Homework For This Week & Continued Plans...

Greetings Writing & Literature Team!

Let me first thank you for making this month be a great start to the year! You have been challenged with the classic poetry of Dante's Inferno and have shown great interest in it and have made class discussions not only interesting, but also exciting at times. In writing, you have read some deep articles about issues that mean a lot to you and next week we will send in our letters to the Editors of these newspapers. This being said, remember your homework for next week is as follows:

WRITING: Complete your letter to the Editor (remember to bring your assignment sheet to class so you can be graded on this assignment).

ENGLISH/LIT: Read Cantos VIII-XI and do a Reader Response using the 6th format (6 bulletpoints down) on the "Guide to Reader Responses" handout.

Now, as we discussed, I was going to post the Syllabus for each class. However, as we gathered may happen, our English/Literature plan will be changing. We will continue to read Dante, but we are going to incorporate other poetry, short stories, etc. into our studies. Therefore, I should have a final schedule for us this coming Saturday (or next at the latest). I thank you for your patience...know that we continue to move along nicely and this semester will be a great success for us!!

Finally, TeacherEase has been updated and the grades for the first two Reader Responses are posted. We'll start getting into the bigger assignments now, so be sure to continue the great work!!!

...and we're off!

All right! We are off to an enthusiastic start! Today in Writing class we discussed a prewriting activity guide, the "Discussion Checklist." We can use this list of questions before (and even during and after) we are working on a paper, essay, or even formal letter. Speaking of letters...we are writing one to a newspaper editor this week and next. We each chose an article that had a topic or issue that interested us. We could feel positive or negative toward the topic or issue or, possibly, simply disagreed or agreed with a statement the author made. Having picked an article from a variety of sources, including The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, The Oakland Press, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and a variety of online newspapers, we researched how exactly we could contact the editor of each. For homework, we are to brainstorm and write down the main ideas and key points (can be in an outline format or a bullet point format, etc.) we want to include in our letter. Next week we will be formatting those thoughts into a formal letter and sending it off.

Our first Literature class on Dante's The Inferno was off to quite the start as well! We had great questions regarding the text ranging from questions about symbolism to the characters to, simply, "what's going to happen in the end." I was very pleased to learn that several of us read the notes in the back of the book and some even read the foreward. Great ideas to gain a better understanding! Since we got off to a late start in class, we were unable to complete our "Cantos Charts" this week. This means we have a LOT of work to do next week. We will discuss Cantos IV-VII (pgs. 27-59), then complete the Cantos Charts for I-VII. Don't forget -- as we are reading, we need to work on our Reader Reponses too (this is done at home). As we delve into this classic piece of literature, the Reader Reponse is important and can be used as a guide during our class discussion.

I will update TeacherEase with the Reader Response assignment turned in today and post the homework for next week in there soon. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to email me! Have a great week!!

Welcome to Class!

It's that always returning "back to school" time and our first day at YES for Prep went great! After introducing ourselves in Writing class, we held a class discussion on the topics that would be imperative to study the first half of the year. The class ended with an in-class writing of an essay about "what your most important value is."

The two YES groups then came together for Literature class where we read and analyzed Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." We discussed our first reading assignment (book), which is the classic poem The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. At home this week, we need to be reading Cantos I, II and III and drafting a "Reader Response" to this first part of the book to prepare for class on September 16th.

I am hopeful this class blog for both the Writing and Literature classes will prove helpful in keeping in touch and also become a sounding board for us all to provide feedback, suggestions, ideas, etc.