Building Reading Muscles: August 31, 2018

Focus: How do we build our reading muscles?

1. Warming up by refining your grammar:

• Complete two more lessons of IXL: Sentences, Fragments, and Run-ons.

• Test yourself with this quick exit ticket.

2. Establishing your own independent reading parameters and settling into you books

a. Books must be finished by Friday, November 2 .

b. How many pages does your book have?  About how many pages do you need to read a week?

c. Are you planning to read mostly on weekends, or throughout the whole week?

d. Are you planning on reading more than one book?  This is optional.

e. Take a look at the chapters and overall set-up of the book; make sure you're sectioning the book logically into reading assignments (you don't want to end two pages before the end of a chapter).

f. Take out your student calendars and write down exactly which pages need to be finished by which precise dates.

4. Thinking about reading as muscle-building

HW:
1. For Monday: 

• Spend 15 minutes with your independent reading books.
• Make sure you have finished reading "The Yellow Wallpaper."
• Make sure you have completed your three-column notes on "The Yellow Wallpaper."

Letting Your Questions Lead You to Research: August 30, 2018

Focus: How can questions and background knowledge help you understand a tricky text?

1. Warming up with a round of "What Kind of Question Is This?"

2. Using questions to guide small-group discussions: With your grid group, share some of your best questions from "The Yellow Wallpaper" and try to answer them; remember to jot down some notes on your grid

• Topic #1: How's the year going so far?
• Topic #2: Your Level 1 Questions
• Topic #3: Your Level 2 Questions

3. Sharing with the large group your best question and the best comment you had in your group

4. Activating your background knowledge

• What should we research?
• The rest cure
• Weir Mitchell
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Postpartum depression
• Anything else?

• How does our research help inform our understanding of "The Yellow Wallpaper"? Select ONE topic to research, then find at least THREE places in the story that your research helps you understand.  In the margins, explain what new understanding you've achieved thanks to this research.

HW:
1. Finish reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," filling out one final reading journal (at least five rows). In the middle column, continue to ask Level 1 and 2 questions and to use the background knowledge from class today to analyze the text.

2. For FRIDAY:

• IXL: Achieve a score of at least 85 on any two lessons from "Sentences, Fragments, and Run-Ons." The recommended level for English 10 is Level J, but move up or move down based on your skills.

• Independent reading PROPOSAL, SIGNATURES, AND BOOK due this Friday.

Asking Good Questions: August 29, 2018

Focus: How can we use good questions to unlock tricky texts?

Shortened class today

Please turn in your blue three-columned notes.

1.Warming up up the "Question-Only" game (courtesy of Whose Line Is It Anyway?)

2. Read the first two pages of "The Yellow Wallpaper" together

3. Making the text explode with questions in small groups; considering three levels of questioning, and determining which kinds you asked

HW:
1. FOR THURSDAY: Read the first half of The Yellow Wallpaper"; fill in at least one side of your reading journal with Level 1 and 2 questions.

2. For FRIDAY:

• IXL: Achieve a score of at least 85 on any two lessons from "Sentences, Fragments, and Run-Ons." The recommended level for English 10 is Level J, but move up or move down based on your skills.

• Independent reading PROPOSAL, SIGNATURES, AND BOOK due this Friday.

Breaking Up a Poem: August 28, 2018

Focus: How can "chunking/sectioning the text" and asking great questions get us to great answers when we're reading tricky texts?

1. Warming up: Performing a physically close reading of lsong lyrics, one section/stanza at a time

2. Drawing some larger conclusions about the lyrics together

     a. Sectioning the text: In a word, this stanza is about...

     For example: In a word, this poem is about falling.

     b. Drawing conclusions: Looking at these words, form a full statement about each poem: On a           deeper level, this song or poem is about...

     For example: On a deeper level, this poem is about the world's indifference to tragedy.

3. Trying out the steps with poetry about Icarus

    What happens when the author's stanzas aren't helping? Or there aren't any stanzas? Section the     
    poem yourself by looking for SHIFTS!

    My tricks to finding shifts: 

• Circle your buts (and other words that indicate shift, such as "however," "on the other hand," etc...)
• Look for end punctuation, such as periods, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points.

4. Revisiting your independent reading parameters and proposal

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: On the back side of your blue reading chart (the front side has your thoughts on "Musee des Beaux Arts"), analyze the William Carlos Williams' poem, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," using the three columns to tell me what you're thinking, which words/lines you're focusing on , and which reading strategies you're using.

2. For FRIDAY:

• IXL: Achieve a score of at least 85 on any two lessons from "Sentences, Fragments, and Run-Ons." The recommended level for English 10 is Level J, but move up or move down based on your skills.

• Independent reading PROPOSAL, SIGNATURES, AND BOOK due this Friday.

Investigating Your Background Knowledge: August 27, 2018

Focus: How can background information help strengthen our reading skills?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Exploring one more painting with your reading strategies

3. Offering you a little mythical education; revisiting the warm-up painting

• How did your background information strengthen your interpretation of this painting?

4. Refreshing your grammar skills with our first IXL lesson:

• A reminder poster on IXL

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: Please read the W.H. Auden poem, "Musee des Beaux Arts" (handed out in class and linked here); complete one side of your blue three-columned notes as you analyze this poem.

2. For FRIDAY:

• IXL: Achieve a score of at least 85 on any two lessons from "Sentences, Fragments, and Run-Ons." The recommended level for English 10 is Level J, but move up or move down based on your skills.

• Independent reading PROPOSAL, SIGNATURES, AND BOOK due this Friday.

Why Read? August 24, 2018

Focus: Why read, and why look up background information?

1. Warming up with a few more paintings, in increasing levels of difficulty

2. Discussing which reading strategies worked for which paintings

3. Browsing books and understanding the purpose and focus of independent reading this semester

• Please click HERE to join Goodreads; click HERE to preview the Goodreads app for your phone...AND/OR browse for books the old-fashioned way.

• Take some time to browse Goodreads and figure out how it works.

• Use Goodreads and the list on the independent reading letter/overview to help you start to determine what you'd like to read for independent reading this semester.

4. Working on your independent reading proposal

HW:
By next Friday...

• Complete the independent reading proposal
• Acquire your parent/guardian signature
• Bring a copy of your book to class

Paintings Are Texts, Too: August 23, 2018

Focus: What strategies do we use to understand visual texts?

1. Warming up with "If You Really Knew Me" and your seating charts

2. Establishing your main reading strategy with a card trick from Ms. Leclaire: Making connections and making inferences; offering you an overview of Critical Reading Boot Camp

3. Applying your new reading strategy to a few paintings by Norman Rockwell

a. Inside your English 10 folder, please set up a folder with your last name and "Reading Boot Camp" in the title.

b. Inside the "Reading Boot Camp" folder, make a copy of THIS NOTE CATCHER.


HW:
1. Last call: Make sure you are signed up for the class Remind account and that you have taken the survey (due tomorrow). The homework picks up next week, so take care of these now.

2. Remember that you need a physical copy of your independent reading book, your short proposal, and your signed permission form in class on Friday, August 31.

How Are Your Reading Skills? August 22, 2018

Focus: What reading skills do you have, and what reading skills do you need to work on?

Please turn in your signed class policies if you have not yet done so.

1. Warming up with thoughts about your Academic Character

If you haven't done so yet, please click HERE to join our class Remind account.

2. Taking the English 10 reading pre-assessment

3. Wrapping up with reading goals

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: Read your classmates' "If You Really Knew Me" blog posts (on yesterday's class blog). Add at least five things to your class seating chart as you continue to learn interesting things about your classmates.

2. If you have not yet done so, please complete the survey I e-mailed to you, linked HERE. Urge your parents to complete theirs, too (linked here). They're not due until Friday, August 24, but the sooner you fill yours out, the sooner I can be a better teacher to you.

3. Make sure you bring your charged LAPTOP to class each day, starting today.

Building a Strong Class: August 21, 2018

Focus: How do we build a strong class?

1. Warming up by familiarizing yourself with this class's web tools

• Enjoying a class website scavenger hunt
• [Setting up your Remind account by clicking HERE.]
• Signing into our IXL class and explaining how IXL works
• Setting up your Google folders

2. Conducting interviews with your partner of the week (save into your "General" folder)

3. Establishing our class blogging policies by exploring blogs of the past with your"I Like People" groups

a. Please peruse the post and the comments for the two blogs linked below.  As you read quietly, think about which ones are strong and which ones are weak.  What makes the strong ones strong, and what makes the weak ones weak?

Click HERE for a sample homework blog.

Click here for a sample fishbowl blog.

b. In your grid groups, first fill out your names across the top.  Please fill in your second topic: "Blogging Expectations."  

c. As a group, decide on FIVE specific blogging policies for this class that will help keep our blogs strong.

d. I will compile your answers and print them out for the class to sign.

4. Showing a little vulnerability and bravery with "If You Really Knew Me," your first blogging assignment

HW:
1. For TOMORROW:

• Please ask your parents/guardians to read and sign the course syllabus by Wednesday, August 22.

• Complete your "If You Really Knew Me" blog before class on today's class blog (click on "Comments" below).

2. If you have not yet done so, please complete the survey I e-mailed to you, linked HERE. Urge your parents to complete theirs, too (linked here). They're not due until Friday, August 24, but the sooner you fill yours out, the sooner I can be a better teacher to you.

3. Make sure you bring your charged LAPTOP to class each day, starting today.