Second Reading Blog Due

Please write a second reading blog if you haven't already.

Happy Banned Books Week!

We're reading a banned book right now: The Awakening!

Model Paper for Citation Exercise

Here's a model paper, should you want to see the successful employment of a variety of ways of citing text in a single essay.

Writers Workshop: Colon Mini-lesson

When finished work on these colon exercises. Please note that the webpage's version of the sentence is one of many possible revisions.

What would Chopin say?: Chopin Summative Assessment

In your groups you've been gathering evidence from The Awakening to determine what Chopin might say about your controversial statement.

For example, does she think your own happiness comes before everyone else's?

To demonstrate your understanding, your group will record a Flipgrid discussion in which you use a close reading of three passages to determine Chopin's response.

While the platform does not explicitly support it, I'd like to see you annotating text during the videos. You might consider making a photocopy of a page or take a picture of a page that you can then manipulate in your Flipgrid video.

Start your topic on the Flipgrid forum entitled,  What does Kate Chopin think about _____?

Follow this link and open an account. 

The Flipgrid discussion will be due October 5th for even blocks and October 6th for odd.

Here is the rubric.

Reading Blog Due

Next class (Tuesday or Wednesday - depending when you have have class) complete one reading blog. See rubric in the "What is a reading blog?" post. This is a formative grade.

What is a reading blog?

Reading to Blog

What's more important the book or our interpretations of the book? Can there be a book without there being interpretation? We'll be able to answer some of those questions after we've recorded our relationships with the books we read.

In order to preserve paper, as well as to promote our communication with the academic world outside of CNG, we'll be keeping blogs about the books we read.

You will write your own blogs, and respond to your blogs as prescribed by your weekly homework blog entry. You should not approach each blog the same way. With variety comes varied thought; therefore, I hope you focus on different topics and take different approaches in each entry.

Imagine you have been assigned "The Three Little Pigs" for homework. To write a reading blog based on this reading here are some possibilities:

-Respond to the text personally: 

I never had my house blown down by a wolf, but I have felt loss. For example, I once abandoned my favorite apartment. I left most of my furniture there, some clothes, even a television!

-Connect text to another book, a film, work of art, a comic or any other creation: 

The Three Little Pigs reminds me of The Matrix. When the Wolf "huffed and puffed and blew his house down" he acted just as Morpheus did for Reeve's character. Suddenly, Reeves was without the security he once felt.

-Ask questions to later answer:

What might the grandmother represent? Why would the Wolf want to blow down the houses? How might I write a better ending? I would then maybe answer these questions in later blogs. 

-Visual Vocabulary 

Select the words you think it was important to define in the text. Match a picture to it on your blog post. 

-Hyperlink 

You might want to use the 21^st century's answer to footnotes when you're talking about something that is not common knowledge. We'll do a demo of how to insert a hyperlink in class.

You may use any combination of these, or you can write your own type of entries. Let your reading guide your entries. We'll take a look at them next week in class and in conferences.

Take a look at this example from a student a few years ago. Here's a more satirical style and here's another more effusive style. 

Here you can find the rubric I'll be using to assess your blogs.

Writers Workshop: Diction Explanation and Exercises

Here is the diction explanation.

Here are the exercises. 

Stop Motion Videos

Please upload your stop motion Kim Chinquee short story videos to your blogs by Friday or Monday - whenever we have class. This will count as a life skill grade.

Model Papers from Timed Writing

Here you can find two papers that scored well on our pre-assessment timed writing about A Simple Heart.

Student 1

Student 2

Announcement for New Students

If did not complete A Simple Heart timed writing exercise,  complete this prompt (by hand):

Many works of literature contain a character who intentionally deceives others. The character’s dishonesty may be intended either to help or to hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feelings, or to carry out a crime. Choose a novel or play in which a character deceives others. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the motives for that character’s deception and discuss how the deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

You will be graded using this rubric.

Updated Reading Goals

Please remember I will be assessing your reading next week. Be sure to set doable but challenging reading goals with your group.

Writers Workshop: Incorporating Text into Analysis or Citation

Here's a slideshow I created about embedding text for your review. I'll be using this for my in-class mini-lesson.

Poetry Karaoke Instructions

Please upload your poetry karaoke videos to youtube and then embed the videos in your blog. Please note, as stated in the rubric, this is part of your media grade. 

Incorporating Text into an Essay (summative assessment)

After our lesson today, what should our rubric look like for evaluating our use of incorporating text.


Chime in here.

This is due next Writers Workshop - Wednesday or Thursday - depending on when we meet.

Speaking Aloud: Formal Discussion Rubric

We'll be having in-class discussion from time-to-time, which will be graded.

Our first one will be on Monday (odd) or Thursday (even). If you're absent it's simply recorded as a no count grade.

The works to be discussed will sometimes be given beforehand - or may be about a novel we are reading - or may simply be a text that we need to read and respond to in a brief period of time.

Here is the rubric. 

Noredink.com Class Code

Here is the class code for noredink.com:
shallow salsa 17

Capitalization Quiz on Wednesday and Friday

Please make sure you complete the capitalization exercises in preparation for the quiz this week.

Rhythm in Poetry

Here's the slideshow that I showed in class about rhythm in poetry.

Rubric for Post-its

As we'll be assessing your reading weekly, here is the rubric we'll be using.

Poetry Quiz

We'll have a formative quiz on rhyme and rhythm in poetry here in class on Friday or Monday  Tuesday depending on when we meet.