Alexa is gaining an understanding of the background for The Book Thief, Hitler's Germany, as she is reading the book and taking notes on similarities and differences to the film. We are reading and then watching the movie, analyzing, note-taking, and preparing for a comparison/contrast essay. Alexa gained new vocabulary from The Book Thief as we read, adding words to her notebook. She is working on writing a story as an alternative type of test on vocabulary. We are also working on reading skills online with the program that complements the Patterns composition textbook.