1. Misplaced/Dangling modifier review sheet--turned in
2. Little lesson and class practice on parallelism in grammar/writing
3. Vocab. review sheet--I gave them 100 word parts (THE word parts that will be on the next test) and they have to make brand-new words
4. Night reading; correct and/or complete quiz
Vocabulary quiz is Thursday! ISTEP for language arts is Friday and Monday. Great days for test taking, right?
Monday, April 25, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday (Well, Wednesday-Friday)
Not that you read this to hear me whine, but there was some trouble on Wednesday that zapped away a lot of my time. Some students from my homeroom weren't happy with me because I have the nerve to make them do actual work (reading) at the beginning of the day. They banded together, went to student services, and spread a lie that I had pushed another student. Administration wasn't happy, statements had to be written, and it was a mess. I felt terrible and sad and didn't really even want to come to work the next day. Luckily, some of my homeroom students do have integrity, and the truth saved the day. Things are fine now, but I'll admit that it does still hurt a little bit.
Anyway, that's my excuse for not blogging the last couple days.
The rest of the word parts:
chrom = "color" like chromosome and monochromatic
form = "shape" like formation and oviform (egg-shaped)
sequ = "follow" like consecutive, sequence, sequel, consequence, and obsequious
glyc = "sweet" like glycerin and hypoglycemia
-ose = "sugar" like fructose and glucose
ultima = "last" like ultimate and ultimatum
infra = "beneath" like infrared and infrasonic (beneath what the ear can hear)
leuko = "white" like leukocytes and leukemia
lys = "breakdown" like hemolysis and analysis
meso = "middle" like Mesopotamia and mesomorph and Mesoamerica
gress = "step" like progress and regress
labor = "work" like laborious, collaborate, laboratory, and elaborate
tude = "state of" like attitude, solitude, aptitude, and rectitude
patho = "disease" like pathogenic, psychopath, and idiopathic
phor = "carry" like euphoria and chromatophore
We did some more work with participle and infinitive phrases. Today, we looked at misplaced and dangling modifiers, misplaced prepositional phrases, and misplaced adjective clauses.
And we're continuing with our reading of Night. I collected some of their class work, and a great deal of it doesn't look like the high school work I'm looking for. Some students are reading but not doing the work. Today, we took a quiz over what we've read so far. We're about halfway through the book.
Anyway, that's my excuse for not blogging the last couple days.
The rest of the word parts:
chrom = "color" like chromosome and monochromatic
form = "shape" like formation and oviform (egg-shaped)
sequ = "follow" like consecutive, sequence, sequel, consequence, and obsequious
glyc = "sweet" like glycerin and hypoglycemia
-ose = "sugar" like fructose and glucose
ultima = "last" like ultimate and ultimatum
infra = "beneath" like infrared and infrasonic (beneath what the ear can hear)
leuko = "white" like leukocytes and leukemia
lys = "breakdown" like hemolysis and analysis
meso = "middle" like Mesopotamia and mesomorph and Mesoamerica
gress = "step" like progress and regress
labor = "work" like laborious, collaborate, laboratory, and elaborate
tude = "state of" like attitude, solitude, aptitude, and rectitude
patho = "disease" like pathogenic, psychopath, and idiopathic
phor = "carry" like euphoria and chromatophore
We did some more work with participle and infinitive phrases. Today, we looked at misplaced and dangling modifiers, misplaced prepositional phrases, and misplaced adjective clauses.
And we're continuing with our reading of Night. I collected some of their class work, and a great deal of it doesn't look like the high school work I'm looking for. Some students are reading but not doing the work. Today, we took a quiz over what we've read so far. We're about halfway through the book.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday 3/19
First off, I did not end up sending anything home with the students That will be tomorrow. Tomorrow is also a library day. Friday: Book report (or other project) is due.
Today's word parts:
phyte = "plant" (neophyte, sporophyte, gametophyte, or my [childish] favorite coprophyte, a plant that grows in poop)
myo = "muscle" (myocardium, myotomy, myoglobin, or amyotonia [flabbiness])
phyll = "leaf" (chlorophyll, phyllopods [crustaceans that have leaf-like appendages], phyllophagous)
milli = "1000th" (millipede, millimeter)
oligo = "small" or "few" (oligarchy, oligodactylia [fewer fingers or toes than normal], oligocarpous [few fruits])
Students spent most of the time reading Night. I gave some examples of good response question answers because what I read and graded over the weekend and last night were not good examples of high school student work, and that's what I expect from my students right now. As scary as it sounds, parents, they are almost there.
Ask you child about what they're reading in Night. I know a lot of the students are getting a lot out of it, and I'm sure they'd love to share it with somebody else.
Today's word parts:
phyte = "plant" (neophyte, sporophyte, gametophyte, or my [childish] favorite coprophyte, a plant that grows in poop)
myo = "muscle" (myocardium, myotomy, myoglobin, or amyotonia [flabbiness])
phyll = "leaf" (chlorophyll, phyllopods [crustaceans that have leaf-like appendages], phyllophagous)
milli = "1000th" (millipede, millimeter)
oligo = "small" or "few" (oligarchy, oligodactylia [fewer fingers or toes than normal], oligocarpous [few fruits])
Students spent most of the time reading Night. I gave some examples of good response question answers because what I read and graded over the weekend and last night were not good examples of high school student work, and that's what I expect from my students right now. As scary as it sounds, parents, they are almost there.
Ask you child about what they're reading in Night. I know a lot of the students are getting a lot out of it, and I'm sure they'd love to share it with somebody else.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday
OK, so I didn't post at all last week except on Monday which was actually a post for Friday. Sorry about that. It was really the perfect storm of it being an extremely busy week and me being an extremely lazy man.
We stared Night last week, a Holocaust novel by survivor Elie Wiesel. It's not easy reading, but as we discussed after reading an introduction, it's important reading. The students have three things to work on while they read in class:
1) A Night journal where they answer questions I've given them
2) A double-entry journal where they write about quotes that resonate with them or that they think are important
3) A character chart for Elie
Some of the students are not using their class time very wisely. Last Wednesday, a day in which I had a substitute, there were a ton of students who did not use their time wisely. I've got a lot of students who are behind.
I'm sending home some paperwork tomorrow (I hope! Maybe Wednesday) about how students have done on a few recent things. As I've said before, the progress report just doesn't help all that much.
Today, we looked at verbal phrases. The students worked with verbals (gerunds, infinitives, participles) last week, so this is just an extension of that. The phrases start with the verbal and include any modifiers or nouns that help further explain the verbal or help it do its job.
We also read a poem by Holocaust survivor Yala Korwin called "The Little Boy with his Hands Up," a poem written about a famous Holocaust photograph. The poem (and the picture) can be found here.
Finally, we started our new word part list. I told the students that the next test (April 29th) would be a biggie. I'm willing to drop all their previous scores if their next test score is a really good one. It's a golden opportunity that a lot of my students will unfortunately not take advantage of. If they want to boost their vocabulary grade, however, they can start studying right now in preparation.
Today's word parts:
mem = "remember" (memento, memorial, immemorial, memorandum)
-osis = "condition" (thrombosis, symbiosis, ichthyosis, hypnosis, neurosis, psychosis)
vac = "empty" (vacuum, vacant/vacate, evacuate)
hemo = "blood" (hemorrhage, hemostat, hemophiliac, hemoglobin)
phag = "eat" (phagocytes, sarcophagus, phyllophagous)
My favorite word for the day: allotriophagia, a morbid desire to eat things that are unnatural like dirt, gravel, hair, lice, paint, laundry starch, boogers, etc. I'm not sure when I'll be able to use that in conversation. Actually, I hope I don't ever have to use that word in conversation.
We stared Night last week, a Holocaust novel by survivor Elie Wiesel. It's not easy reading, but as we discussed after reading an introduction, it's important reading. The students have three things to work on while they read in class:
1) A Night journal where they answer questions I've given them
2) A double-entry journal where they write about quotes that resonate with them or that they think are important
3) A character chart for Elie
Some of the students are not using their class time very wisely. Last Wednesday, a day in which I had a substitute, there were a ton of students who did not use their time wisely. I've got a lot of students who are behind.
I'm sending home some paperwork tomorrow (I hope! Maybe Wednesday) about how students have done on a few recent things. As I've said before, the progress report just doesn't help all that much.
Today, we looked at verbal phrases. The students worked with verbals (gerunds, infinitives, participles) last week, so this is just an extension of that. The phrases start with the verbal and include any modifiers or nouns that help further explain the verbal or help it do its job.
We also read a poem by Holocaust survivor Yala Korwin called "The Little Boy with his Hands Up," a poem written about a famous Holocaust photograph. The poem (and the picture) can be found here.
Finally, we started our new word part list. I told the students that the next test (April 29th) would be a biggie. I'm willing to drop all their previous scores if their next test score is a really good one. It's a golden opportunity that a lot of my students will unfortunately not take advantage of. If they want to boost their vocabulary grade, however, they can start studying right now in preparation.
Today's word parts:
mem = "remember" (memento, memorial, immemorial, memorandum)
-osis = "condition" (thrombosis, symbiosis, ichthyosis, hypnosis, neurosis, psychosis)
vac = "empty" (vacuum, vacant/vacate, evacuate)
hemo = "blood" (hemorrhage, hemostat, hemophiliac, hemoglobin)
phag = "eat" (phagocytes, sarcophagus, phyllophagous)
My favorite word for the day: allotriophagia, a morbid desire to eat things that are unnatural like dirt, gravel, hair, lice, paint, laundry starch, boogers, etc. I'm not sure when I'll be able to use that in conversation. Actually, I hope I don't ever have to use that word in conversation.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Slightly Late Friday Post
Reminders:
Research rough draft is due Tuesday the 12th.
Book report (or other project) is due April 19th now. That's next Tuesday.
Next (real) vocabulary quiz: Friday the 15th.
Our last five word parts for List Twelve:
cyt means "cell" like erythrocytes and leukocytes, red and white blood cells respectively
diplo means "double" like diplomacy and diplopia (double vision)
eco means "house" but I'll also take "environment" on the test like economy, ecology, and ecosystem
idio means "peculiar" like idiosyncrasy and idiom
fil means "thread" like filament and filiferous (thread carrying)
We also took our List 6 test on Friday. Students are still writing the ones they miss five times each (word part and definition) and drawing a word part picture for each.
We learned about verbals today using the verbal gerbils--Gerry the Gerund, P-Dawg the Participles, and Buzz the Infinitive. It's dorky stuff, but hopefully the jingles will help the students remember these things that the state of Indiana seems to think they should remember.
Verbals are words that are verb forms (-ing words, -ed words, other verb forms) but act like something else in a sentence. So they look like verbs but are doing the jobs of nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Gerunds always end in -ing and are nouns. Playing basketball is my favorite form of exercise. Playing looks like a verb but it's the subject noun in that sentence.
Participles are the -ing or -ed form of a verb, but they are adjectives in the sentences. The barking dog scared me. Barking looks like a verb but is tells "what kind" for the dog and is therefore and adjective. Barking ferociously, the dog chased me down the alley. Barking there is still an adjective. The chopped lumber was stacked neatly by the barn. Chopped in that sentence is also telling "what kind" for the lumber, making it an adjective.
Finally, infinitives. They're the easiest because they have the word "to" in front of them. It's "to" and a verb. They're used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in sentences. I would like to ski down that mountain. To ski is an activity (a thing--a noun) in that sentence. He's creating a quiz to see if his students learned about verbals. To see isn't the verb there. It's modifying the verb creating which makes it an adverb.
We'll continue working on verbals most of this week.
Research rough draft is due Tuesday the 12th.
Book report (or other project) is due April 19th now. That's next Tuesday.
Next (real) vocabulary quiz: Friday the 15th.
Our last five word parts for List Twelve:
cyt means "cell" like erythrocytes and leukocytes, red and white blood cells respectively
diplo means "double" like diplomacy and diplopia (double vision)
eco means "house" but I'll also take "environment" on the test like economy, ecology, and ecosystem
idio means "peculiar" like idiosyncrasy and idiom
fil means "thread" like filament and filiferous (thread carrying)
We also took our List 6 test on Friday. Students are still writing the ones they miss five times each (word part and definition) and drawing a word part picture for each.
We learned about verbals today using the verbal gerbils--Gerry the Gerund, P-Dawg the Participles, and Buzz the Infinitive. It's dorky stuff, but hopefully the jingles will help the students remember these things that the state of Indiana seems to think they should remember.
Verbals are words that are verb forms (-ing words, -ed words, other verb forms) but act like something else in a sentence. So they look like verbs but are doing the jobs of nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.
Gerunds always end in -ing and are nouns. Playing basketball is my favorite form of exercise. Playing looks like a verb but it's the subject noun in that sentence.
Participles are the -ing or -ed form of a verb, but they are adjectives in the sentences. The barking dog scared me. Barking looks like a verb but is tells "what kind" for the dog and is therefore and adjective. Barking ferociously, the dog chased me down the alley. Barking there is still an adjective. The chopped lumber was stacked neatly by the barn. Chopped in that sentence is also telling "what kind" for the lumber, making it an adjective.
Finally, infinitives. They're the easiest because they have the word "to" in front of them. It's "to" and a verb. They're used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in sentences. I would like to ski down that mountain. To ski is an activity (a thing--a noun) in that sentence. He's creating a quiz to see if his students learned about verbals. To see isn't the verb there. It's modifying the verb creating which makes it an adverb.
We'll continue working on verbals most of this week.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wednesday and Thursday
Well, softball and chess club certainly have me busy these days. I apologize for the lack of daily posts.
We're working on our research rough drafts now. Some of the students, as I mentioned the other day, are ill-equipped. They got their notes, topics and topic categories, and source sheets back yesterday. I lumped it all into a grade called "Research" which is out of 100 points. It's a big chunk of grade because we put a lot of time into it. Or, to be more accurate, some of the students put a lot of time into it. As the scores might indicate (some scores as low as 30 or 40 out of 100), some students have wasted their time, not paid attention to the way the research and note-taking was supposed to be done, or were unorganized and lost things. So I really don't see how some students will be able to put a research paper together, especially one without plagiarizing. We reviewed on Wednesday about how to use parenthetical citation to distinguish between our own ideas and the ideas from our sources. If the students failed to document the sources as they took notes, something I reminded them every single day to do, they will most likely not be able to parenthetically cite. And if they can't parenthetically cite, they are plagiarizing. Luckily for them, it's still a learning process at this level. High school and college? They'll fail automatically and maybe even be expelled for plagiarism.
The research rough draft, by the way, is due next Tuesday. That's April 12th, the same day the students were supposed to turn a book project in. I went ahead and pushed the independent reading thing (probably a book report) to the following Tuesday.
We're continuing to take tests on our old vocabulary word part lists. We did List Five Thursday, and the students are still writing the ones they miss five times each and making a word part picture. Some of them are getting that work in; others are choosing not to do it.
Here are the word parts we've covered over the last two days:
emia is "blood" like anemia and leukemia
-ase is "enzyme" like a bunch of words that end in -ase that they'll never use
dys is "bad" like dyslexia, dysfunction, and dysentery
chlor is "green" like chlorine (the 17th element on the periodic table; it's named for its color) and chlorophyll
epi is "on" or "over" like epidermis, epicenter, and epidemic
-be is "life" like microbe and anaerobe (something that can live without air)
bon is "good" like bonbons (yum!), bona fide, the old-fashioned word bonny, bonus, and bonanza
exo is "out" (same as ex actually) like exoskeleton, exorbitant (like gas prices!), and exotic
erythro is "red" like erythrocytes (red blood cells)
im is "not" (like in and il) like in impatient, impolite, immobile and a bunch of other words
Five more to go for List Twelve. We'll test next Friday. That'll be a real test, and the students will have ALL the old tests with ALL the word parts and ALL their meanings and NO excuse not to study a little bit.
We're working on our research rough drafts now. Some of the students, as I mentioned the other day, are ill-equipped. They got their notes, topics and topic categories, and source sheets back yesterday. I lumped it all into a grade called "Research" which is out of 100 points. It's a big chunk of grade because we put a lot of time into it. Or, to be more accurate, some of the students put a lot of time into it. As the scores might indicate (some scores as low as 30 or 40 out of 100), some students have wasted their time, not paid attention to the way the research and note-taking was supposed to be done, or were unorganized and lost things. So I really don't see how some students will be able to put a research paper together, especially one without plagiarizing. We reviewed on Wednesday about how to use parenthetical citation to distinguish between our own ideas and the ideas from our sources. If the students failed to document the sources as they took notes, something I reminded them every single day to do, they will most likely not be able to parenthetically cite. And if they can't parenthetically cite, they are plagiarizing. Luckily for them, it's still a learning process at this level. High school and college? They'll fail automatically and maybe even be expelled for plagiarism.
The research rough draft, by the way, is due next Tuesday. That's April 12th, the same day the students were supposed to turn a book project in. I went ahead and pushed the independent reading thing (probably a book report) to the following Tuesday.
We're continuing to take tests on our old vocabulary word part lists. We did List Five Thursday, and the students are still writing the ones they miss five times each and making a word part picture. Some of them are getting that work in; others are choosing not to do it.
Here are the word parts we've covered over the last two days:
emia is "blood" like anemia and leukemia
-ase is "enzyme" like a bunch of words that end in -ase that they'll never use
dys is "bad" like dyslexia, dysfunction, and dysentery
chlor is "green" like chlorine (the 17th element on the periodic table; it's named for its color) and chlorophyll
epi is "on" or "over" like epidermis, epicenter, and epidemic
-be is "life" like microbe and anaerobe (something that can live without air)
bon is "good" like bonbons (yum!), bona fide, the old-fashioned word bonny, bonus, and bonanza
exo is "out" (same as ex actually) like exoskeleton, exorbitant (like gas prices!), and exotic
erythro is "red" like erythrocytes (red blood cells)
im is "not" (like in and il) like in impatient, impolite, immobile and a bunch of other words
Five more to go for List Twelve. We'll test next Friday. That'll be a real test, and the students will have ALL the old tests with ALL the word parts and ALL their meanings and NO excuse not to study a little bit.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday and Tuesday
Word Parts--I'm giving a test (or two) a day over our old word part lists. As I graded the last word part test, I noticed that the students just aren't putting any time into the word parts at all. So we started with list one yesterday, and the students took a quiz over the 25 word parts from that list. They had five minutes. If they missed a word part, they had to write it ten times each with the definition. Today we did lists two and three. If they missed any, they had to write them five times each and draw a word part picture. A lot of the students have to finish that up for homework tonight.
Also, I'm collecting their spring break reading logs tomorrow. Their book report (or other project) is due next Tuesday (technically...I may change that).
New word parts! List 12! It's a lot of science word parts this time. Here's what we've gone over so far:
an means "without" like anarchy (without a government) and anonymous (without a name)
ab means "away" like abstain (keep away from), abolish (do away with), ablution (a religious washing away), and abbreviate (letters go away)
mel (according to the book) means "song" like melody and melodrama (originally a play with songs in it). According to my resources, mel comes from the Greek melos which had to do with arms and legs. I found about 70 words that had to do with arms and legs and about 7 that had to do with songs. Maybe I should write a book of my own!
alb means "white" like albino, albumen (white part of an egg), and albedo (having to do with reflected light like off the moon)
enter means "intestine" like dysentery (intestinal inflammation causing diarrhea) and enterozoan (intestinal worms)...pleasant stuff.
aden means "gland" like your adenoids and adenectomy (the cutting out of a gland)
aer means "air" like with aerobatics, aerobic, and aerodynamics. And malaria which is actually a mosquito-borne disease that people originally thought was from "bad air"
hum is "earth" like human (in the Biblical Adam and Eve story, Adam was made from earth), humble (down to earth), exhume (dig out of the earth), and posthumous (after a person's time on earth)
struct is "build" like construct, destruct (build down?), instruct, obstruct, structure, and infrastructure
cyan is "blue" like the color cyan (I'm a guy, so I don't even know this color), cyanide, and cyanosis where babies fingers, toes, and lips turn blue because of a lack of oxygen
We'll be returning to our regularly-scheduled research stuff tomorrow. I'm disappointed at the lack of effort a lot of students showed with the research before break. We had five days of research, and a lot of students turned in three or four note cards. It's unacceptable, and those students who didn't use their time wisely are way behind with the project and, according to my gradebook, failing the project so far.
Oh, we also made a trip to the library today. Mrs. East seemed excited to see us and talked like a person who had had coffee injected directly into her veins.
Also, I'm collecting their spring break reading logs tomorrow. Their book report (or other project) is due next Tuesday (technically...I may change that).
New word parts! List 12! It's a lot of science word parts this time. Here's what we've gone over so far:
an means "without" like anarchy (without a government) and anonymous (without a name)
ab means "away" like abstain (keep away from), abolish (do away with), ablution (a religious washing away), and abbreviate (letters go away)
mel (according to the book) means "song" like melody and melodrama (originally a play with songs in it). According to my resources, mel comes from the Greek melos which had to do with arms and legs. I found about 70 words that had to do with arms and legs and about 7 that had to do with songs. Maybe I should write a book of my own!
alb means "white" like albino, albumen (white part of an egg), and albedo (having to do with reflected light like off the moon)
enter means "intestine" like dysentery (intestinal inflammation causing diarrhea) and enterozoan (intestinal worms)...pleasant stuff.
aden means "gland" like your adenoids and adenectomy (the cutting out of a gland)
aer means "air" like with aerobatics, aerobic, and aerodynamics. And malaria which is actually a mosquito-borne disease that people originally thought was from "bad air"
hum is "earth" like human (in the Biblical Adam and Eve story, Adam was made from earth), humble (down to earth), exhume (dig out of the earth), and posthumous (after a person's time on earth)
struct is "build" like construct, destruct (build down?), instruct, obstruct, structure, and infrastructure
cyan is "blue" like the color cyan (I'm a guy, so I don't even know this color), cyanide, and cyanosis where babies fingers, toes, and lips turn blue because of a lack of oxygen
We'll be returning to our regularly-scheduled research stuff tomorrow. I'm disappointed at the lack of effort a lot of students showed with the research before break. We had five days of research, and a lot of students turned in three or four note cards. It's unacceptable, and those students who didn't use their time wisely are way behind with the project and, according to my gradebook, failing the project so far.
Oh, we also made a trip to the library today. Mrs. East seemed excited to see us and talked like a person who had had coffee injected directly into her veins.
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