11th Grade

Hey y’all. I’m in a little coffee shop in Chaing Rai, and I’m doing this because I love you all and you are having a hard time googling. So, for your assignment in which I ask you to make a series of precís about these articles, you can use this link to the New York Times series of opinion pieces. Enjoy!

Hey y’all! Here are the questions for the first part of Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail. Remember, you need to have these done for the start of class on Monday, 12/5. You also need to have the rest of the text read for the start of class.

Hola, juniors! I totally blanked on getting your week posted last week. That was foolish of me, and I’m terribly sorry. That said, I have the plan for this week right here. It’s a short week, I know, but there’s lots of work to do. Here’s the week.

Monday: To start the week we’ll be jumping into the editing of your essays on Romanticism. Remember that you need to bring two copies of your essay for our peer editing. If you miss class on Monday, you can find the peer edit protocol here so that you can do it with a friend. We should get through at least one complete edit during class. Before you do any of the editing I’m going to show you a little more clearly how I expect you to edit.

Homework: Make sure that you bring your essays back for class on Tuesday for our second day of editing.

Tuesday: Tuesday is day two of our editing. Again, you’ll need your essay and a copy of the peer editing sheet, your essay, and some other folks to help you.

Homework: Your essays will be due Tuesday after break. In the meantime, here’s your extra credit assignment over the break. Just print this picture, color it, and take a picture of your family with it. You must bring in a hard copy of the picture on Monday for extra credit.

Hola, juniors! We’ve for a bit of a short week, and we’ll be focusing on a single story all week as we continue our exploration of Romanticism. Our attention will be on Herman Melville’s story Bartleby, The Scrivner.

Monday: To start the week I’ll be introducing our story for the week, as well as the associated vocabulary (side note: we’ll be rolling our vocabulary over from last week). We’ll read the first part of it aloud, and we’ll be focusing on characterization and symbolism, specifically on how the novel’s characters fit in to definite… um… stereotypes.

Homework: Finish reading Chapter One for class tomorrow. You’ll need to know plenty about each of the characters introduced in the exposition.

Tuesday: We’ll begin the day with Grammar #7, then we’ll work through Chapter One of Bartleby by discussing the characters and what they represent. The second half of the day will be set aside for you to begin/finish reading Chapter Two.

Homework: Finish reading Chapter Two.

Wednesday: We’ll start with Grammar #8, then I have some questions for you dealing with chapter two. We’ll work through them in class, then discuss. Whatever time is left will be for you to read Chapter Three.

Homework: Read Chapter 3

Thursday: We’ll begin the day with two quizzes: first, the Grammar Quiz, then the vocabulary quiz. The end of the day will be a short group work piece dealing with our story. I’ll post it ASAP.

Happy day-before/day of All Hallows Eve! (depending, of course, upon when you read this). Week 9 is a super fun one for me, because not only do we get to continue working with some of our scarier stories of the year, but we also get to dig deeper into the work of authors Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne as we continue learning more about American Romanticism.

Monday: We’ll be reading one of my absolute favorite stories by Poe, The Cask of Amantillado. As we do, I’ll be presenting more notes on Romanticism (which I’ll post here sometime after 1st period), but for a terrific load of info, check out this site. You’ll need to finish reading the story during the course of the period/the evening. I’m asking you to keep a dialectical journal (minimum 5 entries) that looks specifically for Romantic elements in addition to your general observations. For an example, check this out.

Homework: Complete your dialectical journal entries for the start of class! You’ll need them Tuesday.

Tuesday: After a quick grammar warm-up we’ll transition into a small-group activity with your dialectical journals in which I’ll be asking you to work through a series of questions on the text. You can find those questions here. We’ll be ending the day with a set of vocabulary terms for our next story for the week, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark.

Homework: Read the first 5 (through the top of page 9) pages of The Birthmark. I’ll mark the pages for you in class. I’ll hand you a small set of Study Questions as you leave which I will stamp, but not collect, in class on Wednesday.

Wednesday: You’ll be working through a series of questions that will ask you to start looking at some specific literary devices that Hawthorne is using in his story. I’ll be asking you specifically to look at allegory, allusion, and foreshadowing. I’ll stamp this Thursday and you’ll turn it in Friday.

Homework: Read through the top of page 15 and complete the accompanying Study Questions.

Thursday: We’ll begin the day with another installment of our grammar unit (during which I’ll stamp your Study Questions). We’ll spend some time in class discussing the story thus far, and I’ll lecture briefly on the role of nature in Hawthorne’s story.

Homework: Finish the story. You’ll have one last set of discussion questions to complete as well.

Friday: We’ll begin this final day of the week with our Grammar Quiz, which will be followed immediately with your vocabulary quiz. The week will end with a discussion of Hawthorne’s piece and its classification as Romantic.

Hey y’all! Here’s the weekend reflection on your presentations of Miller’s play, The Crucible.

Hey juniors!

I’ve been thinking about it, and have decided that it would be beneficial for us to wander down to the theatre today for play previews. This will, of course, slightly alter our schedule for the week, but I don’t think that it will be too detrimental. In fact, I’m excited for you to see some students who have been working on putting together a play so that perhaps you can consider ways that you can work on your own. That said, here’s what the week will look like now:

Tuesday: First you’ll turn in your Study Questions on Young Goodman Brown, then we’ll wander down to the theatre as a class.

Wednesday: I’ll hand back your Study Questions (with stamps!) and we’ll go over them briefly, considering especially the motifs that Hawthorne develops and the opposite (binary) roles that nature and the village take in the story. We’ll also be reading Poe’s story/poem The Raven. The end of the day will be given to you working in your small presentation groups.

Thursday: We’ll be reading Poe’s story The Tell Tale Heart aloud and working on some Study Questions about the story, then ending the day with a bit more time to work in our groups.

Friday: Friday will be presentation day. I think that we have few enough groups that we’ll be able to get through all of them on Friday.

Hey 11’s. Welcome to our week of celebrating All Hallows Eve (that’s Halloween to those of you who didn’t pick up on it); we’ll be reading a bunch of scary stories, writing about them, watching them, all those fun things. Of course, it’ll continue into next week as well, as All Hallows Eve isn’t until next Tuesday. Woohoo! More scary stories. Here’s the week:

Monday: We’ll begin the week by reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic story Young Goodman Brown. I have a set of Study Questions for you which you need to have done for class on Tuesday. Afterwards I’ll be giving you about 20 minutes to work on your scene presentations.

Tuesday: Tuesday will start with our 3rd installment of our year-long grammar unit. (I’ll be stamping your Study Questions during the grammar unit). Please make sure that you have your grammar books ready to go. Afterwards I’ll be reading Edgar Allen Poe’s classic poem The Raven which we’ll be discussing in small groups. The remainder of the class period will be given over to you working in your small groups.

Wednesday: I’ll begin the day by distributing copies of Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart then working through a series of questions that I’ll distributing in class. As you read, you’ll be keeping a second dialectical journal on the text that you’ll be using this weekend as you write about these two stories. Naturally, the last 15 or 20 minutes will be spent working in your small groups on your scenes.

Thursday: We’ll start the day with a brief installment of our Grammar Unit, then we’ll begin presenting our presentations. (That sounded dumb).

Friday: After a short grammar quiz we’ll wrap up our scenes.

Homework: You’ll have a short writing assignment this week comparing the stories of Poe and Hawthorne which will require that you use the notes you’ve taken in your dialectical journals.

Howdy, juniors! Welcome to week #8, in which we will finish up our reading of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. You’ll have a bit of homework this week, and we’ll also be starting a presentation project with groups that I’ll be assigning you.

Monday: We’ll start the week off by reviewing the Act 3 Study Questions from Friday. I’ll stamp them first thing, so make sure that they’re ready to go at the start of the period. Afterwards, we’ll be starting Act 4, in which the real crazy starts to go down.

Tuesday: We’ll finish reading Act 4 during class (woohoo!) and we’ll transition to working through our Act 4 Study Questions. I’ll give you part of the class to work on this, and we’ll be stamping them at the start of the period on Wednesday.

Homework: Finish your Act 4 Study Questions

Wednesday: We’ll stamp the Act 4 Study Questions at the start of the period. I’ll be collecting them at the end of the period, along with an in-class writing piece that we’ll do on the novel.

Thursday: On Thursday we’ll begin our first major project of the year. I’ll be placing you in groups of 3-5 students and giving you a scene that you will be presenting to the class. Along with this scene you’ll be completing a 1-2 page write up detailing why your group chose to do it the way you did. I’ll post more on that ASAP.

Howdy, juniors! So your week is really, really straight forward. We’ll be finishing the play this week, and as such, some of our time will be spent reading, some will be spent working, reading, and writing.

Monday: We’ll be going over your Act 2 questions at the start of the class period, afterwards I’ll be distributing your Act 3 vocabulary sheets.

Tuesday: Act 3 continues with the testimony of Mary Warren. We’ll be reading through 102, so we need to jump right in. We’ll blast through the Grammar Review warm up for the day then start the play. If you need extra help with the grammar, check out this page from chompchomp.com about simple subjects and this one about verbs.

Wednesday: We’ll be continuing with Act 3 in class, then ending the day with a short writing prompt. You’ll probably have time in class to complete it, which would be good because I’m requiring that you smoothly integrate a citation into the text, for which you’ll need the book.

Homework: Finish your writing prompt for the start of class! I’m stamping them!

Thursday: Again, we’ll start the day off with our Grammar Review #2 (still all about subjects and verbs… easy stuff) then complete the day by reading the remainder of Act 3 together in class.

Homework: Finish your Act 3 Study Questions.

Friday: We actually have two quizzes on Friday, the first on Grammar and the second on vocabulary. We’ll end the day by discussing the Act 3 Study Questions which I will stamp at the start of the period.