Last week was a short week, due to the Labor Day Holiday.  We only had four days to hit the literature hard, but we did our best!  Students finished up their “Where I’m From” Projects with some stellar results and presented those in class.  Alex’s timelapse beach footage was simply amazing, everyone really enjoyed checking out the beautiful pictures from John’s house in Honduras, and many students learned about K-Pop for the first time from SeeEun’s project.

We also finally began reading some of the literature from the hefty textbook under our desks.  “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Most Dangerous Game” (Honors) were among the first texts we read.  Both stories are intriguing and suspenseful page turners.  You can get caught up with these stories by either borrowing a textbook or clicking on the ” Unit 1” page and looking at the the list of texts.  While reading these stories we focused on literary devices like irony, foreshadowing, and suspense – in addition to the other figurative language devices we learned about the previous week.

Finally – all of the kids signed up for their blogs, which means that next week we can start with the blog carnivaling!  (I don’t think that’s a word yet, but I’m going to own it.)  Students will edit and select their favorite journals from the week, post them on their blogs, then read and comment on the blogs of other students (and in the process, receive comments on their own blogs).  My goal in doing this is to hit some of the Common Core State Standards for writing, editing writing, publishing and sharing, and using technology.  I also hope that they can keep the conversations going on their own pages, thereby giving students ownership in the class and of their own ideas.

Does this mean that Current Events Friday will become Current Events Thursday if Fridays are for writing?

We shall see…