Wow! What a week, and
what great kids you have! Between the
pollen aggravating everyone’s allergies and the heat creating a sauna in my
classroom, we could have had disasters in the making, but my magnificent
students not only suffered through it all, they performed every task I gave
them. It helped that our fantastic
principals supplied 6th hour classrooms with popsicles (a big thank
you shout out goes to them), but I really have to give credit to the students
for going through so much with positive attitudes through it all.
My 9th grade English classes have begun their
Shakespearean adventure. We haven’t
gotten far, but we’re ready to read Act I of Romeo and Juliet. I have
many activities to offer them; some are artistic, some are active, and some
involve creative writing. I hope to
share my love of the Bard with them, and show them that he’s not only fairly
easy to understand, but that Shakespeare can be fun! We’re also working on grammar; in particular,
we’re focusing on prepositional phrases.
Ask them how the squirrel fits into the prepositional phrase and see if
they can tell you!
The 11th grade English classes are beginning work
on the Anglo-Saxons. Even though these
people basically begin the history of who we are as Americans, it’s like
studying a foreign culture. We’re
reading a few poems by them, and then we will begin studying the great epic
hero, Beowulf. Our first hurdle has been
gaining understanding the he is a man, not a wolf (some of your kids really
crack me up)! I have been working on
finding fun activities, both creative and active, to add into our schedule to
make reading this epic poem more fun.
If your student is in my 5th hour, please note
that not only is it co-taught, but we now have a student teacher working with
us for 1st term. Her name is
Ms. Dakin, and we welcome her help, her ideas and her creativity. It’s nice to have a third teacher in the room. Your students should get lots of
attention!
One of my favorite new activities of the year involves all
of your students! We are beginning our
independent reading unit for September with literature circles. This week was our first time working with
this concept and I think they did beautifully (for the most part). Most students are reading their books, and I
think they really enjoyed getting together with each other to talk about them. They each chose jobs for their discussion, I
gave them guidance on how to prepare, and I heard some great
conversations happening around the room.
Please note that each Thursday we will meet to discuss their books, and
they should have them read by September 26.
As always, I welcome your comments and responses. Please be sure to keep in touch, and if there
are any issues I am unaware of, please let me know.
Thanks, Laura Stubbs
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