ELA 10: April 25-29

Last week we started our final unit and I’m happy to say that (I think) the kids are enjoying John Steinbeck and Of Mice and Men so far. I told them it’s one of my all time favorite books, so perhaps they’re just humoring me, but they seem pretty invested in the characters already. Ask them to tell you about it!

We are using Of Mice and Men to work on our first unit goal--reading literature to recognize the impact of the author’s choices on the text. Specifically, we’re looking at how the author uses point of view, parallel structure, character development and manipulation of time.  We’ve been reading and discussing these things together. This week students will start doing some independent annotations to show me what they can do on their own.  After we’ve practiced a few times--watch MiStar for practice scores--we will do a graded assessment with a new short story by Steinbeck.

Please click here to see our unit 4 learning goals.  After OM&M we will transition into examining rhetoric and writing op-eds to practice our argumentative and informative writing skills at the same time. We’ll end the semester with one last speech--this time each student will speak about one of the independent novels he or she has read this year. More on all of that in later weeks! In the meantime, have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!

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