Short stories: In-class essay

Here is your link to the writing prompt for today.

ARC visit; "Harrison Bergeron"

We'll start off today with a short visit to the ARC.

After that, you'll have time to meet with your group to review the three Vonnegut stories you read. Your goal is to make sure you understand both what happens in the stories as well as a sense of what ideas, themes, and issues suggested by them.

For the in-class writing on Friday, you will have access to the stories, your journal responses, and any notes you have. You will have the entire period to write.

Annotating - "Barnhouse Effect"

We'll start today by reviewing your scores on the STAR test.

Then, we'll turn our attention to annotating.

What do we annotate? Why?
What different strategies are there? Which ones did you use? Which ones might you try?
We'll use our annotations to help us discuss "Report on the Barnhouse Effect."

As a reminder, for tomorrow you will be reading "Harrison Bergeron" and writing a journal response.

STAR Testing

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend!

We are going to take the STAR reading test today. Please do your best on this reading comprehension test. The purpose of this test is so I can understand how you read and learn and then offer you specific help. Do your best.

• Click here to go to the link for the test.
• For your username, use your first initial then your last name - so I would be NRIGLER
• Your password is your student ID number - but ONLY the number - i.e. 123XXXX - if you are unable to gain access after TWO tries, please ask for help before trying a third time.
• You will be presented with two choices - select STAR Reading
• Sometimes, the system will request a “Monitor Password.” If this happens to you, the password is “admin”
• If you are presented with a list of teachers, please select “Rigler”
• Take the test! Do the best you can!

As a reminder, your homework for tomorrow is to read "A Report on the Barnhouse Effect" and annotate it.

"Unready to Wear" + writing journal responses

Happy Friday! You are on the verge of finishing your first week of high school - congratulations!

Today we'll start off by sharing the journal responses you wrote to "Unready to Wear." Listen to the different ways in which people wrote their responses. We'll make a list of these and then talk about elements of an excellent and effective journal response. I'll post this list on the blog for your reference.

For Tuesday you will be reading another story: "Report on the Barnhouse Effect." This time you will be annotating the story. Again, I'm not going to tell you what to do - I'm more interested to see the different ways in which you annotate. This means you should have a hard copy of the story with your annotations or find a way to do it electronically.

Lastly, I'll talk a bit about the STAR test for Monday and answer other questions about the class.

Have a great weekend!

Movie time + Class policies

It's film festival day! We'll spend most of the period getting to know each other through the films you made. I'm so excited to see your creations and to get to know you better.

After that, we'll spend some time looking over the class policies and procedures. You can find a link to them over there on the right under "important links."

Lastly, we'll talk about your homework assignment for Friday.

"About Me" movies!

Today we'll spend most of the period making short films / slide shows to introduce ourselves.
You'll need roughly 8-10 pictures / videos to help tell your story.
You may use any software you'd like, and if you want to use your phone, you can. Students in the past have used iMovie, Kizoa, and WeVideo (among others).
If you are not comfortable making a video, I recommend making a Google Slideshow

You must include:

• Your name
• At least three titles, listing an activity or interest or people or something of significance to you
• 8-10 pictures

If you want, you can include:

• Video
• Music
• Just about anything else!

If you do not have personal pictures, feel free to search the internet to find appropriate ones.

Here are some samples:

• One I made last year
• The Google Slideshow sample

When you are finished, please do these two things:

1. Upload your video to your Google Drive; make sure it is shared with me
2. Put a link to it into this document

Happy first day of high school!

Greetings! Welcome! Happy first day of high school!

This site is the digital home for our class - you will find everything you need right here, from handouts to calendars to videos and more.

Please take some time today to complete this survey.