Following our study of "The Most Dangerous Game," we have continued our study of short stories by reading Guy de Maupassant's, "The Necklace." Focus has been on discussing the historical and culture cues from the story in addition to identifying theme and understanding characterization. Additionally, we reviewed the three types of irony: situational, dramatic, and verbal. Beginning tomorrow, we will wrap up our short story unit and begin reading, "The Sniper" written by Liam O'Flaherty. We will discuss all of the short story elements mentioned above. The unit will culminate with a Common Assessment on Monday, February 24, 2014 over the various standards covered during this unit. | Tuesdays with Morrie & The Five People You Meet in Heaven |
Tuesdays with Morrie & Five People You Meet in Heaven Essay |
Today all students currently enrolled in an English class completed the TCAP Writing Assessment. Our goal this semester is to prepare students not only for the English I End Of Course (EOC) Exam but also for the implementation of Common Core and the PARCC Assessment next year. The TCAP Writing Assessment requires students to read texts and respond to prompts using information from those texts. The PARCC Assessment next year will be similar. We will be focusing heavily on writing this semester and using textual evidence to support our writing. To help students remember that we need to support our conclusions with evidence from text, I have asked students to resurrect the question, WHY? It is important that students not only know the correct answer but that they understand why it is the correct answer andhow they know it. Common Core Standards require students to think beyond just the correct answer and support their answers with evidence instead of the blanket "Because I think so." HOW DO YOU KNOW? | In my classroom, I have a similar poster hanging to remind students to look to the text for answers and more importantly support. As a reminder to the students, ONLY use 1st person ("I know…" or "I can infer…") during discussions and not any formal writing (i.e. any writing assignment unless you are told otherwise.) |