American Street - Day 2

Today you will work with your group to explore the characters and settings of the novel:

1. Fabiola
2. Donna & Dray
3. Pri & Chantal
4. Manman and Haiti (Haitian things)
5. Aunt Jo the house

Open this document - it is where you will keep track of your work for the first part of the activity.

• Spend time looking through the first three chapters for information about your character/setting. Talk with your group - did you write about your character? What did you say? What questions do you have?
• Gather 8-10 quotations - these can be things said by your character, descriptions of them, or actions described in the narrative. Type these, including page numbers, into the document.

Poster time! Once you have completed your column of the chart, it's time to take that information and turn it into a poster about your character/setting. Your poster needs to include:

• The name(s) of your character/setting in big letters
• A central image - this does not need to be a drawing of a person - maybe there is an object or another type of illustration you create. It should be based on descriptions, details, and even colors mentioned in the text.
• All of your quotations. You can organize these and write them out any way you'd like

We will be presenting these towards the end of the period and then hanging them in the classroom!

Your homework for Tuesday is to read chapter 4 & Princess's story, then write a journal response. Enjoy the carnival and the long weekend!

American Street - Day 1

Before we start our work with the novel, we'll talk through the class policies and procedures.

To start our work with the novel, we'll gather some background information. We'll look at the book itself, including the cover and a flip through the pages. We'll also consider some background information:

• About the author, Ibi Zoboi
• Haiti - Wikipedia entry - Map - another map, zoomed out

Then we will read chapter 1 of the book, including writing notes/annotations - up to you.

After a short discussion, we ran short on time, so the homework for Friday is to read chapters 2 & 3, and to write a journal response to them (combined into one response).

STAR testing

We are going to take the STAR reading test today. Please do your best on this reading comprehension test. Again, this is so I can understand how you read and learn, then offer you specific help. Do your best.

• Click here to go to the link for the test.
• For your username, use the same name you are logging into the Chromebooks and computers with.
• Your password is your student ID number - but ONLY the number - i.e. 221XXXX - if you are unable to gain access after TWO tries, please ask for help before trying a third time.
• You will be presented with two choices - select STAR Reading
• Sometimes, the system will request a “Monitor Password.” If this happens to you, the password is “admin”
• If you are presented with a list of teachers, please select “Rigler”
• Take the test! Do the best you can!

With the remaining time we will talk about the writing you completed yesterday.

For tonight there is no homework. Please be sure to bring American Street tomorrow!

Exploring short stories

We've already discussed journal responses and annotations as ways to respond to and work with texts. Today we will turn our attention to writing as a way of exploring ideas.

This type of writing, which can also happen in a journal response, gives you the opportunity to work with an idea and receive feedback from me. Although it is not a formal essay, you will still need to do a few things:

• Focus on a specific point
• Include at least one quotation from the text
• Comment about the language you quoted

We'll try a test one today, focused on the last two stories you read: "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" and "Harrison Bergeron." Of course you can use your annotated versions of the stories as well as your journal responses and any notes you took with your small group. You can go in one of two possible directions:

• Character-Based. You can compare/contrast one character from each story, making a conclusion about what is important about them.
• Theme-Based. You can write about a theme or idea present in both stories. Are the messages the same in both stories, or different?

You'll have the rest of the period to write your journal response. Write it in a new Google document. When you are finished, you will open Schoology in another window and then submit your assignment to where it says "Paragraph response to Stories." You will need to upload your document.

I will give you feedback on your work in a way that will hopefully be helpful for all types of writing we will do in this class.

Don't worry about the grade - focus on figuring out some cool things to say and getting your thoughts onto the page.

Vonnegut stories; Our movies; Field trip

We'll start off our Friday by watching a few of the movies you created.
Then, it's time for a little field trip! No, it's not to

although that would be cool. Instead, we are going to the ARC - the academic resource center! I'll explain more about that when we get there.

When we return we'll focus our attention on the second Vonnegut story you read: "Report on the Barnhouse Effect." We'll talk about the annotations you did to help you with the story.  If we have time, we'll do some small group work, including writing a summary, naming the conflicts, and examining the ending.

For the weekend, you are reading "Harrison Bergeron" and writing a journal response. Have a great one!

Finishing our movies; "Unready to Wear"; Journal entries

Happy Wednesday!
We'll spend the first part of class finishing the movies you started yesterday. Please be sure to share a link to your film in this document.

Next, we'll turn our attention to the story you read last night, "Unready to Wear." I'll ask you to read your journal responses out loud and together we will create a list of the qualities of an excellent journal response. This will become a document you'll refer to throughout the year as you write your responses.

Tonight for homework, as listed on the calendar, you will be reading "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" and annotating it. This means a few things:

• You need to print out a copy of the story to annotate
• You are not required to write a journal response
• Please bring the copy of the story with you to class on Friday

"About Me" movies

We'll use class time today and tomorrow to create a short video. The goal is to tell the class a little bit about who you are with the help of pictures and videos. We'll use iMovie software to help us (you are free to use different software) - here are the directions:

1. Open iMovie - watch the tutorials if you need (linked below)
2. Select "Trailer" and a theme you want to use 
3. Edit the text areas to make it a story about you - start with phrases like "I am..."
4. Use photos or videos to build your story - show what you care about, what you enjoy doing, what you think it is important for people to know about you.
5. Photos do not have to include you (there can be some landscapes to set up the story) but the majority of them should. They can be of just you, with members of your family, with friends, in different places, doing different things. 
6. When you are finished, save your movie to your Google Drive.
7. Go to this document and insert a link to your video so we can watch them!
8. And by the way, here's the one I made about me.

Opening day survey

Please take some time to complete this survey today. Thanks!

Welcome to high school!

Greetings! If you found your way to this page, good for you! Everything you need for this class will be available here - calendars, assignments, helpful links, and other details. Also, there will always be a few fun things just in case you want to click around. Here's one to get you started: