Today, Andrew and I read more of The Old Man and the Sea. We added citations for metaphor to his quotebook notebook. We reviewed proper citation, and he wrote an explanation of how the quotation demonstrates metaphor.

I outlined the purpose of satire and highlighted how the techniques of irony and exaggeration achieve satire, especially in Swift's " A Modest Proposal." In order to appreciate the trenchant tone of this essay, I first focused on the writer's fictional persona, a mature ,considered educated man. We then reviewed the text to identify the problem the essay addresses-poverty and starvation- followed by the satiric solution or proposal :children should be eaten at the age of one . We then located all of the satiric justifications offered by Swift, followed by what Swift discards as the "other expedients" which are the actual solutions the author favors. We discussed why the writer includes these "other expedients" within the satire as well as the writer's intention in suggesting such a cruel solution to the poverty in Ireland in 1729.

Today, Andrew read more of The Old Man and the Sea. We paused for comprehension checks throughout our reading. He added citations to his quotebook notebook indicating which literary devices are being employed in the citation, and he analyzed how the citation illustrates that literary device. He also began working on an IXL reading strategy exercise called, "Determine the Theme of Short Stories."

Andrew worked more on his creative story from the story starter, utilizing his knowledge of the hero's journey to guide his writing. In literature, he added quotations from The Old Man and the Sea to his quotebook notebook, analyzing the literary devices. We continued reading The Old Man and the Sea.

Today, Andrew and I worked on his conclusion paragraph of his persuasive essay. We reviewed that the conclusion begins with our restated thesis statement and gets broad in concept. We worked on restating our thesis statement and thinking of how to broaden our topic by challenging our reader to action or showing why this topic matters.

Today, Andrew worked on his creative story from the story starter. We discussed the beginning components of the hero's journey and tracked how his story was following the journey so far. We then recapped what we have read thus far in The Old Man and the Sea. We reviewed characterization of Santiago, the little boy, and the conflict. We read more and discussed the theme of luck, superstition and numbers.

Today, Andrew worked on his creative writing activity, where he had to finish writing a story from a story starter. He then completed typing his persuasive essay and proofreading it.

Today, Andrew worked a little on the second body paragraph of his persuasive essay. We then switched gears and he worked on a creative writing assignment. I provided a selection of story starters, then he selected one in order to creatively write the rest of the story. I reminded him that he may use the hero's journey as a guide, and he wrote several paragraphs of his story.

Today, we read part of Stave 1 in "A Christmas Carol." We discussed characterization of Scrooge and Marley, and added quotations and analysis to our quotebook notebook. We continued working on our persuasive essays.

Today, we continued working writing/typing the first draft of our persuasive essay. We worked on making sure our thesis statement is strong, clear, and in the correct location. We worked on clarity and placement of topic sentences for our body paragraphs. We worked on proper MLA formatting.