Natalie is editing and proofreading an essay I gave her, and will hand it in tomorrow. Today she read more of To Kill a Mockingbird, and is keeping in mind the prompt for the culminating essay: Keep in mind the concept of injustice as you read -- take notes and mark scenes and situations that you will use for textual evidence. Explicitiy write about the complexities involved in the major injustice found in the novel and the part that the historical setting and racism play. Include character analysis, and a parallel historical event from that time. Natalie also has five vocabulary words from the first part of To Kill a Mockingbird. She will write definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and its part of speech. She is completing a straight-forward open-book quiz on part one as well.

Natalie answered study guide questions on the role of the Federal Reserve in manipulating the money supply in response to economic conditions. I placed on the whiteboard the organizational structure of the Fed, and the role of the Open Market Committee in controlling the money supply by buying or selling bonds . We added to Natalie's notes the definition of the "discount rate" and "reserve requirement " for banks as other means of the Fed controlling the money supply. The concept of the Federal Reserve is a bit abstract,but Natalie's answers to the study guide were accurate and clear.For homework due Tuesday, I assigned reading pages 579-582 and answering study guide questions 1-4.This next topic addresses the history of the US banking system.

I checked Natalie's homework and she had some success but there were a few problems with negative exponents. I showed her the corrections and she said that she understood. We then went through examples of how fractions can be compared by changing the denominators of both to be the least common multiple. I gave her five problems to work independently and she got the majority correct. I gave her a homework assignment to reinforce the work we had done.

As an introduction to the role of the Federal Reserve, we examined the role and purpose of paper currency and coins. I explained how currency in the past had been backed by gold, and the value of coins was based on their silver content. I brought into class some 19th century silver dollar coins, as well as some mid 20th century quarters and dimes for examination and noted how they were made of pure silver as opposed to the copper filled coins in circulation today. We then discussed how banks make money by paying less interest on deposits than they collect on outstanding loans as well as the role of the FDIC in insuring deposits. I then placed on the whiteboard the role of the Federal Reserve and the function of the Fed Funds rate. Natalie placed all of this introductory material in her notebook and then began the textbook reading on the Federal Reserve. As she completed all of the assigned study guide questions on the Federal Reserve in class, there was no homework assigned. We will continue studying the structure of the Fed and how the Fed manipulates the money supply tomorrow.

We reviewed Natalie's homework on the definition and purpose of various economic indicators such as the CPI, the LEI, stock indexes and the unemployment rate. Natalie's homework answers were complete, accurate and well done. We also looked at the more advanced hand out on LEI(leading economic index) and Natalie's supplemental work on highlighting answers to a separate study guide. While Natalie raised a few questions about the LEI -which I addressed- her work in recognizing and highlighting the major ideas was good.We then discussed and reviewed her test results from last week. Natalie worked on some corrections in class as well as a chapter assessment from the text. For homework, I assigned pages 568-570 and correcting the short response section of the exam.

I reviewed scientific notation with Natalie and showed her examples of converting from standard notation to scientific notation when the numbers were larger than ten and also when the numbers were smaller than one. I then showed her the opposite process of converting from scientific notation to standard notation when the exponents were negative or positive. I gave her 8 problems to do independently which she answered partially correctly. We did a few examples of multiplication of numbers in scientific notation and Natalie demonstrated that she could order numbers written in scientific notation from least to greatest without help. I gave her an assignment to reinforce the skills she reviewed today.

I introduced Natalie to division of expressions with the same bases and the same or different exponents. She requested some time to do a few problems independently before I had the chance to explain all of the rules. I let her try but she soon requested that I come and help her. I was then able to show her examples of the rules. I showed her how dividing any expression by itself resulted in an answer of 1. I also showed her how any expression raised to the zero power resulted in an answer of 1. I also was able to show her that division of expressions with the same bases was always accomplished by subtracting the exponents. When we finished doing problems, I was going to give her homework but she requested that she not have any because she was going to be busy this weekend. There was no assignment.

Natalie studied Virginia Woolf today as we progress chronologically through British history. She read several pages of text explaining her life and major works, paraphrasing paragraph by paragraph. Following this, Natalie annotated and summarized the first portion of Woolf's famous, "A Room of One's Own."

Natalie is finished working on Heart of Darkness. She requested To Kill a Mockingbird for the remaining semester -- a very good choice. Today she began to read it and we have marked excellent vocabulary to remember. We watched a 1964 interview with the author who gave nice insight into her book as well as the movie that came out in 1960 with Greggory Peck. Natalie wrote a summary of what she has read so far that we discussed a bit for accuracy. She is also working on a next essay that is due in one week.

I checked Natalie's homework on order of operations and it was mostly correct. Then I reviewed with her on multiplying numbers and algebraic expressions with the same base. I showed her that when the bases are the same, the exponents are added together. I then assigned some problems for her to do independently and she was successful. I then showed her how to raise a power to a power by multiplying the exponents. She did more independent work on this skill and I checked it. She was successful with this as well. I assigned several problems to reinforce the lesson.