We have moved into the 20th century in our chronological study of prominent British authors. Natalie took her weekly quiz, and analyzed a small passage. The remaining time was given to first read/study of Tom Sawyer. She is completing an essay with the theme of justice for To Kill a Mockingbird. She is also studying fundamentals of college writing for a test in the next couple of weeks.

Sam and I continued our discussion of the novel. We read and annotated for understanding and author's purpose. We also discussed the difference between tone and mood. We then began lesson 2 in the vocabulary book. Sam will finish three pages for homework.

Natalie has finished her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and is working on her essay. She asked to read Huckleberry Finn. I showed her the book and explained the dialects. She began to read and then decided to read Tom Sawyer first -- a good idea that she came to herself. I supplied ten pages from college composition one with basic strategies for writing introductory and concluding paragraphs, as well as clear instructions on body paragraphs and what constitutes evidence. She will prepare for a test on this material in the next week or two. She also has it to refer to in writing her remaining essays in all classes here.

Will demonstrated a great depth of understanding of the themes and central ideas of the novel, “The Glass Castle”. When questioned, he always starts with the literal, however, when asked to delve deeper, he is absolutely on target with his understanding of the themes and central conflicts. While discussing character motivations, he shared that he thought the “father cared too much, but the mom doesn’t care enough. ” He accurately described the father figure as “active and always looking for the next opportunity”, while he described the mother in the story as being “lazy” and “not looking after her kids.” While he described the parents as not caring, he still was able to consider the “good” in them giving the example that they taught their children literature, reading and math. We had a great discussion as to whether it was more important to take care of the “physical” verses “emotional” when raising children, with Will deciding that it was important to do both. Our literary conversation was outstanding, and I was so impressed by the depth of his understanding. He has grown so much! After completing our novel work, we continued our look at media literacy through a discussion about social media and the problems associated with portraying perfection in the on-line community. For homework, Will is going to read up to page 93 and answer questions. We talked about time management and divided up the weekend homework into manageable chunks. His goal is to complete his homework by Friday afternoon, so that he can enjoy his Friday evening and not worry about homework while he was working over the weekend. I am also encouraging him to set limits on time in order to prevent himself from overthinking work and making it harder on himself. He continues to work on independence, and I couldn’t be happier for him.

Sam and I continued our study of the novel. We annotated for understanding and to find literary devices used by the author. We discussed the several metaphors used and the reason for their use. We discussed how to write the double journal entries for the pages that are read each day. We continued our discussion of the Sadlier vocabulary book. We are currently working on Unit 2. We are making flash cards for the words. Then we practice applying the difficult vocabulary in the exercises provided.

Will reviewed the 2 questions he responded to about Part One of “The Glass Castle”. He was able to articulate the differences between Jeanette and her mom. He shared that Jeanette wanted to help her mom, but her mom was happy with her life and didn’t want help. We then discussed her purpose for writing the memoir, and how being truthful about your past frees you from having to hide it anymore and helps you to accept the things that happened to you. Next, we reviewed the reading he did for homework, annotated the section about the glass castle, and discussed the use of the “glass castle” as an extended metaphor to symbolize childhood and future dreams left unfulfilled. After completing the novel work, we returned to our unit on media literacy. After reviewing the definition of a “digital footprint”, Will began to explore his own digital footprint. For homework, Will is going to read pages 32-61 and answer 6 questions about the reading. He did an awesome job today!

I was happy to hear that Will enjoyed his visit to Lynn University. He shared a few details and he talked about the fact that it would be a lot different when he is there in the fall as a student. In our session today, we completed our discussion about stereotypes. He explored the differences between a “stereotype” and a “generalization’. He also took a quiz on the article he read abut stereotypes earning a 100%. I decided it would be best if he started the novel study right away due to its length. Therefore, we will be continuing our media unit along with the novel study. We began by exploring the genre of “memoir”. He read a description of the genre and annotated the description. For homework, he is reading up to page 31 and writing paragraph responses to two questions from Part I in which the author describes what led her to write the memoir.

Sam and I discussed the requirements for the career narrative which will be her final paper to write. We discussed the rubric for the assignment. We also began filling out the pre-writing. Sam needs to research which colleges have the programs of studies that she wishes to explore. We also discussed the writing of her introductory paragraph.

Sam and I continued our study of the novel. Sam did a great job on her homework. We discussed her double journal entries first. We then continued reading the novel making sure to annotate for understanding and literary devices used for effect. We then worked on a few exercises in the vocabulary book. Sam does quite well with the application of the difficult vocabulary.

Sam and I had a lesson on annotating a text. We discussed the different levels of annotation. I modeled how you annotate a text. We read the novel stopping to discuss annotating. We also stopped to discuss the plot and characters. We briefly discussed Sam's next writing assignment which will be the Career Narrative. Sam needs to write three double journal entries for homework.