Busy, Busy, Busy

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (June), so even though everyone is tired, we just keep plugging away.  I know I'm exhausted, so I'm sure they are, too.  My son is in AA Pioneer's production of Fame this weekend and next, so I'm volunteering a lot with that; he also turned 16 so we tried to squeak in a birthday; my older one turns 18 in a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to prepare for that, along with all the senior activities since he graduates in June.  I also like to come watch my students in their activities, so trying to fit in all this extra stuff is something else.  At least we're done with testing, right?

Last week all of my hours got off schedule from each other, so my calendar for the week is rather generic.  Add to it that there's an assembly during 3rd Hour this week and I can't tell if there are any advisories this week, and it will continue to be off schedule for the time being.  English 9 is in the middle of reading Chapter 1 of Animals in Translation; English 10 is in the middle of Macbeth. Both continue to write analytical paragraphs for assessment, so I'm bogged down in grading.

Here's the schedule for this week:

English 9

• Monday, 4/29 - work on the second paragraph assessment - 5th Hour due today; 2nd Hour due Tuesday
• Tuesday, 4/30 - NO ADVISORY - finish working on the second assessment; continue reading pp. 17-26
• Wednesday, 5/1 - continue reading pp. 17-26; annotations and study guide
• Thursday, 5/2 - NO ADVISORY ON SCHEDULE - finish reading pp. 17-26; start final paragraph assessment
• Friday, 5/3 - finish final paragraph assessment

English 10

• Monday, 4/29 - finish Act II; watch movie
• Tuesday, 4/30 - 3rd HOUR ASSEMBLY - finish movie; tableaux
• Wednesday, 5/1 - finish tableaux; start Act III; study guide
• Thursday, 5/2 - NO ADVISORY ON SCHEDULE - continue Act III; study guide
• Friday, 5/3 - continue Act III; study guide

That's the plan. Have a great week everyone. 

Busy, Busy, Busy by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

I See Spring!

Time sure moves quickly, especially at this time of year.  I see buds on all the trees, so warm weather is on the way! I think this is my favorite time of year: I love flowers, birds, bugs, sunshine, warmth - all of it! My allergies go nuts, but I don't care.

We're cruising right along in our curriculum. Last week English 9 finished reading the first section of Animals in Translation, Chapter 1; English 10 read Act I of Macbeth.  Both groups will be writing this week and using the Turnitin.com platform for submitting the writing. I'm getting better at using it, and hopefully they'll see the benefits of using this, too. Unfortunately, this also means that I'm getting behind on grading again because it's all writing, but I'll work on that.

This week here is what we have in store:

English 9

• Monday, 4/22 - semicolons; pre-write and write analytical paragraph for pp. 1-8
• Tuesday, 4/23 - Academic Advisory - type and read aloud paragraph; revise and edit; move on to pp. 9-16
• Wednesday, 4/24 - semicolons; read and annotate pp. 9-16; study guide
• Thursday, 4/25 - Extended Advisory - colons; finish pp. 9-16; pre-write paragraph
• Friday, 4/26 - Extended Advisory - finish pre-writing; type paragraph

English 10

• Monday, 4/22 - finish themes; Act I quiz
• Tuesday, 4/23 - Academic Advisory - verb tense; notes for literary devices; move on to Act II
• Wednesday, 4/24 - verb tense; continue Act II
• Thursday, 4/25 - Extended Advisory - verb tense; finish Act II; statues
• Friday, 4/26 - Extended Advisory - finish statues; watch Act II

That's my plan, and I'll do my best to stick to it.  I hope everyone has a great week!

I See Spring! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Four Day Week

April showers are definitely at work today. April ice? Maybe that's more accurate.  The only thing that makes it okay in my book is that I know nicer weather is coming, so I can deal with it.

We're now solidly into the fourth term of the year, and we're plenty busy.  Last week was brutal with SAT/PSAT testing in the middle of everything, but we made it through. English 9 has begun our research unit which is based around Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation (chapter 1). This year we timed it out perfectly since Temple Grandin is autistic and this is Autism Awareness Month. English 10 has begun Macbeth and will finish Act I this week.

Here's this week's schedule:

English 9

• Monday, 4/15 - finish the Temple Grandin movie; do the vocab. packet
• Tuesday, 4/16 - Academic Advisory - Type 1's commas; read pp. 1-8 of chapter 1; study guide
• Wednesday, 4/17 - Type 1's semicolons; finish pp. 1-8; TIQA paragraph quiz
• Thursday, 4/18 - NO ADVISORY - Type 1's semicolons - turn in; finish TIQA paragraph quiz and turn in
• Friday, 4/19 - NO SCHOOL

English 10

• Monday, 4/15 - watch Act I of Macbeth; work on character analysis in packet - all characters
• Tuesday, 4/16 - Academic Advisory - Verb Tense packet; Type 1 Ambition; finish study guide and characters in packet
• Wednesday, 4/17 - Verb Tense packet; Type 1 Themes; finish Act I packet
• Thursday, 4/18 - NO ADVISORY - Verb Tense packet; Type 1's - Theme and Character; Quiz for Act I - TIQA Paragraph
• Friday 4/19 - NO SCHOOL

That's the plan.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Four Day Week by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

One Term to Go

I hope everyone had a good break. I know I did, and I'm ready for the home stretch. I spent part of my week taking care of business, and then the rest of my week was therapeutic as I flew to Massachusetts to spend time with a friend I have not seen in 31 years! I loved every moment of it, and it felt like we'd never been apart. Here's a picture of us at 17 from 1988, and you can do the math to figure out how old we are in 2019:

She lives in the Boston area and totally catered to the literary geek in my personality, so we went to Salem where we visited Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace (and I got a t-shirt with a Scarlet A on it!), and then we went to the memorial to the victims of the witch trials:

Another day we went to one of my favorite New England towns, Concord, where we had lunch in a charming restaurant on a creek, and then we went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to visit the graves of four of my favorite authors: Thoreau, Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Emerson.  The picture of me is me communing with all of the Alcotts. I told you - I'm a total geek:

It has been a challenging year and an interesting year, and this week the trend will continue.  Tuesday and Wednesday are the big testing days, so the schedules will be different. On Tuesday, 10th graders come to school at the regular time, take their PSAT 10 in the gym, and then they are free to go, or wait for the bus.  We encourage them to find a way out of there if they can because we will not be running classes so they just sit there.  On Wednesday we repeat the process with the ninth graders.  On the days that students are not testing they stay home.

So here's the schedule for the week:

English 9

• Monday, 4/8 - finish and submit the Crucible papers through Google Classroom
• Tuesday, 4/9 - stay home
• Wednesday, 4/10 - PSAT 9
• Thursday, 4/11 - watch Temple Grandin and take notes
• Friday, 4/12 - watch Temple Grandin and take notes

English 10

• Monday, 4/8 - finish semicolon packet and turn in; review Act I, sc. i of Macbeth; watch Act I, sc. i-iii
• Tuesday 4/9 - PSAT 10
• Wednesday, 4/10 - stay home
• Thursday, 4/11 - bell work; read Act I of Macbeth
• Friday, 4/12 - bell work; read Act I of Macbeth

I hope everyone has a great week. Ciao!

One Term to Go by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Spring Break is On Its Way!

One week, and we're on spring break. One week, and Term 3 is over.  It's always amazing to me at this point in the year how quickly things have gone, and how quickly they'll go. And we have so much to do! So on that note...

Last week English 9 finished The Crucible work and watched the movie.  English 10 submitted their final copies of their research papers (which I'm working on grading this weekend, but it's slow), and then they took a well-earned break and watched Freedom Writers. 

This coming week, English 9 will take the objective portion of the assessment for The Crucible and then write an essay about it. English 10 will be doing preview activities for Macbeth so that when we get back from break we'll be able to start reading the text very quickly.

Both groups will be filling out the forms for their PSAT's which will be the week we get back from break.

Here's the schedule:

English 9

• Monday, 3/25 - pre-bubble for PSAT; Crucible test
• Tuesday, 3/26 - Academic Advisory - pre-write the essay; set up the document
• Wednesday, 3/27 - write the essay
• Thursday, 3/28 - NO ADVISORY - write the essay
• Friday, 3/29 - revise and edit the essay; submit

English 10

• Monday, 3/25 - pre-bubble for PSAT; work on timeline assignment
• Tuesday, 3/26 - Academic Advisory - commas; work on timeline assignment - due by midnight
• Wednesday, 3/27 -semicolons; murder mystery game
• Thursday, 3/28 - NO ADVISORY - semicolons; Flipgrid video for Act I, Scene i
• Friday, 3/29 - finish Flipgrid video

That's the plan for the week. I hope everyone has a great week, and then a great spring break.  See you on the other side!

Spring Break is On Its Way! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Thank You, All!

Thank you to all the parents who helped to support my 10th grade students in their Wax Museum. This includes all of you 9th grade parents who brought your kids, or dropped them off.  There were a lot of people there, so I know I missed many of you, but I truly appreciate all the help we had to make that a successful event.

I took many pictures, so I'm going to post them here.  I'm so sorry for the ones I missed.  It was mostly because they'd ventured away from their post and I just didn't catch them:

This is a tough project, and the kids were amazing.  Now we're finishing off the research paper and scheduling for 11th grade, and then we can all breathe!  I told them no breathing is allowed until Monday is over.

So last week, the 10th graders finished the project and worked on editing the research papers. The 9th grade managed to finish reading The Crucible, so now they're heading for assessments.  We'll do the test this week, and the essay next week.

Here's our schedule:

English 9

• Monday, 3/18 - hand back papers; finish the Act IV packet
• Tuesday, 3/19 - Academic Advisory - commas; watch The Crucible movie
• Wednesday, 3/20 - commas; watch The Crucible movie
• Thursday, 3/21 - PSAT Advisory - commas; finish The Crucible movie; kahoot review
• Friday, 3/22 - test for The Crucible

English 10

• Monday, 3/18 - enroll in Turnitin.com and submit research papers; schedule for 11th grade
• Tuesday, 3/20 - Academic Advisory - commas; hand back papers; watch movie
• Wednesday, 3/21 - commas; watch movie
• Thursday, 3/21 - PSAT Advisory - commas; finish movie
• Friday, 3/22 - commas; begin Macbeth

So that's about it.  Happy St. Patrick's day to all you Irish and Honorary-Irish people. It's a great day for wearing green, and...oh!  Sorry Blue people, but in honor of my hometown and my alma mater:  

Go Green and Sparty On!!! Good luck to us, though, since we're in the same bracket as Duke.

Thank You, All by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.