Only five more days!
And only four word parts today:
orb = "circle" like orbit and exorbitant
mot = "move" like motor, motivation, promotion, demotion, automotive, pedomotive, and emotion
sol = "sun" like solar, solstice, and parasols
ven = "come" like venture, avenue, convene, intervene, invent, event, revenue, convenient, and prevent
We've finished the first act of the Anne Frank play. That's a little over half of the play. Some of the students started a quiz today (mostly about characters, conflicts, and themes) and a small writing assignment where they write a diary entry as another character. I think most students like the play. Then again, I'm the same guy who thought 8th graders enjoyed writing, so what do I know?
As we approach the end of the year, let me know if you have any questions about student grades, high school, or anything else. My grades aren't completely updated on PEP, but I'd be happy to talk about your child's grade with you.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Thursday
Hey, party people...just six more days to go!
Today's word parts:
fore = "front" like forehead and foreshadow
-ish = "like" like elfish and snobbish
-oma = "tumor" like melanoma and glaucoma
mela = "black" like melancholy ("black bile" from the spleen, what the Greeks thought caused depression) and melanin
narco = "sleep" like narcotics and narcolepsy
-let = "little" like piglet and aglet (those little plastic things on the end of your shoestring)
vice = "in place of" but we aren't doing that one
solv = "loosen" like dissolve and absolve
More Anne Frank. We met a new character today--Mr. Dussel. We discussed our conflicts and looked at what bringing a new character into the mix would do.
Today's word parts:
fore = "front" like forehead and foreshadow
-ish = "like" like elfish and snobbish
-oma = "tumor" like melanoma and glaucoma
mela = "black" like melancholy ("black bile" from the spleen, what the Greeks thought caused depression) and melanin
narco = "sleep" like narcotics and narcolepsy
-let = "little" like piglet and aglet (those little plastic things on the end of your shoestring)
vice = "in place of" but we aren't doing that one
solv = "loosen" like dissolve and absolve
More Anne Frank. We met a new character today--Mr. Dussel. We discussed our conflicts and looked at what bringing a new character into the mix would do.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday and Wednesday
Word Parts:
cephalo = "head" like microcephalic (small-headed)
kin = "motion" like kinetic energy and telekinetic
dactyl = "finger" like pterodactyl and polydactyl
gon = "angle" like polygon
vore = "eating" like voracious, omnivore, and devour
opia = "sight" like myopia and hyperopia
-ium = "element" but we're not really doing this one
calli = "beautiful" like calligraphy and calisthenics
caust = "fire" like Holocaust and caustic
terr = "land" like Terre Haute, territory, and terrarium
here = "stick" like adhere and coherent/incoherent
cracy = "government" like democracy and plutocracy
mania = "madness" like rhinotillexomania (look it up!) and pyromania
quad = "four" like quadrupeds and quadrilateral
lingu = "tongue" like bilingual and elinguation (look that one up, too!)
flect = "bend" like reflect and deflect
peri = "around" like perimeter and periscope
gno = "know" like diagnosis, prognosis, and agnostic
sept = "7" like septuagenarian and September (the 7th month...hey, wait a second...)
nona = "9" like Nona, the Roman goddess of pregnancy
We can now count to 10 using word parts. uni, bi, tri, quad (or tetra), penta, hexa, sept, octo, nona, dec. Ta da!
We've continued reading the Anne Frank play as a class. We're looking at character development and conflicts and themes. The students are also answering some journal questions on their own. The goal with the journal questions is to empathize with the characters and their situations. Yesterday, they answered what kind of things they would bring with them (sentimental value and material value) if going into hiding, and today they made predictions about the characters and thought about why the situation would be bad for the teenage characters and the adult ones.
cephalo = "head" like microcephalic (small-headed)
kin = "motion" like kinetic energy and telekinetic
dactyl = "finger" like pterodactyl and polydactyl
gon = "angle" like polygon
vore = "eating" like voracious, omnivore, and devour
opia = "sight" like myopia and hyperopia
-ium = "element" but we're not really doing this one
calli = "beautiful" like calligraphy and calisthenics
caust = "fire" like Holocaust and caustic
terr = "land" like Terre Haute, territory, and terrarium
here = "stick" like adhere and coherent/incoherent
cracy = "government" like democracy and plutocracy
mania = "madness" like rhinotillexomania (look it up!) and pyromania
quad = "four" like quadrupeds and quadrilateral
lingu = "tongue" like bilingual and elinguation (look that one up, too!)
flect = "bend" like reflect and deflect
peri = "around" like perimeter and periscope
gno = "know" like diagnosis, prognosis, and agnostic
sept = "7" like septuagenarian and September (the 7th month...hey, wait a second...)
nona = "9" like Nona, the Roman goddess of pregnancy
We can now count to 10 using word parts. uni, bi, tri, quad (or tetra), penta, hexa, sept, octo, nona, dec. Ta da!
We've continued reading the Anne Frank play as a class. We're looking at character development and conflicts and themes. The students are also answering some journal questions on their own. The goal with the journal questions is to empathize with the characters and their situations. Yesterday, they answered what kind of things they would bring with them (sentimental value and material value) if going into hiding, and today they made predictions about the characters and thought about why the situation would be bad for the teenage characters and the adult ones.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday
We started reading the Anne Frank diary play after I gave the students some background on her and her diary. The students have a character thing to fill out along with some theme things to keep track of. That's all on one piece of paper.
Only two word parts today although I gave them the meaning for all of them for the rest of the year. Today's:
gastro means "stomach" like gastroenteritis (stomach flu), gastric, and engastrimyth, another word for a ventriloquist. Ventriloquist and engastrimyth both have to do with "stomach talking"
macro is the opposite of micro and means "large" like macrocosm (the universe, a large place) and macrodont (having large teeth) and macrocephalic (large-headed). Oh, and macrons which are those lines over long vowels in dictionary pronunciations. I guess that makes a large vowel sound?
More tomorrow.
Only two word parts today although I gave them the meaning for all of them for the rest of the year. Today's:
gastro means "stomach" like gastroenteritis (stomach flu), gastric, and engastrimyth, another word for a ventriloquist. Ventriloquist and engastrimyth both have to do with "stomach talking"
macro is the opposite of micro and means "large" like macrocosm (the universe, a large place) and macrodont (having large teeth) and macrocephalic (large-headed). Oh, and macrons which are those lines over long vowels in dictionary pronunciations. I guess that makes a large vowel sound?
More tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Wednesday
Some of the students have not completed the Night reading, but I gave them their final test anyway--a high-school-caliber essay! The students have five choices:
1) write a persuasive speech (as a congress person in an isolationist country) convincing other congress people that they need to do something to stop what is going on in the Holocaust
2) an essay about what the cover of night should look like and what three or four striking or gripping images should be included on the inside of the book
3) a persuasive essay about how students in middle school should either have to read Night or how they should not have to read it because it is too "terrifying" or "unbearably painful"
4) a theme essay in which they need to pick at least five quotes and write about "life lessons" or big ideas the book covers
5) an essay about what a Holocaust monument should look like--it's got to be all symbols (no specific people, no words)
Students continued working on finishing up the reading and the reading work. As they get finished, they'll start working on their essay test.
Tomorrow, we they'll have a little more work time, and we'll also be starting the dramatized version of Anne Frank's diary.
Friday, there's a team party. This will be my last blog entry for the week. Let me know if you have any questions here at the end of our school year.
1) write a persuasive speech (as a congress person in an isolationist country) convincing other congress people that they need to do something to stop what is going on in the Holocaust
2) an essay about what the cover of night should look like and what three or four striking or gripping images should be included on the inside of the book
3) a persuasive essay about how students in middle school should either have to read Night or how they should not have to read it because it is too "terrifying" or "unbearably painful"
4) a theme essay in which they need to pick at least five quotes and write about "life lessons" or big ideas the book covers
5) an essay about what a Holocaust monument should look like--it's got to be all symbols (no specific people, no words)
Students continued working on finishing up the reading and the reading work. As they get finished, they'll start working on their essay test.
Tomorrow, we they'll have a little more work time, and we'll also be starting the dramatized version of Anne Frank's diary.
Friday, there's a team party. This will be my last blog entry for the week. Let me know if you have any questions here at the end of our school year.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday/Tuesday
The time with my lovely students is slipping away, like sand through my fingers. Oh, how I'll miss these kids this summer!
There's at least some truth to the above sentences...
I gave the students a "found poem" assignment for Night. A "found poem" is almost exactly what it sounds like--it's using words and phrases that are "found" in another text (a book, a newspaper, a magazine, a story, etc.) and recontexualizing those words (using them in another way) to make an original poem. Their job is to go through Night and find words and phrases that are meaningful, powerful, poetic, imagistic, descriptive, etc. and then use those words to write their own poem.
There's a Tuesday quiz taking us through page 97. It was super-easy for those who did their reading. Unfortunately, that's not everybody. We should finish the book up the next couple days and be ready to start the dramatized version of Anne Frank's diary.
Word parts:
vol is "will" like volunteer or malevolent/benevolent
trich is "hair" like trichosis (see below) or trichina, worms that cause trichonosis
troph is "nourishment" like autotrophs and heterotrophs (they're learning about these in science) and atrophy
tox is "poison" like toxic and detoxification
sect is "cut" like dissect, intersection, and vivisection
zygo is "yoke" like zygote and zygodactyl (birds with feet that look like yokes)
zym is "ferment" like enzymes and zymurgy, the chemistry involved with making beer
That's it for this list. I think we'll do one last list so that we can end with 15 instead of 14. It's a better ending number. That's 375 word parts unless my math is way wrong.
There's at least some truth to the above sentences...
I gave the students a "found poem" assignment for Night. A "found poem" is almost exactly what it sounds like--it's using words and phrases that are "found" in another text (a book, a newspaper, a magazine, a story, etc.) and recontexualizing those words (using them in another way) to make an original poem. Their job is to go through Night and find words and phrases that are meaningful, powerful, poetic, imagistic, descriptive, etc. and then use those words to write their own poem.
There's a Tuesday quiz taking us through page 97. It was super-easy for those who did their reading. Unfortunately, that's not everybody. We should finish the book up the next couple days and be ready to start the dramatized version of Anne Frank's diary.
Word parts:
vol is "will" like volunteer or malevolent/benevolent
trich is "hair" like trichosis (see below) or trichina, worms that cause trichonosis
troph is "nourishment" like autotrophs and heterotrophs (they're learning about these in science) and atrophy
tox is "poison" like toxic and detoxification
sect is "cut" like dissect, intersection, and vivisection
zygo is "yoke" like zygote and zygodactyl (birds with feet that look like yokes)
zym is "ferment" like enzymes and zymurgy, the chemistry involved with making beer
That's it for this list. I think we'll do one last list so that we can end with 15 instead of 14. It's a better ending number. That's 375 word parts unless my math is way wrong.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Thursday
More Night reading. Friday, since a lot of my students will be at King's Island instead of here at school with their favorite language arts teacher, the students will spend the entire time reading and catching up on missing work. It seems like something else is going on Monday, so that might also be a catch-up day.
More word parts:
erg = "work" like energy, synergy, and ergonomics
rhiz = "root" like rhizoid and rhizophagous
sapro = "rotten" like saprophyte and saprogenic
schizo = "divide" like schizophrenic and schism
hippo = "horse" like hippopotamus (a "river horse") and hippodrome
som = "body" like psychosomatic, chromosome, and somatoplasm
spor = "seed" like endospore, sporozoa, and sporophyte
sta = "stop" or "stand" like constant, instant, station, hemostat, stationary, and static
rhodo = "rose" like rhododendron and Rhode Island, a state that I'm not sure is known for its roses and I know is not an island...the name comes from the reddish color of its soil apparently
taxis = "arrangement" like syntax, taxidermy, and ataxia
That's all for now. And to be completely honest, I'd definitely rather be here at my desk than on a roller coaster today. It's because I'm an acrophobic bibliophile.
More word parts:
erg = "work" like energy, synergy, and ergonomics
rhiz = "root" like rhizoid and rhizophagous
sapro = "rotten" like saprophyte and saprogenic
schizo = "divide" like schizophrenic and schism
hippo = "horse" like hippopotamus (a "river horse") and hippodrome
som = "body" like psychosomatic, chromosome, and somatoplasm
spor = "seed" like endospore, sporozoa, and sporophyte
sta = "stop" or "stand" like constant, instant, station, hemostat, stationary, and static
rhodo = "rose" like rhododendron and Rhode Island, a state that I'm not sure is known for its roses and I know is not an island...the name comes from the reddish color of its soil apparently
taxis = "arrangement" like syntax, taxidermy, and ataxia
That's all for now. And to be completely honest, I'd definitely rather be here at my desk than on a roller coaster today. It's because I'm an acrophobic bibliophile.
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