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.