September - December 2017

Post date: Sep 11, 2017 2:21:03 PM

Happy Thanksgiving

Here's a crossword puzzle just for you.

Happy Halloween

Morning group - This group will complete a digital breakout EDU activity that uses their comprehension and math skills.

Afternoon group - This group will start with a luncheon - sandwich bar while interacting with The Nightmare before Christmas and then finishing up by writing a story for Deb to act out.

Evening group - This group will complete a different digital breakout EDU activity that uses their comprehension and math skills.

Disability Differences

Activity 1 (10/24/17) - We will briefly identify the 13 categories of disabilities listed on the current federal IDEA law.

[autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, emotional disturbances, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment (including ADHD), specific learning disability (including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, and other learning issues), speak or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment, including blindness)

Then, we will start our exploration of disability differences over the next few sessions with Richard Lavoie's video How Difficult Can This Be. His video will help us better understand how some of us experience learning tasks, especially in a classroom or group setting.

Cultural Studies (Share Backgrounds)

Wednesday morning group has changed topics to culture. Our focus is on finding out more about who each of us are. Look at the KWL.Culture.pdf at the bottom of this screen to see what else we want to know.

Activity 1 (9/27/17) – This week's focus is about geography. We will talk about where we were born. We will show each other our birthplaces on the US or world map hanging on the classroom wall. We will also make a chart that includes how long we lived in our birth cities after we were born.

For example:

Name Birth city Length of Stay Calculate in years

Deb Westbrook, ME 2 months 2/12 or 1/6 = 0.17 (Fractions or decimals?)

Note: Some of us have already placed a pin on our birthplaces on the pinmap site (Map). You can only see our pins if you have the password. Betsy will share the map with you on Wednesday. If you aren't on the map, then talk to Betsy on Monday.

Activity 2 (started 10/4/17) - Next activity is focusing on sharing traditional and comfort foods. We shared them with oral stories. Now we are writing up these stories along with the recipes. The end product will be a "cookbook" of stories and recipes that share a piece of who we are. We start revision feedback circles with these stories on Wed 10/25/17.

Spelling - Word study (Monday mornings)

List 1: only, give, any, but, shoe, could, gone, new, saw, put

List 2: again, egg, push, eye, pull, pour, they, has, sew

List 3: the, where, do, have, she, come, does, says, said, one

List 4: no, of, was, too, what, there, some, your, four, get (test 9/11)

List 5: want, who, so, are, you, once, goes (test 9/18)

List 6: whose, many, little, wear, mild, scold, most, door (test 10/2)

List 7: gone, should, flour, pear, child, gold, mind, host, pint (test 10/16)

List 8: pretty, animal, build, watch, odd, walk, hurry, answer (test 10/30)

9/25/17 Review "floss" rule. Learn "ck" rule.

"Floss" rule - Any 1-syllable word with a short vowel that ends in f, l, or s, you must double the f, l, or s. (Abbreviations of words don't follow this rule.)

(Examples:

bus - is an abbreviation for omnibus; ref - is an abbreviation of reference or referee; gas - is an abbreviation of gasoline.)

"ck" rule - when /k/ sound follows a short vowel at end of 1-syllable word, the /k/ is spelled with a "ck" Examples: duck, trick, crack

(Abbreviations of words don't follow this rule. Example: trek is abbreviation for South African Dutch word trekken.)

"dge" rule - when 1-syllable word ends with /dj/ sound, then spelling is "dge"

Examples: wedge, pledge, badge, fridge, fudge, dodge

Find "dge" words that fit these definitions: (shared 10/23)

an oath =

place to keep milk cold =

chocolate candy-like dessert =

tall bush =

drag fish through flour =

won't move =

person in charge of courtroom =

device used to keep a door open =

something gets stuck =

an object you might show other people that tells who you are =

Literature

"The Pedestrian," written by Ray Bradbury (1951), is about a person who is unhappy with his neighbors who are apathetic and locked into their houses in front of their viewing screens. Ray Bradbury (1912-2012) is known as a science fiction writer, but Bradbury thought of himself as a fantasy writer. He earned his first money as a writer for a joke he submitted to a tv show. He couldn't afford college, so he went to the library to learn - three days a week for ten years. In 1938, he published a fan magazine in which he wrote all of the stories but used pseudonyms so the readers didn't know. "Pendulum" was his first professionally published short story. He won a Pulitzer in 2004. (shared 12/5/17)

The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 by John Steinbeck (1902-1968), describes the lives of farmers who moved from Oklahoma to work the California farm fields as migrant workers. Steinbeck won a Pulitzer Prize in Novel in 1940 for this novel. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature in 1962 for his overall work. (share 11/27/17)

"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) is about a man who seeks revenge of another man because of an insult. Poe's writing style is considered to be the beginning of the detective novel. (share 11/28/17)

"The Color Purple" by Alice Walker (1944-present) is a series of letters that tell a story about a girl who finally figures out how to get away from her abusers. Walker won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for this book. (Shared 11/15/17)

"Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro (1931-present) tells the story of a girl growing up. The story compares characteristics of little girls to little boys. Alice Munro was the first Canadian woman to win the Nobel Prize of Literature in 2013 for her short stories. (shared 11/7/17)

"The Necklace," written by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), illustrates vanity from a young woman who wants more than the life she has married into. At age 13, Maupassant was sent to seminary. He disliked the place so much that he got himself expelled. Years later, he fought in the Franco-German War, which gave him lots of ideas for stories. From 1867 to 1880, Maupassant shared his writing almost weekly with a family friend and well-known French author, Gustave Flaubert. Through him, he was introduced to many authors of the time. While he worked for the French government as a lawyer by day, he became known for his writing after Flaubert died. (Shared 11/9/17)

"The Gift of the Magi" illustrates how two people who are in love give gifts that come from themselves that will truly be something that their loved ones will enjoy. Like so many of his stories, O'Henry (1862-1910), a pen name for William Sydney Porter, uses irony and surprise endings to entertain us. Read more about Porter.

"The Cold Equations," a short story by Tom Goodwin (1915-1980), appeared in the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. This story focuses on a stowaway in an Emergency Dispatch Ship who violated the "Keep Out" sign. Goodwin left school at third grade and spent his life in physical pain from prolonged illness. Medicated with alcohol, he wrote three books and twenty-seven short stories - all of them about science fiction and space travel. (shared 10/24/17)

"Most Dangerous Game" (1932), written by Richard Connell (1893-1949), is about a big game hunter who travels through the Amazon by boat. After he falls overboard, he ends up stranded on an island with a Russian aristocrat and his servant, and the idea of "big game" hunting takes on a new meaning. By the age of 16, Connell was editor of his father's newspaper. He then goes on to college and becomes editor of other papers. The awards won for "The Most Dangerous Game" convinced Connell to write short stories full time. (shared 10/5/17)

Information about William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) life is sketchy. We know that he wrote 37 plays from 1590 to 1613. His first plays were biographies. Romeo and Juliet was a love story about two young people whose families truly hated each other. Read one version of this play. (shared 10/2/17)

Langston Hughes (1902-1967), born in Missouri as James Mercer Langston Hughes (Hughes was his father's last name and Langston was his mother's last name), was brought up by his mom's grandmother. He started writing poetry in high school. First poem published in 1920. He wrote many poems, stories, and plays. Read more about his life. "Thank you, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes was published in 1958. This story is about two people who meet one night on a Harlem street. (shared 9/19/17)

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a recluse and a poet. Her poetry was mostly published during her lifetime without her consent. She included poetry in the letters she wrote to family and friends. These people got her work published. The rest of her work was published after she died. Read more about her life. Read "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" or "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." (shared 9/20/17)

The poem "Lucinda Matlock" was written by Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950). Masters was born in Kansas but grew up in Illinois. His father was a struggling lawyer. Masters had to quit college to help support the family. He passed the bar in 1891. When he first started his law practice in Chicago, he collected bills for the electric company. For 8 years, he was Clarence Darrow’s law partner (Darrow defended Scopes for teaching evolution). Masters published his first book of poetry in 1898. In 1915, Spoon River Anthology was published – a collection of epitaphs on people's graves about other people in the town. (Shared 9/11)

History

Intellectuals sent to Siberia (Shared 9/11)

As the Tsar of Russian, Ivan the Terrible fought the Sabir and won Siberia.

After Ivan died in 1584, Boris Godunov was appointed tsar because Ivan’s successor, his younger son, died suspiciously. The people in the son’s village rioted, and Godunov exiled the riot leaders to Siberia. These leaders were the first Russians to be exiled in Siberia.

More political people and regular people who didn’t follow Tsar Alexis’s (1645-1676) new law of serfdom (1649) were sent to Siberia. People lost their freedom to their landlords. These people were called serfs.

Then the Russian government realized that more people needed to live in Siberia to keep invaders at bay and to increase economic development. Exiled individuals were encouraged to invest, build defense, and overall make Siberia vital. So, landowners got tax credits for sending serfs who wouldn’t abide by the rules to Siberia. Oddly enough, when these serfs got to Siberia they were freed and given land to grow crops, raise animals, and build cities.

Beginning in 1700s, prisoners of war were exiled to Siberia. Siberia didn't have a modern prison system, so people were required to support themselves in this empty space.

During 1800s, Russia had two routes for exile: (1) anyone who committed murder, theft, or just a “white collar” crime was arrested, convicted by a court, and exiled or (2) anyone deemed a problem by top government officials as well as their friends, acquaintances, or even people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Click hereto read one researcher’s information about what happened to these people.