Almost Halfway

This school year seems to be racing by, and we have been busy in our classes. My students continue to work on their content area vocabulary skills, adding new words every week or two. I am pleased with their progress; I feel that they are retaining the knowledge of these words and their meanings much better through this process. This will ultimately help them have a deeper understanding of the work we are doing in our literature studies and our writing exercises. English 9 classes have started working on learning the 7 Rules of Comma Usage, somethin we will continue to work on throughout the year. They are also reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and I have been impressed with their oral interpretation of this play. Prior to reading the play, students gave oral presentations of eithe a sonnet or a monologue from Shakespeare. This allowed them to practice the pronunciations, to become accustomed to the rhythm and flow of imabic pentameter, and to adjust to speaking Shakespeare's language aloud. Senior English students are continuing their work on argumentative writing, presenting their stance and supporting it with examples and details. We have finished reading Animal Farm and have moved on to 1984. We have had some interesting discussions about totalitarian governments so far, and I am seeing deeper thinking and processing as we move further into the book. I got a new group of ACT prep students last week and they have taken each of the three English/language arts tests once. Due to this week being so busy with Challenge Days, they will be reviewing their scores on these tests Friday. Progress reports will be sent out December 6th and students have been made aware of their current grades and any missing assignments that need to be made up. As always, if you have questions or need extra copies of anything, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Happy Autumn! As fall takes a turn toward winter, we are hard at work in the English department. I welcome comments and questions at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact me.
English 9 students are working on writing narratives with a revenge theme, after reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." They are focused on building a storyline through use of a plot chart, creating suspense and using characterization techniques to develop characters readers will be involved with. We continue to develop our content area vocabulary knowledge.
Senior English students are hard at work reading George Orwell's Animal Farm. We have been discussing various forms of government and will continue some of these discussions when we move on to Orwell's 1984. Content area vocabulary is also an area of concentration.
ACT Prep students have been working on practice tests online. We have also been developing skills and strategies for attacking the reading portion of the English test in hopes of improving those scores.
The weeks are quickly moving by and I am enjoying every moment of this school year!

English 9: This year is shaping up to be vocabulous!

We are off and running, and what a fantastic start to this year we've had! I have been having such a great time working with students on writing, vocabulary, informational reading, short stories and novels that I've hardly had a second to spare to think about posting to my blog! As this fifth week of school begins, I'm finally finding a moment to catch my breath and catch you up on where we are.


English 9 vocabulary: This is a list of 50 words students will learn throughout the year. We've done a pre-test and we'll end the year with a post-test to measure growth.


1. character

2. symbol

3. minor character

4. rhyme

5. compare-and-contrast essay

6. imagery

7. plot

8. sensory image

9. setting

10. symbolism

11. theme

12. tone

13. major character

14. chronological order

15. figurative language

16. exposition

17. climax

18. extended metaphor

19. parallel plots

20. meter

21. rhythm

22. dialogue

23. oral tradition

24. autobiography

25. satire

26. thesis statement

27. epic poetry

28. archetype

29. soliloquy

30. characterization

31. irony

32. narrator

33. parable

34. alliteration

35. analogy

36. assonance

37. ballad

38. consonance

39. diction

40. lyric poetry

41. ode

42. allusion

43. monologue

44. conflict

45. motif

46. haiku

47. narrative poetry

48. sonnet

49. aside

50. foil

So far students have worked with allusion and irony. Quiz your students to see how they're progressing with this content area vocabulary.

Welcome back! Can't wait to get started!

Welcome to the 2011-2012 school year. As we set off on our journey this year, I am entering my 20th year as an educator. I continue to discover that each year is a brand new experience for me, with curriculum changes, new methods, budgeting challenges, and a variety of other factors. So much to learn and so little time. As we make our way through this school year, please check here often for assignments, announcements, due dates and to ask questions.
Below is my schedule for the year:
1st hour: English 9
2nd hour: ACT prep
3rd hour: English 9
4th hour: Senior English
6th hour: Senior English
7th hour: English 9
8th hour: Conference period
Yearbook is not offered as a class this year, but any interested students are encouraged to meet with me and discuss opportunities for working on this year's publication outside of class. Details will be announced during our first week of classes.
The 2011 yearbook has arrived and is ready for delivery. If you ordered a book last year, please see me to pick it up. If you did not pre-order, please see me as we do have a few extras available.

If you need to contact me, please call the school at 231-825-2412, ext. 1310, via cell phone at 231-468-1320, or via email at sjohnson@mcbain.org or sheilaj83@gmail.com. I look forward to meeting each of you and working with you this school year.

Inservice as Education Day

The final bell rang Thursday and my students raced joyfully through the halls, out the exit doors and onward to their five day weekend. My colleagues and I, on the other hand, drew a deep breath and trudged slowly homeward, knowing we'd be back bright and early for a day of being inserviced. Please understand that I am not opposed to learning; I love to learn new things. I'm a teacher-geek; it's what I do. However, each February we march in early on a Friday to sit through hours of being talked to while we try to concentrate. It's difficult not to be distracted by the piles of papers that need to be graded, the files that need to be sorted and organized, the grades that need to be entered into Powerschool. Hard too, not to think about the students who would normally be here with us, sleeping in today instead, enjoying the warming temperatures and having mid-winter vacations.
Returning Friday morning we grab doughnuts and coffee and march to the computer lab. This year's inservice emerges as a pleasant surprise; not another run-through of using powerpoint, but actual time to work on current technology, to discover new things, to find lesson materials that will be meaningful to our students and enrich our own professional careers. Today's inservice, like the spring breezes blowing outside, is a breath of fresh air compared to the years and years of blood-borne pathogens training we've had to sit through.
This is what today's teachers need...time to think, time to explore, time to discover what's new and available to us. The load of teaching today is heavy. Being a classroom teacher no longer involves simple paper and pencil tasks, quizzes and lectures. Today's teacher must integrate technology, not only to capture the interest of our students, but also to prepare them to be good citizens in a web-savvy world. Without time to think and discover, teacher's cannot possibly keep up with the rapidly expanding technology and knowledge base.  We all know this, we all strive for this, but the list of tasks to be completed daily is enormous and often we're too exhausted by the time we get to the end of the day to discover anything.
So, here's my plea to educators everywhere...plan your inservice days in such a way that new ideas are presented to your staff, followed by time for them to question and discover at their own pace. On any given staff, the level of techonological savvy varies from expert to emerging, and time is needed to develop those skills and keep everyone learning.
So now, if you'll excuse me, I'll finish my blog assignment and move on to my own discovery process. I'd bet I'm having as much fun today as my students; but that's just the teacher-geek in me!