Just a little something to tide you over...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!  It was a nice surprise to get 3 extra days of vacation.  We'll be grumpy in June, but it sure feels good now!

All right, let's get to business.  We're going to write a short paper toward the very end of class and this assignment is going to help you start thinking about it while practicing some analysis at the same time (we were going to do something from the book, but I thought there would be at least half of you that didn't have your book at home).  

Go to  http://www.thisibelieve.org/. Read the 2 paragraphs "What is This I Believe" and "The History of This I Believe" on the first page.  Then browse through the many essays on the site picking one from the 1950's and one from more recently that you like.  Do the AP squared  process to them.  (Remember that? If you recall, the sides of the square are labeled purpose, persona, audience, and argument.)

To blog your responses without going through the time-consuming aggravation of making a quadrisected square, do something like this:

Argument

Outside: Sharing is the quintessential trait that makes us truly human.

Inside:  Details from the text that led you to say what you said on the outside of the box

Audience (I think you get the idea)

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!

So, who is most likely to watch all 34 bowl games: Richards, Rosas, Keeney, Howell, Moore, or Bunker?   My money's on Moore...or maybe Gendron.  ;)

Will we ever have school again?

If we have class tomorrow (we'll have to see how much time we have), hopefully it will just be about passing back papers (at least of 3rd period as I'm not sure I'll be done with 2nd) and maybe getting the vocab test out of the way.  Ironically, I have more time to grade when I'm at school -- no little Charlie to play with.

I JUST got a call from FSD saying there is no school tomorrow!  I'll give your papers back when we have school again. Watch this blog tomorrow (Friday).  I'll have your small, just-something-to-keep-your-brains-from-atrophying assignment up by then.  Until then, have fun in the snow!

Megan,  Charlie is having a great time in the snow and I'm trying to grade essays while he's asleep.  Charlie and I finished playing in the snow a little bit ago and are baking chocolate chip cookies at the moment (he's very excited).

Mr. G

Dashing through the snow

All right.  The weather outside may indeed be frightful, but school must go on, albeit not without some changes.  So this week is going to look like this:

Monday: Timed Write!

Tuesday: Vocabulary 6 Quiz, guided timed write activity (using Hazlitt)

Wednesday: It's supposed to snow, but if we're here, we're having another timed write and play with fallacies.  :)

Thursday: Movie

Friday: Finish movie, eat party-type food if people would like to bring it.

All plans listed or alluded to above are subject to change.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy New Year, and Happy whatever else you may have going on.  ;)