Monday: January 14, 2013

What a day! Those sophomores had good mascots, right?! Alright, onto this. (Sorry this is so late >.<)

Game Plan:

• SSR
• LC Contract (Share Out)
• LC Discussions 

We did SSR for the first half of the class and Lit Circle for the other half. Mrs. Ortega made us share what we think makes a good Lit Circle Discussion. (Or how we can improve it.) Here are a few pointers my group members and I wrote down:

• Read your book
• Prepare for your next discussions
• Understand what you're reading or help your group members understand
• If you cannot connect to your character(s) very well, try to put yourself in their shoes and see what the situation was like in the perspective
• Be respectful! 

After we wrote these down, all our group members had to sign our notebooks to make sure we stick to these points.

Assignments we added to the notebook:

• A# 59 - LC Discussion Prep. #3: Write down any quotes/questions/or any type of conversation starter so you can be successful in keeping a good discussion in your Literature Circle. 

If you need the Lit Circle Assignment due dates: 

1. January 10th 
2. January 14th
3. January 17th
4. January 22nd
5. January 24th
6. February 4th 
7. February 7th
8. February 11th 
9. February 14th 
10. February 19th 

Well, I guess that's all for now! See you Wednesday. :D

-Jessica Bustamante

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

Well, we got through a busy day of school today, but take heart; one more day of school before the weekend! :)

Here was today's game plan:

1. Membership Grid:  (What worked/didn't)
2. Norm Brainstorm
3. LC Contract
4. LC Discussion 1

As I said, today was a busy day.  We saw all four teachers because of EQ meetings during 4th block.  With a spit schedule, unfortunately we didn't have enough time for SSR, so we went straight to work.

A# 56 is Membership Grid, which we did last time for literature circles.  This is a grid which we will fill out every time we have a literature circle discussion.  Mrs. Ortega will give us a question/topic to talk about, and we each will write down our group's answers.  Today, we discussed what worked and didn't work in our last literature circles.

We only had about 40 minutes with Mrs. Ortega today, so we skipped Norm Brainstorm.

A# 57 is LC Contract.  As homework, we are to come back with ideas for a contract to hold our the literature circle accountable.

We ended the day by talking for 15 minutes about what we read in our books.

A# 58 is LC Disc Prep 2.  The next reading assignment is Monday, January 14th.  Keep up with your reading and write down 5-7 quotes or striking words with page numbers for homework.


It was nice being your scribe for the week!  Have a great weekend!

-Lauren DeVaughn

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Another day of excitement has ended, and our first week of school in 2013 is aaaaalmost over.

Here was today's game plan:

1. SSR
2. EPT Explanation
3. Timed Writing

We started the day with the normal SSR for 20 minutes.

A#54 is LC Disc 1 Starters.  Mrs. Ortega wants us to be writing 5-7 things to share with your group for literature circle discussions.  She said that she might not check our journals for this every discussion, but you must have all of these discussion starters there when she check your notebook.  Don't procrastinate!

Then she explained the EPT Essay.  (A#55 is EPT Essay).  The EPT Essay is the Cal State version of the placement test, and Wednesdays will be dedicated to working on timed writing and reading comprehension in preparation for this test.  Last year we took the EAP (Early Assessment Program) as part of state testing.  If you passed the EAP for English, and you end up attending a Cal State, you are exempt from the Placement Exam in English.  To be sure, check with Hunzeker to make sure you don't need to apply for the Placement Exam.

For homework, we are to go home and ask our parents for state test results from 11th grade.  Bring them in.  Also, don't forget to read your LC book and write 5-7 discussion starters.

Finally, we were given a basic released EPT Essay Prompt, which usually includes directions, a quote, and a prompt.  We had 45 minutes to plan and write our essay.

Until tomorrow, that's aaaallll folks!

-Lauren DeVaughn

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!!! And welcome back to school (woooohoooo)!

Today was overall a pretty relaxed day; I think our teachers knew that we would be less than thrilled to be back at school after our two week holiday.  In English, the game plan was as follows:

1. SSR
2. Scribe Assignments
3. Book Talk
4. Literary Circle Assignments

For SSR, we read for 20 minutes as usual--nothing out of the ordinary.

Since we were running out of scribes to update this blog, Mrs. Ortega assigned scribes for the rest of January and February.

Next, for Book Talk, we began discussing the new choices for literary circle book choices.  Each group had a copy of the books, and Mrs. Ortega gave us a summary and some background for the three "coming of age" novels.  The three choices were:

• "Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger

Mrs. Ortega loved this book growing up.  It's one we are all expected to read before college, so she encouraged us to read it on our own if we didn't choose it for our lit. circle book.  It was written around 1949/1950, and the author (Salinger) died a few years ago.  Apparently, Salinger was this mean, serious guy who didn't joke around.  The main character, Holden Caulfield is a 17 year old, spoiled rich kid who runs away to New York City because he was going to get kicked out of school due to bad grades.  The book is everything that happens during his three day adventure in NYC.  Caulfield is "adolescent foolishness personified" who embarrasses you as you read his story.

• "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

This is a book that changed the way Mrs. Ortega does lit. circles!  It's about a wacky, dysfunctional family.  The parents have a bizarre placement of values and don't properly provide for the children.  This beautifully written book displays a family that is messed up, but beautiful.

• "The Other Wes Moore" by Wes Moore

Wes Moore is an academically successful student.  His success is printed in the local newspaper, and as he's reading his story, later in the same paper, he comes across information about a man with the same name as him who was tried and convicted of murder.  Wes Moore decides to write a letter to "the other Wes Moore" in prison, and he writes back.  They continue writing each other, and find that they shared the same beginnings, but then their lives took two different paths (one better and the other, not so good).

Finally, we were randomly picked to choose the books we will be reading for the next few weeks.  A#52 is our November Progress Report.  A#53 is LC Reading Assignments.

Our literary circle discussions will be held on Mondays and Thursdays.  Wednesdays are Writing Workshop days which are meant to help us with the placement exams that some of us will be taking for college.  During these Writing Workshop days we will be working on timed writing and reading comprehension.

We ended the day by writing down the page numbers our groups decided on for reading our lit. circle books.

Until next time! :)

-Lauren DeVaughn

Wednesday, 12/5/12

Hello again South House!

So today we started class off with SSR, and then got down to business. We got time to work on our speeches, which is good because the 1st draft of them is due tonight at 11:59! Then they will be peer reviewed, which is due TOMORROW at 11:59 pm. It has to be at least 5 paragraphs, but obviously if you have the perfect speech written out, that works just as well. Really that's all that went down today, so good luck on the speeches, and see you at Party Platform!

Tuesday, 12/4/12

Hey there South House. I just got back from POL, and it was really great! All of the seniors did fantastic(especially those from our house, just saying), so be sure to congratulate all of them on a job well done. Now, down to business:

Today's Schedule:

• Connect Four Presentation

So today was a very simple day, since we just sat back and watched a presentation. Elmer Rodriguez from Mt. Sac came to tell us of all of the opportunities we have as high school seniors right next door to Mt. Sac. It is the largest community college in California, and does a lot to help high school students to achieve what they want out of college and life. For those of you who aren't completely sure of where you're headed, or maybe a bit worried about the price tag on that dream school of yours, it's a great idea to look more into this program. If you have any questions about this or basically anything about Mt. Sac and other community colleges, you can contact Elmer at erodriguez@mtsac.edu.

Alright, I guess that's all for today. See you all tomorrow, bright and early!

Monday, 12/3/12

Hey South House!

Today's Plan:

• SSR
• Mini Ethos, Pathos, Logos
• Speech Workshop Time

Alright so as usual we started out the day with SSR, and then we went on to Mini Ethos, Pathos, Logos. Basically the breakdown was:

• Ethos: Appeal to knowledge or expertise
• Ex: Things that sound really smart and fancy, like life experience, universities, NY Times, PhD, MA, ABCDEFG.
• Pathos: Appeal to emotion, spice things up
• Ex: Ways to make people feel something, such as anecdotes, emotional word choices, crying injured puppies, etc.
• Logos: Appeal to logic
• Ex: Just the straight facts, and statistics. All the need-to-knows.

(Note: Be careful when using any of these appeals. Although they can be incredibly helpful for your speeches, using them too often can make people feel manipulated, and in the case of Logos, even bored.


So after we wrapped up that lesson we had time to work on our speeches, and then our short class was over! See you all tomorrow.

Reminder: Tomorrow(12/4) is Poetry Out Loud! Should be pretty fun, so come out and support your classmates. If that isn't enough incentive, I'm pretty sure Ortega said she's giving extra credit to those who show up, so there's that. It starts at 7 in the MPR, hopefully see you there!