TS Character County Food Fair

Tom Sawyer: Characterization/County Food Fair – Thursday, June 4th! (unless you let me know you were bringing it Friday)

  1. Choose a character who interested you the most and that you’d like to analyze using STEAL.
  2. It can be a major character,  a minor character, a moral character, or an immoral character.
  3. The cardstock is for your FINAL, so work on scratch paper.
  4. BRAINSTORM.
  5. As part of the brainstorming process, you will need to look for 2 interesting pieces of text evidence for each letter of the STEAL acronym. That means you will have 10 pieces of interesting and revealing text evidence that allows you to analyse your chosen character.
  6. These 10 pieces of text evidence should come from throughout the book, not just from one section. These must show or reveal who your character is as a person (STEAL).​
  7. Be sure to include the analysis and the 5 to 7 of the most revealing pieces of text evidence on your cardstock. This must be neatly and creatively done.
  8. The analysis can be done for each letter or written in paragraph form.
  9. You will need to illustrate your character. The illustration and the analysis should be all on the front of the cardstock.

“County Food Fair”: Match a Southern dish to your character. For example, if I analyse Huck Finn, I might choose Mississippi Mud Pie to represent him – (layered (multi-dimensional, hard crust (life’s struggles), chocolate (dark), and white (innocence), Mississippi (regional).

G/T In the Know

Grade 8 (going into Grade 9)
Summer Reading: There is no assigned summer reading for students going into GT Humanities I, but students still want to know “what to read”. I encourage you to read throughout the summer, focusing on the philosophies and the classics:

  • http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/ap-literature
  • Anthem
  • Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Awards/Celebration: May 29
Field Day: June 1
Field Trips: June 2 (Team Cheetahs) & June 3 (Team Pumas)

Grade 7 (going into Grade 8)
Summer Reading: You will read The Hobbit.
Awards/Celebration: May 28
Field Day: June 1
Field Trip: Thursday, May 22

Barnes and Noble Bookfair for FISD
“Barnes and Noble is going to have a special “bookfair” the weekend of May 22-24 to sell summer reading books to our students.  The FISD libraries will get a portion of the sales from this weekend.  When students present the attached flyer (grade level specific) to the upstairs cashier at B&N, we will get credit for the sale and the student will be entered into a drawing for a free book.  If B&N runs out of a specific title during the designated weekend, they will ship the book to the student’s home free of charge.  It really is a win-win for all of us!”

Order Form (going into Grade 6 GT) – Stargirl
Order Form (going into Grade 7 GT) – Lone Star Reading List 2015
Order Form (going into Grade 8 GT) – The Hobbit
Order Form (going into 9th grade Pre-AP) – Anthem

Independent Study and Mentorship (ISM)
Final Presentation Night
ISM Teachers: Matthew V. Pirtle (Heritage HS); Kara Brittain (Independence HS)
Date: Friday, May 22, 2015
Time: 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: Heritage High School (Auditorium)
ISM Program Description
*Centennial/Independence ISM will be a part of HHS’s Final Night

Evening’s Schedule (Approximate):
6:30 – 7:00 Come and Go Student Showcase (cafeteria at most campuses)
7:10 – 7:45 Mentor Acknowledgment (Auditorium)
8:00 – 8:30 Individual Student Presentations (Classrooms)

* If you’re unable to attend our feeder high school’s ISM night, you may attend another high school’s event:
Frisco – May 19
Wakeland – May 20
Lone Star – May 20

**Extra Credit Opportunity: If you attend an ISM presentation, write about the one presentation that you found to be the most interesting and why. Be sure to include the student’s name and his/her topic. Your write-up should also reflect information that you gathered from having had a conversation with the student about his/her topic.

Happy International Women’s Day 2015

Hi, kiddoes!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the first weekend of your long-awaited Spring Break. Let’s hope we have some good weather to enjoy our week!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the four TED-Ed videos to celebrate International Women’s Day!

Learning never stops.  http://blog.ed.ted.com/2014/03/07/four-ted-ed-lessons-to-watch-on-international-womens-day/

Ms. C

Writing Revisited

Here are some items to help you with your revising and editing:

Transition_Words_and_Phrases

Editing Checklist

Creating Clear and Concise Sentences

General Outline

Typing-guide

General Reminders:
Do not announce you are about to write about the topic in your essay.
Avoid the use of second and third person.
Avoid the use of contractions.
Review the video on blending quotations.
 

On Writing…

As a teacher, I’ve relied the most on two books: Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I’m posting excerpts from an interview with King wherein he shares his thoughts on teaching writing to teen-agers (middle-schoolers). 

Lahey: If your writing had not panned out, do you think you would have continued teaching?

King: Yes, but I would have gotten a degree in elementary ed. I was discussing that with my wife just before I broke through with Carrie. Here’s the flat, sad truth: By the time they get to high school, a lot of these kids have already closed their minds to what we love. I wanted to get to them while they were still wide open. Teenagers are wonderful, beautiful freethinkers at the best of times. At the worst, it’s like beating your fists on a brick wall. Also, they’re so preoccupied with their hormones it’s often hard to get their attention.

Lahey: You write, “One either absorbs the grammatical principles of one’s native language in conversation and in reading or one does not.” If this is true, why teach grammar in school at all? Why bother to name the parts?

King: When we name the parts, we take away the mystery and turn writing into a problem that can be solved. I used to tell them that if you could put together a model car or assemble a piece of furniture from directions, you could write a sentence. Reading is the key, though. A kid who grows up hearing “It don’t matter to me” can only learn doesn’t if he/she reads it over and over again.

Lahey: In the introduction to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, E.B. White recounts William Strunk’s instruction to “omit needless words.” While your books are voluminous, your writing remains concise. How do you decide which words are unnecessary and which words are required for the telling?

King: It’s what you hear in your head, but it’s never right the first time. So you have to rewrite it and revise it. My rule of thumb is that a short story of 3,000 words should be rewritten down to 2,500. It’s not always true, but mostly it is. You need to take out the stuff that’s just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler!

Lahey: By extension, how can writing teachers help students recognize which words are required in their own writing?

King: Always ask the student writer, “What do you want to say?” Every sentence that answers that question is part of the essay or story. Every sentence that does not needs to go. I don’t think it’s the words per se, it’s the sentences. I used to give them a choice, sometimes: either write 400 words on “My Mother is Horrible” or “My Mother is Wonderful.” Make every sentence about your choice. That means leaving your dad and your snotty little brother out of it.

Lahey: Great writing often resides in the sweet spot between grammatical mastery and the careful bending of rules. How do you know when students are ready to start bending? When should a teacher put away his red pen and let those modifiers dangle?

King: I think you have to make sure they know what they’re doing with those danglers, those fragmentary and run-on sentences, those sudden digressions. If you can get a satisfactory answer to “Why did you write it this way?” they’re fine. And—come on, Teach—you know when it’s on purpose, don’t you? Fess up to your Uncle Stevie!

(Source: “How Stephen King Teaches Writing”, The Atlantic)

Gr7 – Book Trailer Link Form

Students,

Your Book Trailers are due today. Please provide the link to your book trailer through this post. Any link submitted after 10 o’oclock tonight (10:00 PM) will be considered late.

Reminders: (1) If you are submitting via YouTube, you must set up your YouTube Channel through your school gmail account. (2) Make sure the privacy setting is made public.

Click here: Book Trailer Link Form

Reminder: Supply List SY2014-15

Hello,

In case you forgot the “must-haves”, here’s the reminder. You might need none, some, or all of these.

Everyone’s Personal Supplies List:
* (5 Green) 3-pronged folders with pockets — please get the poly or plastic, not the paper
* Flash drive (to back up save your electronic work) ** optional
* Planner (to stay organized)
* (2) Composition Notebooks (for your grammar/stems)

CLASSROOM WISH LIST: I’m requesting the following items that can be used as supplies for the entire class. 

Grade 7:
* College-ruled Filler Paper
* Kleenex

Grade 8, Section 1:
* Blue or black pens
* Crayola Markers or Map Pencils

Grade 8, Section 2:
* Red pens
* College-ruled Filler Paper