Last day of class!

Wow. That's it! We'll meet for a final time over a zoom call at 8:30 - see Schoology for the link!

Our Anthology

Greetings!

Here are the directions for today - choosing a piece (or more) to include in our class anthology!

See you Friday!

Encyclopedia of a Pandemic

Welcome to the last week of freshman year!

Today we will start off with a short zoom call - the link is below (only in Schoology)

Here are the directions for today - have fun with it!

Personal Narratives - Tribute and gratitude

Happy Friday!

For today, your focus will be on writing about another person - a person who influenced you.

Here are the directions for today.

Happy writing! Have a great weekend!

Personal Narratives - Ode poems

Here are the directions for today's writing - ode poems

Personal Narrative - Day 2

Greetings! Happy Tuesday!

Today, we will start with a zoom call at 10:30. It will be short, but it will give me the chance not only to say hi to everyone and check in but also to explain the next two weeks to you in person. At the start of the call, I will post the assignment for the day.

Here is the zoom link for today's call.

See you then!

Update - here is the link to today's writing.

Personal Narrative - Day 1

Happy Friday!

So originally I wanted to have a zoom call with you tomorrow, but then I remembered on Fridays we meet first thing in the morning. Often on Fridays earlier in the year, we would play a game or something to energize us to get into the day. I miss those games!

We will have a zoom call on Tuesday where I will talk about more of this current, and final, unit in person. For now, remember what I said earlier in the week - this final unit will be about you, about telling your story, and the tools you can use to bring it to life.

Over the final seven days we have left for our class, you will be creating five short pieces of writing.

The writing for today comes out of the movie you watched this week. By the way, I hope you enjoyed the movie you watched!

Here are the directions for today.

Movie time!

Happy Tuesday! I hope you had a great weekend!

So, now that we finished A Tale of Two Cities (I'll be working on grading your projects this week) you may be wondering - what's next? What are we going to do with the last three weeks of school?

Well, in many ways, the focus is going to be on - you. It will be about telling your story, about writing personal narratives, about creative non-fiction, and about the tools it takes to bring a story to life.

The first way we'll do that is by watching a movie. Unfortunately, we won't be together in the same room. Actually, we might not all watch the same movie. For the next two days, your assignment is to watch a "coming of age" movie - one that tells the story of a pivotal time in the life of a young person - someone roughly your age. 

• You can watch any of the movies listed below. 
• You do not have to take notes - just watch and enjoy (you can even watch it with your family!). 
• However, I will be asking you to write about two things: Moments of awareness (when a character realizes something for the first time; when a character understands something in a new way) and Moments of change (when a character acts in different ways or develops new beliefs or becomes something other than what they used to be). 
• That writing will happen on Friday, but you can make some notes about it after you watch the film if you think that will be helpful.

Here are the films you can choose from (click on them - they link to the film's IMDB page - that may help you choose which one to watch):

1. Stand By Me (you can watch it for free through IMDB - if you have not seen this one, I highly recommend it!)
2. Now and Then
3. Akeelah and the Bee
4. The Sandlot

Please let me know if you have a problem finding a way to watch one of the films!

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Cities - Last Day!

Happy Friday!

Here are the directions for the final part of your project, including how to submit everything.

Have a great weekend!