Irish Law's Virtual Classroom

Weekly Blog 2/8 – 2/12

This Week in Reading and ELA…

Monday – Reading – Vocabulary Quiz over 1/25 – 2/5 W.o.t.D., SB Close Reading of Informational Text “Underground Railroad Infographic,” What’s Going on in this Picture (NYTimes) ELA – Apostrophes Quiz, Complete “Adversity” Rough Draft

Tuesday – Reading – W.o.t.D., Fiction Book Report – Major Grade     ELA – Mini lesson: Essay Leads and Conclusions, “Adversity” Revision          

Wednesday/Thursday – Reading –W.o.t.D., SB Close Reading of Informational Text “from Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad” ELA – www.chompchomp.com apostrophe practice, complete “Adversity” revision, write Draft 2

Friday – Reading – W.o.t.D., What’s Going on in this Picture?, SB Close Reading of Informational Text Synthesis/Assessment ELA – Edit Draft 2, Write clean final copy on lined paper – Major Grade DUE TODAY/MONDAY

Homework this week: Since your fiction book report is Tuesday, make sure you’ve completed your fiction reading by Monday night! Study your INB Expository notes prior to 2/12 (writing benchmark)

Coming Up: Please get a paper copy of Tangerine by Edward Bloor prior to 2/25. Paper copies only (no electronic copies) to make grading and annotation an easier process for students and teacher!

Weekly Blog January 25 – 29

Weekly Blog 1/4 – 1/8

Happy New Year, Scholars and Yak Herd Members! Here’s this week in a nutshell:

This Week in Reading…

MONDAY – No school

TUESDAY – Word of the Day Vocabulary Quiz, SB pg. 114 Persuasive Techniques in Advertising

WEDNESDAY – Word of the Day, Charles Dickens Bio video and article

THURSDAY – Word of the Day, SB 2.6 Advertising Claims

FRIDAY – Word of the Day, Vocabulary Activity, INB Notes – Expository Text Structure

Reading Homework: reading log, nonfiction book – nonfiction book report (major grade) will be next Monday, so keep reading!

This Week in ELA…

MONDAY – No school

TUESDAY – Journal: One Word Resolutions, Present Victorian Research

WEDNESDAY – Journal: Christmas Carol Pre-Reading summaries using 10 given words, Novel News, Stave 1 reading and annotation

THURSDAY – Christmas Carol Stave Analysis, Complete Stave 1 reading/annotating/discussion

FRIDAY – Christmas Carol Stave Analysis, Stave 1 Quiz, Novel News, Begin Stave 2

ELA Homework: NoRedInk “Commas 1” assignment due Friday – open note!

Mythology PowerPoint

Greek Mythology PowerPoint

Weekly Blog 10/19 – 10/23

This Week in Reading…

This week, students will start the week by presenting their folklore skits. We will read a folk tale (“A Single Shard”) and a Greek myth (“Daedalus and Icarus.”) Students will also be researching a mythic figure of their choice for a “Wanted Poster” presentation they’ll do next week.

Graded Assignments This Week: SB 1.17 skits (daily X2), research summaries for 1.19 (daily)

Homework: reading log – folklore/mythology focus – Students should be reading mythology and folklore from various cultures at home. Our in-class book report over students’ independent folklore and mythology reading will be on 10/30

This Week in ELA…

This week, we will be learning about the various sentences types (simple, compound types 1,2, and 3, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences.)

Graded Assignments This Week: group sentence types practice (daily), sentence types center work (daily)

Homework: write summaries of the myths and folklore you’re reading at home

Weekly Blog 10/12 – 10/16

This Week in Reading…

This week, we will begin our study of folk literature with an overview of the different types, a student group performance, and a close reading of a folk tale. At the end of the week, students will choose mythic figures to research for an in-class presentation.

Graded Assignments: Springboard 1.17 group skit (daily x2), “The Lottery” thematic one pagers

Homework This Week: 2nd six weeks reading log – please read mythology from different cultures, fairy tales and folk tales as the bulk of your independent reading this six weeks.

This Week in ELA…

We will continue working with sentence types, comma splices, and fused sentences. We will also finish our revision and edition work of our creative writing narrative piece “Just Desert.”

Graded Assignments: ELA bell ringers (daily grade on Friday), 2nd draft w/ editing of “Just Desert” (daily grade), Comma Splice/Fused Sentences Quiz on FRIDAY

Weekly Blog 10/5 – 10/9

Happy October, all!

This Week in Reading…

*Please note: Monday is an “INB fix-up Day” for students who failed their INB check last week. All other students will be working on analysis for the short story “The Lottery.” Students will join in with the lesson as they finish their INB repair.

We will wrap up our foray into the general narrative genre with an inference activity using Monk mysteries, and then begin our study of mythology and folk literature. It’s time to start loading up on myths and fairy tales from around the world as our independent reading focus for the next few weeks. Our next in-class book report will be over students’ independent mythology, fairy tale, and folk tale reading 🙂

Graded Assignments This Week: 1st six weeks reading logs(quiz grade x 2), Monk Mystery Case Posters, “The Lottery” Comic Quiz

Homework: Finish reading “The Lottery” on Tuesday evening, 2nd Six Weeks Reading Logs begin on Wednesday, Unit 2 vocabulary starts next Monday

This Week in ELA…

*Please note: Monday is a revision and editing repair day for our “Significant Choice” personal narratives from last week. Students who failed this assignment will do whatever they can to improve it after feedback from me. All other students will work on a creative writing assignment.

This week, we will complete a creative writing assignment over a picture prompt from the “Mysteries of Harris Burdick” text. We will also begin studying dependent and independent clauses and sentence types before we move forward with our next writing piece.

Graded Assignments This Week: ELA bell ringers (daily grade), whole-class daily grade over fragment and run-on practice, “Just Desert” outline and rough draft (daily/homework grade)

Homework: finish “Just Desert” rough draft is homework on Tuesday night if not finished in class, NoRedInk “Identifying Sentences and Fragments” assigned Tuesday, due Friday

Weekly Blog Post 9/28 – 10/2

This Week in Reading…

We will be wrapping up the first half of Unit 1 (narratives) with some in-depth character study, annotation keys, and a tone and mood lesson.

Graded Assignments:

Wednesday: Unit 1 Assessment – Major Grade

Thursday: Vocabulary Workshop Unit 1 Practice

Friday: Vocabulary Workshop Unit 1 Quiz, READING LOGS ARE DUE!

Homework:

Reading Log minutes, practice with vocabulary workshop Unit 1 words on Quizlet and vocabtest.com

This Week in ELA…

We will be completing a Timed Writing – a personal narrative about a significant choice and its consequences this week and will practice all learned skills and concepts on narrative structure and elements.  We will also study punctuation and its various uses!

Graded Assignments:

Monday – personal narrative outline and rough draft – Quiz Grade

Wednesday – revision – daily grade X2

Friday – edited, polished final draft submitted with original draft for comparison – Major Grade

Homework:

Our narrative work will be homework whenever that day’s steps were not completed in class by the student.

Weekly Blog 9/7 – 9/11

I apologize for the lateness of this post! Please stay tuned for next week’s blog, arriving Monday.

This Week in Reading

We have been studying narrative terms, concepts, and “lingo” this week. We’ve read a short story titled “Thank You, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes, and analyzed the story for those narrative elements. Students constructed a “Bloom’s Ball” featuring question and illustration panels they created using evidence from the text to once again connect to our narrative terms of the week.

Graded Class Assignments this week: this round of weekly bell ringers (daily grade) and the “Thank You Ma’am” Bloom’s ball (quiz grade)

Homework: Reading logs were assigned last week. Students should be reading independently on a regular basis outside of class. For this unit, they should be reading challenging/interesting fiction novels that have ‘layers like onions’ (ask your student about this, or e-mail me with questions). They need 120 minutes of reading per week; this can include assigned academic reading for all classes. Ideally, the more they are reading, the better for them!

Heads-up: Our first major grade cometh this Wednesday, 9/16 and will be an in-class book report over students’ independent fiction reading thus far. They will need to bring their completed fiction book with them to class. If they don’t bring it, it will be extremely difficult for them to do their assignment.

This Week in ELA

We have been studying personal narrative elements and structure from a writer’s point of view in class this week. We’ve generated lists of “memoir-worthy experiences” which the students will use for the rest of the year. We’ve practiced using narrative elements in our writing.

Graded Assignments This Week: this round of weekly bell ringers, “Memoir Worthy Experiences” topic list of 20+, topic list from our Springboard text pg. 14 of significant life choices, due FRIDAY!

Homework:

Wednesday – Springboard page 13, complete if not finished in class – due Thursday

Thursday – Springboard page 14, complete if not finished in class – due Friday

Heads-up: Next week we begin preparing for our first major writing piece through a number of focused mini-lessons. The week after we will work on our first Springboard Embedded Assessment, which will be writing and revising a personal narrative/memoir about a significant life choice.

Welcome, 2015-2016 Yak Herd!

Greetings, Parents and Students!

It’s an honor to work with you all this year. I’ll be posting a blog entry towards the end of week 1 to recap some of our highlights, but for now wanted you to have ready access to a few things:

2015-2016 Syllabus

In a Million Words or Less – Parent Letter 

Meet the Teacher Supply List  – please review this; some of my supplies did not make it onto the master list.