Thursday, November 5

High school students!  Got a free moment?  Fill out this survey!

Monday, October 12

In talking with your World Cultures teachers, I know that you have a great deal that you are working on this week and next. So, we will be revising our reading schedule. In fact, you can STOP reading The Power of One once you finish Book One this evening. This will give us a chance to explore the story in more depth and spend more time talking about the book in class.

You will need to complete your blog entry for this evening.  Specifics are outlined in the packet in your binder as well on our Assignments page.  We'll go over specific schedule changes Tuesday in class.

For 10th Grade English Students and Their Parents:

You can follow our class on UStream! We will occassionally be streaming live video of our class discussions and presentations!  Access this site by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/msward. You will need the password given to you in class in order to access this site.

Thursday, September 10

Good Afternoon 10th Grade English Students,

I'm so sorry that I wasn't able to be with you this morning; unfortunately, I was feeling a bit under the weather. However, I am feeling better and hoping to be with you in class tomorrow morning.

Ms. Trainer, your substitute teacher this morning, informed me that you read through and glossed our article from yesterday, "On Interpretation." I look forward to talking with you more about how we engage in interpretation tomorrow. I also know that some of you had questions about tomorrow's summer reading quiz. Below are some hints to help you study:

• If you have read both summer reading books - Of Beetles and Angels and Three Cups of Tea - and you have completed the summer reading review sheet you received on Wednesday, you will have no problems with the quiz. It is a reading quiz, meaning that you will be graded on how well you understood the characters and action of both books. It is not a writing quiz. Although there will be some short responses and essay questions, you will be graded on the content of your writing and not on writing elements like sentence structure or grammar.
• The quiz is worth 60 points. The first 20 questions are about the characters in the book Of Beetles and Angels. You are given the characters' names and asked to match them to descriptions. Obviously there are not 20 characters presented in the story, so some you will use more than once. We based the questions off the review sheet, so taking time to review page six in your binder will help you prepare for tomorrow.  Questions 21 -24 are short, written responses about the plot of Of Beetles and Angels. Be sure you know why the father left, how Mawi struggled and faced conflict in his early life, and lessons he learned about people along the way. Question 25 is an essay response focused on the title of the book.
• The remaining questions deal with Three Cups of Tea. The first 5 questions are multiple choice over the plot. You will not need to memorize character names for this portion of the quiz. There are too many! Instead, questions over Three Cups of Tea are plot based - why did he climb K2, what organization did Mortenson start, what is significant about the title, etc. The last two questions are essays. They come directly from your review sheet.
• The key to succeeding on both the short responses and the essay responses is to support your ideas with specific examples from the text. I am looking for you to be specific and explain your thinking.

I hope this helps. I will be checking my email throughout the early evening, so please feel free to email me if you have any specific questions. Tomorrow after the quiz, we will break into groups to work on our summer reading project, so be sure to bring your summer reading books (I have a few to borrow if you need one).

Have a good evening!

--Ms. Ward