What's Happening in My Classroom!

It's the end of the first semester (my grades are done before the due date!) YIPPEE! My B1 class (English 10) talked me into making them pancakes if they scored a class average of 85% on their final test...well, they did it! So today, my co-teacher and I made pancakes. I have about six sophomore football players in there and they brought a chocomotion machine (makes hot chocolate), two griddles and I brought the pancake mix and syrup!



Third term begins Monday and here's what we will be doing:

English 10: This term probably isn't the most exciting....we work on writing persuasive essays in preparation for the state test in February. We will also be reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. While reading this, my students obtain a little bit of cultural awareness...in case you didn't know, LPHS is 97% caucasian and 97% LDS...yes, we are in a bubble. We are also writing research papers (which is not very fun for them, but they need to know how to do it!)

English 11: This is my favorite term with these guys. We start out by writing children's books--they learn about the writing process and elements of the literature (then they have to apply those things to their writing). In April, the four best book groups (voted by the kids) take a field trip down to Saratoga Shores Elementary School and read their stories to the 2nd and 3rd graders (and we stay for lunch and recess!) After the children's book we start my favorite unit. It's basically a unit that helps my kids to appreciate this country we live in (more than most of them do now), so yes, it is what we call a "thematic" unit. We look at the visions and principles the founding fathers were hoping to instill in the American people, we look at whether or not those principles are still in place today or if they have been lost, and how we can live by these principles in our daily lives. To do this, we look at literature (speeches, poems, excerpts from novels, short stories, essays, etc) that covers different topics such as the American Dream (which encompasses several topics within itself--immigrations, civil rights, etc) and defending freedom . The kids do several learning activities (their favorite is the student-led discussion where a group of kids facilitate the discussion and I just make sure things stay under control) and we have a couple of guest speakers come in so there is some real life connections to the things we are reading about. We do all the Englishy stuff, but it's all incorporated into the activities. This year, I'll probably have to extend this unit into 4th term because there won't be enough time to do it all after the children's book. The second year I did this unit, one of my classes were enjoying this unit so much, we made a class video!