Monday, February 24, 2014

Post date: Feb 25, 2014 12:03:50 AM

Back in school after a week away. On the one hand it was hard to come back, but it was more about the cold weather and less about returning to school. I have to admit that I missed the students and the hubbub of school. Hopefully I can catch you all up from the week I was gone.

Before I left for Mexico, we were working on "The Scarlet Ibis". The students were supposed to create a presentation using the ABC's as a review strategy. While I was gone, Literature 9 was all about "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." This is a wonderful short story by James Thurber. It is about a man who lives his life inside his day dreams rather than in reality. It is structured in a cause and effect format. They created another multi-media presentation with dream on one side and reality on the other. Today we tried to finish by talking about the diction used in this story. They were asked to read the story "The Necklace" for tomorrow.

English 10 finished up our unit on The Sentence. They took a test on the Friday I left. Then they reviewed adjective and adverbial prepositional phrases. For two days they were told to research educational issues - year around schools, homework policies, and the importance of foreign language programs. We reviewed prepositional phrases today, as well as main and subsidiary motions. We will hit privileged motions tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to have our business meetings this week.

In American Government they reviewed the key objectives, concepts, and vocabulary related to Chapter 5 (Congress). They took a test on Friday. Today we discussed monetary powers of Congress. We'll finish out this discussion on Wednesday.

In American Literature it was all about Edgar Allan Poe. We had the resume presentations prior to me leaving, but while I was gone they reviewed the short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" and the poems "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven".

Law class was all about the Supreme Court. They researched one justice (chosen by the student) and conducted a little research. They completed a questionnaire on Moodle. Additionally there is an IPTV report on the Supreme Court. They filled out a worksheet on this. On Friday there was a game on iCivics called Supreme Decision. Today we tried to get everything caught up, and that is when I found out the video clips did not work. We'll try to get caught up.

It's good to be back, but I have to admit a little overwhelming.