Greetings!
We had a wonderful week in class. To begin, the students planned and executed a clever April Fools joke. All except 3 students logged into the Zoom classroom. As I was taking attendance and seeing so many students on Zoom instead of in class, I just thought that a lot of people were gone for a pre-Easter trip. Then, just as I was ready to start the class, they all walked in saying "April Fools!" I think this is best school-related April Fools days I've ever had!
For our Quick Writes, we had 3 options: 1) Write about a memorable joke or prank; 2) Write about your family's or church family's Easter traditions; 3) Ask Mrs. Prichard 3 questions. Over the years, the students have enjoyed when this third option comes up; they ask thoughtful, curious, and often quirky questions.
Our Words of the Day:
arctophile -- fr. Greek arktos "bear" and philo "love" -- someone how is a lover of teddy bears
burgeon -- fr. Latin burra "the wool/fluff that covers the buds of flowers before they bloom" -- to flourish; to grow or develop quickly
nudiustertian -- fr. Latin nudius tertius "today is the third day" -- of or relating to the day before yesterday
We had a brief check in on their News Stories; the rough drafts are due on April 15. Some students have given this some thought, and others have waited until this next week to work on it. I reminded them that they could do a news article on a current event, a past event, or even a fictional event. They could also do a review of some kind.
We had a quiz about our short story "The Ransom of Red Chief" this week, and even though I mentioned last week that I might do this, some students were not prepared. I expected that to happen. When spring arrives and the end of the year is in sight, most students turn their thoughts to activities other than school. (The 2020-21 school year has been exceptionally long, so I really don't blame them.) This was a low stakes reminder for them to do their homework.
We are finished with our Short Stories and are now onto Poetry. I had brought the books last week and thought I had left them at CHAT; I was mistaken. So, instead of having the books for this week, I have links for the poems they are to read. These poems come from a book titled Great Short Poems, and they will be reading a chronological collection of poems, starting with contemporaries of Shakespeare and ending with early 20th century poets. April is National Poetry Month, so I do my best to make the most of it!
Class -- please note this next information -- it was not discussed in class
After the students read all of the poems, they are to choose 2 poems to respond to. They need to respond to 2 poems, and here are their options:
1. Fill out a Poetry Worksheet for one or both
2. Write a paragraph about the poem(s) that analyzes the poem; discuss what you think it means and why you like or don't like it.
3. Instead of writing a paragraph, record a video commentary about the poem. Youtube LiveStream or some other app on a device is OK as long as it can be seen by me.
4. Do a piece of art that connects with the content and meaning of the poem.
5. Make a video of your recitation of the poem.
Finally, for our Grammar portion of the class, I gave some worksheets for continued practice in identifying sentence elements for the various sentence patterns that have been covered this semester.
Assignments for Week 11 (April 15)
-- Read Week 11 Poetry (links below AND posted on Google Classrooom)
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Poetry
Tamera M. Prichard
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