Tuesday, May 19 - Friday, May 22

Friday
I was away today. Here are the notes I left for Mr. Allen:

Silent reading Curious Incident for the first 10-15 minutes of class.

Students have an orange sheet with the basic points for doing a close reading of a poem. Their notes are incomplete. There is more info on the posters that I have prepared and left for you. Distribute the posters around the room on various desks. Students then get up and circulate around the room looking at the posters and adding to their notes.

The poem Jabberwocky

Before reading: Working in small groups of no more than 4, have students devise some of their own portmanteaux words – combining words that they already know to make new words: “probletunity” = a problem that presents an opportunity. They should try to come up with at least 4 and provide definitions for them. Have them write these out on sentence strips that I have left on the desk. Felt pens are on the desk too.

During reading: Have students annotate (write all over poem identifying elements/devices) their copy of the poem using the orange close reading sheet as a guide. Even though it contains made-up words, they should still be able to identify most, if not all of the elements of a more traditional poem. Hand this in at end of class.

After reading have students create a 9 panel graphic-novel-like representation of the poem – show the grade 11 ones as examples? The criteria are on an 11x17 paper with the other grade 10 materials. Due at the end of the class.

Thursday
We spent most of the class completing the poetry presentations begun yesterday.
Wednesday
Today we went over the metaphor/simile and road sign sheet related to Curious Incident. Afterwards, I numbered people off into one of five groups. The groups were to read the poem they were assigned, decide on a creative way to share it with the class and point out the significant elements of the poem such as figurative language, form, word choice, etc.
Tuesday
It was a little warm in the portable today as we watched the final forty minutes of Temple Grandin. Just before lunch we looked at an interview with the "real" Temple Grandin. Tomorrow some poetry!