Ms. Begen’s Blog

No school this Friday for Portfolio Day!  Your first grade in Term #3 will be the Portfolio Day Project which is due on Monday, January 26th.  Make sure you get a copy from your Homeroom Teacher.  I’ll have extra copies in my room.

Next Monday and Tuesday you will be completing the Writing Prompt.  Bring your pencils!  You will need to complete an outline, a first draft and a second draft.  All of these steps must be completed in class using pencil and paper.  There will be time after school on Tuesday if you need extra time.  If you’re absent on Monday or Tuesday, you will need to make up the Writing Prompt during a Learning Center or after school.   

Barack Hussein Obama will take the oath as 44th President of the United States tomorrow.   There will be a slight change in the day’s schedule so that we can all watch the Inauguration which will begin at 11:30. 

I’m still reading and correcting your Term #2 IPs — many of them are amazing!!  I’m excited to return them to you with my comments.  I’ve learned so much about the characters by looking at them through your eyes.  You may still earn Extra Credit by creating a Diary Cover for your character’s diary entries.  Please use a piece of white paper (standard notebook sized) and decorate it the way you believe your character might have.  Since they didn’t have computers in the 1930’s, your Diary Cover should be hand-made.

If you didn’t complete your homework that was due last Friday (the one involving an outline on the pressures that high school students face today hwpeerpressoutline1131) please complete it and bring it in on Tuesday.  I will update grades in Edline this evening. 

See you all on Tuesday!

Writing a 5 paragraph essay is easy.  Once you know the recipe, it will come out right every time.  Your homework for this week requires that you write an outline for a 5 paragraph essay on the pressures that high school students face.  hwpeerpressoutline113  This homework is due Friday, January 16th. 

On Monday we reviewed the 3 basic elements to good writing.  Your writing must be correct, clear and colorful.  writingoverview 

New grades have been posted on Edline.  Your new grade does NOT include your Term #2 IP.  However, the new grade does include several class assignments and makeup work.  Congrats to those of you whose grades improved!!  Some of you had dramatic improvement in your average as a result of using Friday’s “Make Up” class wisely. 

Wow!!  If I counted right, there were 37 students who came after school to work on their Term #2 IP.  Unfortunately, many of you did not get as much done as you had hoped and some others of you had printing problems.  After some thought, I’ve decided we’ll use part of tomorrow (Friday) as a “Make Up” day.  This means that you can use a portion of class time tomorrow to complete and print out your Term #2 IP. 

Here are the Words of the Day for this week.

Monday:   abhor; ab HOR/verb; to regard with disgust, to detest or hate                                                   \  

Tuesday:  hiatus; high ATE us/noun; interruption in time, gap or pause

Wednesday:  fallible; FAL uh bul/adjective; capable of making an error or mistake

Thursday:  penchant; pen CHUNT/noun; a strong inclination

2009 is here . . . I hope it is a good year for each of you in your own special way.   We’ll be working on the Term #2 IP most of this week.  Remember, you are to select a character from Of Mice and Men (other than Lennie) and write 3 diary entries from that character’s perspective.  Each diary entry (3 paragraphs each) must relate to a time prior to the occurrences in the book, thereby providing a back story for your character.  (Remember we discussed direct characterization, indirect characterization and a character’s back story!)  More specific details about this assignment can be found here.  term2ip   term2ipfaqs

I’m looking forward to Monday.  We missed out on a pre-vacation holiday celebration . . . perhaps we can plan another celebration soon.  See you all very soon!