WORK IN PROGRESS. October 1-5, 2012

I feel like we are right in the middle of a conversation...some of my kids have the syllabus, some do not, and we have not yet discussed syllabus specifics!

Here's what happening on Monday:

First of all, it's Silent Sustained Reading for your nonfiction text, and the assignment for this book is coming soon.  It will be due in first quarter, so you have to read at home.  You have to MAKE TIME to read.  Fake reading will not fly.  I can offer some classroom minutes -- the October Mondays, and on the two days where you will have a substitute:  October 10 and 19.  The rest is ALL YOU.  You have to make time in your day for sitting still, and reading a book.

I will be sending around a yellow pad, so you can tell me what book you are committing to (title and author), how many pages there are, and what page you are on today.

Tools to use:  

• Text message subscription:  call 971-264-2776 and send the text @apeng11 to subscribe to text message reminders.  
• Check out the Shared Google Calendar.

Tuesday:

10 minutes of free-writing to a prompt.

Next, I will be returning your "Is there a downside to technology?" essay -- I have glanced at all of them, and have started to score them, and it has been checked in as complete; you will see my initials on the essay...I want you to revise that essay, type it up, print it up, and attach the original "on-demand" essay.  This product is due on Friday.  Check the blog post "A Little Snap" to see specifically what I am looking for in that revision.

We will have a mini-lesson on subordination.  Please take notes, complete the exercise assigned on an exit pass, and consult the links that I offer you in the blog post.

Next, this is the day that we will discuss the syllabus in detail, and I will give you a handout regarding 3P grading.   I am going to want you to write a self-evaluation of your work thus far, based on the criteria we have talked about.  There is a blog post describing this self-evaluation entitled "First Five Weeks."  The self-evaluation is due on Thursday.

Wednesday:

Any questions from Tuesday will be addressed, and if we were unable to finish going over the syllabus on Tuesday, we will wrap up here in the first 10 minutes.

If we were able to finish, our first 10 minutes will be spent free-writing to a prompt.

As soon as you are done writing,  I will be checking for your vocabulary homework, and then we will take our first vocabulary test.  We will take the test and score it, and I will be asking you to submit an exit pass.

We'll discuss the AP vocab that is on the board.

After all the vocab work is completed, I will be collecting your annotated articles by Carr, Iyer and Pennebaker.

I will pick up an armload of notebooks to score.

Thursday:

10 minutes free-writing to a prompt.

Notebook return.

We'll spend some time organizing our work in our portfolios, and looking at what we've completed thus far.  You will have a quick worksheet to complete, and this, along with your self-reflection, will go into the portfolio.

Friday:

10 minutes free-writing to a prompt.

Lesson #1:  Introduction to Writer's Workshop.  Workshop norms.  Practice:  Peer Review --> review of revised technology essay.  MLA checklist.  Highlight sentence demonstrating subordination.  Turn in.

Lesson #2:  How does content and purpose shape decisions about genre?  What is genre?  How does it work?

Weekend Homework: 

350 word blog post about your book.  Who is it by?  What is it about?  How is it going so far?