Mrs. Albanese’s Blog

^{YOU ARE THE AUTHOROF YOUR OWN LIFESTORY!}

^{Capstone Project}

This is it! The end of your middle school experience. Now get writing!

• Part 1 – Brainstorm to create list of personal accomplishments and memories
• Part 2 – Writing Workshop create written material that represents your life so far then post on your blog. Respond to classmates postings.
• Part 3 – Oral and Visual Presentation protopage project and oral presentation  

List of Choices   * items are a must do                                                         

1. Accomplishment Essay * – Name a special accomplishment that you are proud of. Tell about it and how it changed your thinking.
2. Resume * –tells about your qualifications for a summer job
3. Letter * –  a thank you letter thanking someone for helping you
4. Proudest Moment Essay or Person You Most Admire Essay * – your proudest moment or write about the person you most admire.
5. Timeline – your life events in a time sequence
6. Hobby or Passion – write about something that you love to do. Include pictures and descriptions.
7. Favorite Things Protopage – tab each of your favorites including food, games, sports, music, dances, art, books, colors, fashions, shoes, whatever! Include website links.
8. Virtual Vacation – what places would you like to visit? Create a blog page or a protopage linked to your blog to show this place.
9. Middle School Memories – What are your most precious memories?
10. Your choice – see me for discussion. 

Petals

by Pat Mora

have calloused her hands,

brightly colored crepe paper: turquoise,

yellow, magenta, which she shapes

into large blooms for bargain-hunting tourists

who see her flowers, her puppets, her baskets,

but not her – small gray-haired woman

wearing a white apron, who hides behind

blossoms in her stall at the market,

who sits and remembers collecting wildflowers

as a girl, climbing rocky Mexican hills

to fill a straw hat with soft blooms

which she’d stroke gently, over and over again

with her smooth fingertips.

A guided response to write a poem about the person who you honor on Mother’s Day. This could be your mom, stepmom, aunt, grandmother or nana.  You may write more than one poem and put it together in a very special way as a gift.

Use the five senses when you complete this sequence. Use vivid words that tell color, shape and texture.

1. write words that describe your mother’s hands
2. write words that tell what she does when she works
3. write words that describe her at work
4. write words that describe her face, eyes, nose, mouth, hair
5. write words that describe her in her favorite clothes
6. write words that describe a memory she may have from when she was a young girl
7. write words that describe her being funny
8. write words that describe her doing something that she loves
9. write words that describe her doing something with you

Now we will take this list and arrange the words into a poem.

April is National Poetry Month  To celebrate we are having a poem writing and performing challenge. Write a poem using one of the following themes and perform it for the class on April 28th. The best poets go on to perform at the HOB First Annual Poetry Slam!  Themes: growing up, friendship, bad day, favorite things.Guided Poetry – remember the 3 R’s – repetition, rhyme and rhythm!

Suggestions: Name a friend.  Name a description of friend or a quality.  Compare the friend to something (metaphor).  Repeat using another friend or another quality.

Sample:

Do you know Jack?

Bad news with Nikes and speed

Belt slung low

Where does he go

To get what he needs? 

Do you know Jack?

Always looking for a fight

Pickin and jivin

What does he do

To get himself right?       

Cape Henlopen School District is building a new high school! There is money left over  and the school board is asking the public if we want to build an extra athletic field and a 6 lane swimming pool.  What do you think? Are you for the pool and the field or against?

Do a brainstorm – a list of ideas to support your opinion.

Then, write a persuasive essay in Word, stating your ideas.  Save it to your file, revise, edit and post on your blog. 

Homework – Read AR book for 30 minutes each night. Deadline for AR test for this marking period is April 25. Next library time is next week.  Midterm grades are to come back signed.  Washington DC Permission slips and $25 are to be into your homeroom teacher by April 18th. 

Poetry Challenge: April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate we are having a poem writing and performing challenge. Write a poem using one of the following themes and perform it for the class on April 28th. The best poets go on to perform at the HOB First Annual Poetry Slam!  Themes: growing up, friendship, bad day, favorite things.

Monday – Finish Poetry unit and Short Story unit.  Poetry. Copy poem “The Kiss” Write a reflection based on the 3 r’s -  rhyme, rhythm and repetition, the concepts we have been studying for the past 3 weeks.  Finish reading the poems in this chapter including “Song” Nothing Gold Can Stay”, “Fireworks,” and “Full Fathom Five”. Then answer the questions on pages 125-128, #1-15 and turn into the tray.  Short story – Finish reading Raymond’s Run, pages 67-76 then read lesson 2, Characters in Action, page 82-83. Do Exercise B, questions #1-2 on page 83. Turn into the tray. 

Tuesday – Copy poem “I am Nobody – Who are You?” and do reflection.  Poetry – Review of poetry questions #1-15.  Poetry short answer questions.   Presentations of Blog.  Protopage – finish presentations.

Wednesday – Raymond’s Run questions and lesson.

Thursday – Student blogs on Edublogs.org.  Blog Guidelines, lessons and how to start demonstrated.

Friday – Students log on and create their own blogs sending me their blog URL.

Cover characters, plot and setting. Since you just did character maps, go into a description of a character and tell what you think about him/her. Tell about actions, thoughts, and motives.   What character would you like to be in this book (or none) and why? Tell what you would do in the same situations. 

Write about your book tell us what you really enjoyed. What was the author trying to say about life and living through this book? Who else should read this book? Why?

April is National Poetry Month

To celebrate we are having a poem writing and performing challenge. Write a poem using one of the following themes and perform it for the class on April 28th. The best poets go on to perform at the HOB First Annual Poetry Slam!  Themes: growing up, friendship, bad day, favorite things.

Homework: Read for 30 minutes each school night. Deadline to read one AR book and take a test will be April 28!!  Write a poem for the Poetry Challenge.

Monday – Library – AR Tests and book check out only – Cores 1,3,4.  Protopage Evaluation and Presentation. S will evaluate each others Protos using the rubric created in class. S will also self evaluate answering these questions: What did you do well? What improvement would you make next time? What other ways can you use Proto?

Tuesday – Poetry Best text. Read aloud Song, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Fireworks, Full Fathom Five.  Discussion, reflection. Quiz pages 125-128, #1-15 on looseleaf paper. Review and evaluation.  Protopage Evaluation and Presentations.

Wednesday – Short Story – Raymonds’ Run, Best text, pg 60 – 66 introduction.  Raymond’s Run read 67-76 creating a character map (Readers Handbook) and a plot line to be turned in and graded.

Thursday –  Finish reading Raymond’s Run. Discuss character development, finish character map and plot line.  Character and description, lesson 1, 79-81, exercise A.   Character and Action, lesson 2, 82-84, exercise B. Do individually.

Friday – Book Review!  Any book that you wish!  New format! 

www.protopage.com

A PROTOPAGE is a website. You can make it into anything you want it to be. For our purposes in school, you will be creating a protopage to inform your readers about the author or artist that you did your research paper on.  Your protopage is a presentation device that will be interactive. Include the following items. 

Your opinion, quotes, family history, pictures, drawings, links to other web sources, contact information for you, the author (your gmail account) and lists that are important.

Your protopages will be shared with teachers across the state and graded by you and your classmates and me using the following criteria:

1. Visual interest: use of pictures, color, text size, color or contrast to support information
2. Information: ideas, organization, conventions, sentence structure, ease of reading, lists of important things (books, art work)
3. Interactive: links to other sources, link to your email
4. Overall: how useful and informative is the site overall?

Homework – Read AR book.

Monday – Review Test To Build a Fire – grades.  Make up for test and book review.   Review of Protopage. Give back work – portfolios.

Tuesday - Poem “Arpil Fools Day”   Protopage work.  Criteria for rubric. Students share.

Wednesday – Poems – from text Best Poems.  Unit 4, “Rhythm, Rhyme and Repetition:.  pg 105-124. Read the information and the poems and discuss in teams. Find a poem that your team wants to recite out loud. Practice.   

Thur – Poem from text – Best Poems. Discuss poems. Take poem quiz on 125-128. Teams perform poems. 

Fri - Protopage gallery.

April Fool’s Day

Mackenzie put a whoopie cushion

on the teacher's chair.

Makayla told the teacher

that a bug was in her hair.

Alyssa brought an apple

with a purple gummy worm

and gave it to the teacher

just to see if she would squirm.

Elijah left a piece of plastic

dog doo on the floor,

and Vincent put some plastic vomit

in the teacher's drawer.

Amanda put a goldfish

in the teacher's drinking glass.

These April Fool's Day pranks

are ones that you could use in class.

Before you go and try them, though,

there's something I should mention:

The teacher wasn't fooling

when she put us in detention.

–Kenn Nesbitt 

          Short Story Unit –  To Build a Fire by Jack London   

English 8, Mariner Middle School

Mrs. Diane Albanese, NBCT  Winter 2008

MATERIALS

Best Texts – Short Story pages 102-125

Questions listed here are taken from this text   

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, students will learn how to:

• Examine critically the conflict of man and nature. 
• Discuss London’s juxtaposition of knowledge and instinct        
• Understand third person, omniscient point of view
• Conduct a plot analysis 

LESSONS 

1. 127 – Plot        
2. 129 Exposition – Read. Do Exercise A #1-2. Do Writing on your Own       
3. 132 Conflicts and Complications – Read. Do Exercise B. Do Writing on your own.  136 – Crisis and Climax – Read. Do Exercise C. Do writing on your own.       
4. 139 Beginning. Middle, End. Read.  Do Exercise D. Do Writing on your own. Do Questions #1-16 from pages 143-147 in your notebook.    

TASKS:

1. Keep a journal as you read this story. Part of the journal will be double entry as seen on page 312 of Readers Handbook. Stop and reflect in your two column notes about every 3-4 pages.  A two column journal consists of one column with a direct quote from the story and the other column that tells “What you think about it” meaning what is your interpretation of the quote: what did it mean to you?
2. Other work that you do from the above list will be included in your journal. If you do not have a notebook, you can use several pieces of looseleaf stapled together. This notebook will be collected for an over all grade.
3. Unit test at the end of this story.        

Questions for Reflection and Discussion after the story is read.  

(Discuss in small groups or whole class and then write answers in your notebook. Include the questions.) 

1. The author often uses a common theme or idea in a story to tie the plot together from beginning to end.  It is sometimes called a “thread” that runs through the story.  Cold and fire are used that way in this story.  How are they threads that run through the story?
2. One kind of conflict is a conflict between people.  The dog in the story isn’t a person but it is a character.  What kind of conflict does the dog experience?
3. In a way, each new problem in a story brings a new turning point or crisis. How was falling in the water a crisis? Was the snow falling on the fire also a turning point?
4. There is an old saying, Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Early in the story Jack London says of the man, “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination.” How are those statements alike?
5. In many of his short stories and novels, Jack London points out that people are frail creatures. How is the man in the story frail?
6. In the story, the man dies and the dog lives. Does that mean the dog is smarter than the man? Or is there some other reason why the dog survives and the man does not?
7. A good storyteller captures your interest at once. Review the first two paragraphs of the story. What do you find there that captures your interest?
8. Many of Jack London’s stories end with someone’s death. Is the man’s death a good ending for this story? Would you have ended the story some other way? Explain.

All work is to placed in your notebook and will be collected and graded.