-subject notebook to the farm with you!
q Take two walks at the farm with your notebook and something to write with. It would be great for you to take these walks at different times of day. It’s amazing how much the farm changes from first thing in the morning to twilight. Find a place at the farm that interests you, a place full of details that stand out.
q During each walk, write a 1-2 page freewrite in your notebook. This is not something that needs to be polished. Focus on finding as many details as you can. Write about the larger, immediate details you observe, but focus on the smaller ones too. The more details you can cull the better. Be sure to move beyond the visual. What sounds and smells make this place unique? What does it feel like to sit where you are sitting?
q After you’ve completed both of the freewrites, look back at what you’ve written. What images seem the strongest? What details from the natural world might serve as a symbol for something else?
q Next, write the first drafts a two poems inspired by the poetry of Robert Frost. The first will be an homage to his poem “October.” Since you will be at the farm primarily in September, however, it should be about September. What are the main symbols in the “October” poem? What does October represent? How can you write your own poem using September to symbolize an idea or emotion?
q The second poem should also incorporate symbolism from the natural world, yet it also needs to follow the same rhyme scheme and meter as Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” The actual rhymes don’t need to be the same, but the structure should be. Remember that the rhyme scheme of that poem was AABBCCDD and that each line except for the eighth and last had the same number of syllables. So for this poem, the subject, tone and theme are up to you, but you’re following Frost’s structure.
q Bring both poems to class on Wednesday, 10/6.
Vocabulary
- Complete the Wordly Wise Lesson 2 exercises, Due Monday, 10/4
-
8th Grade Writing
Writing
- While you are at the farm, complete a two-page brainstorm in the writing section of your notebook. Your brainstorm should focus on a certain activity at the farm that has special meaning to you, something you’ve done several times and have a lot of memories about. Think about the Julia Alvarez poem “Ironing Their Clothes” that we read last year. Ironing was more than ironing to the narrator, just as the activity you will write about (milking a cow, baking bread, hiking up Thyme Hill, etc) should hold a special significance to you. The first page of your brainstorm should focus on a description of the activity in as much sensory detail as possible. This is a brainstorm, so the more details you can squeeze out, the better. The second half of your brainstorm should focus more on why this activity is significant to you. What lessons have you learned from that activity? What part of your personality does it bring out in you? What memories stay with you related to it? How might your experiences as a NYC resident who has spent several weeks a year at a farm influence who you’ll be in the future? How has it changed you already?
- Revise your “This I Believe” Essay
Vocabulary
- Complete the Greek and Latin Roots Sheets by Wednesday, 10/6. There will be a quiz on Greek and Latin Roots on Wednesday, 10/13
- Wordly Wise Lesson 2 exercises, Due Monday, 10/4
8th Grade Writing-- "This I Believe" Peer Review
This I Believe Peer Review
Author:
Reader:
- What belief is the author is writing about? Is it clearly stated? If not, how might the author state it with more clarity?
- How would you describe the author’s tone (humorous, serious, argumentative, etc)? Include one quote in your answer from the piece that makes the author’s tone clear.
- What examples does the author use to support his or her belief? Do they all connect directly to the main belief of the piece? Why or why not?
- What is the greatest strength of this piece? Include one quote that highlights writing in this piece that is evocative, funny, clever, thoughtful, etc.
- What is the most significant suggestion you have for the author as she or he moves toward revision? Be as specific as possible.
Monday, September 13, 2010
"Double Face" Blog Post
Homework for Week of 9/13
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Setting Up an Account for the Blog
Are you on the blog?
Homework for Week of 9/8 - Due the Following Week
Welcome to English, Fall 2010
WELCOME TO ENGLISH, September 2010
It’s another exciting year in English class! In our literature classes, we will explore ideas connected to the notion of being an outsider. In books like The Color of Water, To Kill a Mockingbird and Jack we will examine the ways people are included and excluded, and the rules, both written and unwritten, that lead to this exclusion. What social norms influence the insider/outsider dynamic? How do prejudices shape the ways individuals and groups are excluded? How does inequality shape communities and cultures? What political and social movements have grown out of the struggle for inclusion and equality?
Our writing classes will focus on creative and expository writing, as well as vocabulary building and grammar. The 7th grade writing curriculum includes units on poetry, persuasive essays, and autobiography. 8th grade will writing focus on persuasive writing as well, along with units on short fiction and journalism.
Your effort mark for English will be determined through the following five categories:
Participation
Class participation is key, both in our writing and literature classes. Discussion and group work make up a substantial part of our work in class, so please come to class with questions and comments about the readings. Coming to each class session with the necessary materials (books, notebooks, writing utensils, etc) are a part of your participation mark as well.
Homework
You should expect homework on most nights, often short reading and reading response assignments. While many assignments will be short-term, there will be a number of long-term assignments and projects, particularly in writing. One of the goals in 7th and 8th grade is for students to learn how to manage time, so if you are given, for example, two weeks to complete an assignment, that assignment should be worked on a little bit each day for the entire two-week period.
Class Journal
This year you have been asked to provide a journal that will remain in class at all times. In this journal I will ask you to respond to a particular idea from the assigned reading. It is meant to be a place for you to deepen your thinking, so my comments and grades for the journals will focus primarily on the depth of your thinking, the detail with which you answer a question and the thought you give in creating your own arguments.
Essays and Formal Assignments
While the journal gives you a chance to figure out your ideas, it is through revision, organization and carefully constructed arguments that each of you will develop your critical and analytical writing skills. Most essays will include numerous drafts, and creative assignments such as character monologues will be written in first and final drafts as well. The focus on revision is key in developing as a writer, so grades for each assignment will look both at the effort you put into the early drafts and outlines, as well as the way in which you use revision to create a strong and thoughtful final draft.
Quizzes and Tests
There will be quizzes, both announced and unannounced, as well as tests on the books we read and for vocabulary. Please be sure to come to class prepared each day, since there will be pop quizzes on a regular basis. Tests will be less frequent. For each test, students will be given ample notice as well as in-class review sessions.
Materials
Please have these materials with you for each of out Triplet and Writing classes:
· Two notebooks
o One 3 subject notebook
o One journal/notebook that will stay in school, at least 100 pages long
· A section in your binder for Literature and one for Writing/Grammar
· An English Folder
· Something to write with!!