September 10, 2013

Post date: Sep 10, 2013 7:28:31 PM

Tomorrow commemorates one of the most tragic days in U.S. history. I have to admit it's been on my mind a lot lately. I think it was our visit to the 9/11 Memorial. I was especially touched by the Survivor's Tree.

In Literature 9 we're working on finding the main idea in various reading passages. This is a lifelong skill that good readers constantly perfect. The next reading passage we're going to tackle is Maya Angelou's "All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes." We had a journal on Moodle we completed asking questions about our desire to travel. Then we reviewed the vocabulary related to this story. Finally we watched a few videos outlining Dr. Angelou's life and contributions.

In English 10 we took our vocabulary test. I'm sure everyone did great. Then we started an activity on propaganda in advertising and politics. This station activity will finish tomorrow in class. I think we'll have a unit test over Speech Basics, the Listening Process, and Propaganda Techniques on Thursday.

In American Literature it was all about the Great Awakening. We read Jonathon Edwards' biography on page 41. In it he discussed how he was "awakened" to God at various times in his life. We then read an excerpt of his most famous sermons "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." This fire and brimstone sermon was a great example of literature of that time period. From 1620 to the early 1700's that is who we were as an American people - religious and focused on our soul.