Mrs. Stubbs's English Blog: Change is a Constant, So Why is it so Hard?

It's been one of those weekends where life just smacks you in the face. Life is all about change, and it's healthy and normal, but boy does it hit you in the heart sometimes. I got to go pick up my eldest from college on Friday night to bring him home for the first time in a month, and now it's Sunday morning and I'm looking at driving him back. Where did the weekend go? In addition, the first of the kids who've grown up nextdoor is permanently moving away. My kids have grown up for 20 years with the same people living next to us, and all 11 kids are more like siblings than friends. This weekend, a U-Haul pulled up next door, and as we speak, the oldest of the kids, the leader of the crew, the creative thinker, is packing up her stuff to move to NYC for her first real, adult job. How did that happen? Where did the time go? Twenty years, gone in a blink.

Alright, I'll pull out of my melancholy meanderings and focus on your kids. It's been fun getting to know your children, and now that we're on week four, they're finally getting comfortable - which can be good, but can also be bad. Everyone has had their best foot forward up to now, so the goal is to keep it that way.

Both groups have now established norms: both will have academic words assigned on Monday, and tested on Friday; English 9 has independent reading to do five times a week for homework, with reading logs due on Thursdays; SAT/PSAT bell work happens every day. Along with these norms, I'm now going to try to pick up the pace a bit: I want to move through the texts we're reading more quickly. We're also heading for the first writings of the year - probably by next week.

Last week English 9 finished the preview information for Romeo and Juliet and started into the text. English 10 has finished the first two chapters of Animal Farm.

So here's the plan for this week:

English 9

Monday, 9/23 - bell work, get academic words of the week; continue reading Act I
Tuesday, 9/24 - Academic Advisory - bell work; check in definitions; continue reading Act I
Wednesday, 9/25 - 1/2 Day - bell work; preposition worksheet
Thursday, 9/26 - PSAT Advisory - bell work; collect reading logs; finish Act I; quiz for Act I
Friday, 9/27 - bell work; vocab. quiz; get new reading log; silent reading

English 10

Monday, 9/23 - bell work; get academic words of the week; finish ch. 2; homework - verb worksheet
Tuesday, 9/24 - Academic Advisory - bell work; check in definitions; read ch. 3; homework - notes
Wednesday, 9/25 - 1/2 Day - bell work; quiz for ch. 3; homework - verb worksheet
Thursday, 9/26 - PSAT Advisory - bell work; common lit activity - conformity; homework - read ch. 4
Friday, 9/27 - bell work; vocab. quiz; quiz for ch. 4; common lit activity - herd behavior; notes for ch. 4

We have a lot on deck, so it'll be a challenge to get through it all, but we're going to try. I hope everyone has a great week. Ciao!