The Crucible Review and The Village

Today's bellwork is here. It requires that you first read the article, The Crucible: Fact vs. Fiction. Afterward, we reviewed for the vocabulary portion of our test with this Vocabulary Review handout. The test will only cover the 19 words from the review; don't worry about words that were not on the review sheet. Finally, we watched some of The Village, making connections between it and The Crucible.

Remember our unit test is tomorrow. It will cover characters (a matching section), plot (a multiple choice section), vocabulary (a matching section and a fill-in-the-blank section) and theme (a short answer/essay section).

Remember to bring all work associated with The Crucible unit, especially your five-paragraph essay in which you make connections with one of the themes from the play. Bring your Brainstorming Guide for that paper, as well as any Strategic Reading and/or Literary Concepts: Theme handout.

Half-Hanged Mary and The Village

Today's bellwork is here. It requires that you first read the poem, Half-Hanged Mary. 2nd block did an activity with vocabulary. Afterwards we began to watch The Village and took some notes on the similarities between the film and the play, The Crucible. Our essays will be due Thursday, when we will also take our unit test.

The Crucible Paper

Today's bellwork is here, but, in order to complete it, you'll need to pick up a copy of our vocabulary study guide, which is available on the bookshelf at the front of the room.

After the bellwork, we down to the library computer lab to type our papers on The Crucible. Remember, you assignment is to write a five paragraph essay comparing on of the themes from the play to a modern day topic. Talk to me or send me an email if you need further direction. This paper is due on Thursday, when we'll take our test over The Crucible.

The Crucible, Act IV and Pre-Writing

Today's bellwork is here. 2nd block finished up Act IV of The Crucible by watching the film version. Afterwards, we turned in our Act III Strategic Reading handout. We then worked on a handout over theme, entitled Literary Concepts: Theme. That handout should be completed and is available on the bookshelf at the front of the room. Finally, we began to brainstorm for our essay that we'll type next week. The brainstorming guide is available here. The paper should use the themes of The Crucible to make connections between the play and modern life. Email me if you have any questions at stsotheran@spsmail.org.

The Crucible, Act IV

Today's bellwork is here. We took our quiz over Act III and then began to watch the film version of Act IV of The Crucible. If you missed our 3rd block class, be sure to finish the play. 2nd block will finish up the play tomorrow in class.

The Crucible, Act III

Today's bellwork is here. We finished reading Act III from The Crucible. Then we worked on our Act III Strategic Reading handout, which is available on the bookshelf at the front of the room. We will quiz over Act III tomorrow.

The Crucible, Act III

Today's bellwork is here. We read through the first half of Act III of The Crucible and watched a clip from Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, to help us identify scapegoats and identify paranoia in modern culture.

The Crucible, Act II

Today's bellwork is here. We finished reading Act II of The Crucible in class. We completed a strategic reading handout over Act II - it is on the back of the Act I strategic reading and is available on the bookshelf at the front of the room. Then we took a quiz over Act II. Finally we read an article by Arthur Miller, Why I Wrote the Crucible: An Artist's Answer to Politics, and identified some connections between The Crucible, the Red Scare and other events/situations.

The Crucible, Act II

Today's bellwork is here. We took a short quiz over Act I of The Crucible. Be sure to make it up in class on Monday if you were absent. Finally, we began to read Act II of The Crucible. Read through the first two-thirds of Act II if you were not in class today.

Identifying Character Traits from The Crucible (Act I)

Today's bellwork is here. We had a sub today, but hopefully we were able to finish reading Act I of The Crucible. We also took a look at some character traits on a Strategic Reading (Act I) handout. That handout will be due at the end of the unit and is available on the bookshelf at the front of the room.

The Crucible, Act I

Today's bellwork is here. As a class, we read the first half of Act I of The Crucible. Students who were absent today should be sure to read the first 600 lines of the play. A text of the play can be found here.

The Crucible Vocabulary

Today's bellwork is here. Today we spent some time reading p.132-135 of our textbook to give us some background on what makes the community of Salem (the setting for The Crucible) unique. Then we spent some time with an activity that served to get us familiar with some new vocabulary from the play. Students who were absent should read those pages from the book and check out this list of vocabulary words that they will be responsible for knowing on the test.

Performance Series Testing

There was no bellwork for today's class. Instead, we took the Performance Series Test of lexile level (similiar to the SRI Test). 3rd block had time to go over their tests; 2nd block will do so tomorrow. If you have not taken the test over short story yet, plan on stopping by after school tomorrow (Tuesday) to do so.

Short Story Unit Test

Today's bellwork is here. Then we took the short story unit test. If you were absent please find a time before or after school to take the test. Thanks!

Peer Reviews

Today's bellwork is here. Today in class we read a couple of our classmates' short stories and gave them some feedback. If you were absent, this cannot be made up, but won't count against you.

Tomorrow the final drafts of our short story are due and we will take our unit test over short story. Please bring a book to read or something to work on to class in case you finish the test early.

Lab/Short Story Evaluation, Day 2

No bellwork for today.

2nd block read the short story, Something That Happened, and answered these questions. Plan on performing similar tasks with a short story on the test.

3rd block typed their short stories in the lab.

Short story drafts are due tomorrow for peer editing. Final drafts are due on Friday. The short story unit test will be Friday.

Lab/Short Story Evaluation

Today's bellwork is here.

2nd block then went down to the A+ lab to type their short stories.

3rd block read the short story, Something That Happened, and answered these questions. Plan on performing similar tasks with a short story on the test.

For both classes, the short stories are due Thursday, September 9th. The unit test over short story will be on Friday, September 10th.

Theme

Today's bellwork is here. To start the day, we each had a piece of fruit on our desks in front of us and wrote 1/2 page descriptions of the fruit, trying to use all five senses in the description. If you were absent, make this up by writing a 1/2 page description on something in your home.

Then we shifted our focus over to theme. We took a look at this powerpoint and read a story from The Kite Runner and discussed the story's theme.

Finally, we brainstormed some ideas for our short story from this guide.

3rd block also completed their homework assignment for today, which was to read any short story from East of the Web and complete this work for it.

Description

Today's bellwork is here. We started class by finishing up our work with tone and Mark Twain readings. We went over description according to this powerpoint. Then we chose images from magazine and wrote 1/2 page descriptions of those images.

2nd block read a short story from East of the Web and completed this work for it as well. 3rd block will complete this assignment tomorrow.

Tone

Today's bellwork is here. We reviewed mood by reading Mary Schmich's essay, Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young, and analyzing it's mood and imagery in a short video. Then we took a look at tone (or the author's attitude toward the subject). In groups, we read, three passages about childhood by Mark Twain and used this this guide to contrast their tone. Check out this file for copies of the three passages and some help understanding the lesson. Let me know if you have questions. Tone can be tough to grasp!