January 15, 2013

This has been a frustrating year for illness in my house.  Sorry to miss so close to finals but it can't be helped.  Here is what my subplan looks like for the day:

Period 1—AP 20

We are studying the novel Medicine River by Thomas King.  They should all have it read and we started to discuss it yesterday.  We’ll finish that discussion tomorrow when I’m back, but in the meantime, they can work on this double entry journal.  I’ve provided quotations (a few for each of the first 8 chapters), that requires them to respond in some way.  It can be a personal response or a literary analysis (but they should mix it up…it shouldn’t all be: “This reminds me of when…”).  They can work in partners for the ones that I’ve provided quotations for but they have to work individually for the last chapters where they have to find the quotation too.  For those that took AP 10 last year, this is like their double entry journal for Of Mice and Men (if they can remember that far back).  They will obviously need more time than this one class to work on this.

 Period 2—AP 30

We will finish our study of The Awakening tomorrow.  They should also prepare for a timed write on the novel on Thursday or Friday.  In the meantime, I’d like them to do some practice thesis statements.  They need to read the poetry passage, the prose passage, analyze on the paper and then come up with a thesis statement that covers everything that the prompt is asking of them.  They should likewise do this for the free-response question.  In all, they need to have 3 thesis statements.    For the free-response question, they can use any piece of literature we’ve studied in AP ELA (including any Shakespeare…but I’d caution against Romeo and Juliet).  The list provided by AP only contains suggestions but is not meant to exclude other pieces of literature that can apply to the question.  The thesis statements are for hand in, and I’d like them all in by the end of class.  This should be done individually.  If they finish, you can assign them a Great Gatsby novel (top shelf of the bookcase behind my desk).  Just take down the book numbers.  They should have this read by after the February break.

Period 3—AP 10

I have them booked into the North computer lab to work on finding information about their chosen topic for their 2 minute speech.  They should have all the info they need by the end of this class so they can start formulating their speech during class time tomorrow.

 Period 4—History 10

They have a handout from yesterday that will require some blanks to be filled in from a power point on the American Revolution.   If that is finished, they can have an early DEAR time or look up some current events and discuss.  I discuss the information on each slide, so it does take some time.  If we finish really early, go to You Tube and look up Boston Massacre—America the story of us.  Watch it and then jot down 5 things that they remember from the clip and discuss after.