Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Post date: Sep 9, 2015 7:07:47 PM

I've been trying to implement more strategies that get students involved in the classroom, and today I felt like I made some progress. I had such a good time in Literature 9 with our "FREEZE" game. I hope I can think of more things like this as the year (and the busyness continues).

In Literature 9 we started class predicting "Dining Fails". It was an excerpt from America's Funniest Videos and predicting the outcome. This is a vital reading skill - using the clues and context to predict what was going to happen next. Then we reviewed three of the vocabulary words. Next came the "fun" part. We played a game called "FREEZE". There were three characters - Whitney, Rainsford, and a narrator. Each had a specific hat to wear and we read together the conversation between Whitney and Rainsford on the deck of the ship. We discussed tone, mood, and started making predictions. Taking a piece of paper, we divided it into three columns (Blue questions found at the bottom of the page, a prediction, and confirmation). As we read we're going to make a conscientious decision to stop and predict. Read up to page 34 for tomorrow.

In English 10 we reviewed the key concepts we've studied so far. We will be having a quiz tomorrow, so this review was important. Then we watched the comedic bit of Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" This was a classic example of miscommunication (the message not being received and the feedback not altering the message.) Then we continued to take a few more notes (formal vs. informal communication and the 7 beliefs regarding conversation). For homework, everyone is supposed to watch a conversation between Jeff Erlinger and Fred Rogers, noting the seven conversation beliefs. Quiz tomorrow.

In American Government we reviewed (we haven't seen each other for a week!). Then we had our 20 minute current events discussion. This was a wonderful change from on-line conversations (even though that is happening as well.) We finished our discussion of the four purposes of government. Homework includes creating a college of three pictures for every purpose. These pictures are to illustrate what a government is supposed to do. A caption is supposed to add any necessary explanation. Quiz over 1-1 on Friday.

All in all the day went by so fast. I really am enjoying my year. For the first time in a long time, I feel like things have gotten off to a right start!