I know why the caged bird cannot read...uh, it's a bird.

Over the next few days, we will be looking again at this essay. I urge you to read it again before Thursday. If you felt lost or like her argument was just that students don't get lame high school English books, you especially may want to read it again as it may take you some time to come to grips with her argument. On Thursday, we will be working in groups on questions 1-3, and 5-10 of the Questions on Rhetoric and Style on page 100 numbers .

Juggling this and your metacognition paper should be sufficient for this week when you factor in the vocab quiz and timed write. So we'll make the Graff template write-up of this due on Monday in the same post as the questions.

Congratulations on finishing your papers! It looks like only three people ignored the multiple instructions and demonstrations and dire warnings about naming their file. Per our previous discussions, those will be counted as late.

ASB/Cabbage Patch Week

Wheeling in the crazy!

Welcome to one of the craziest weeks at Fife High School, and perhaps anywhere else as well. You might ask if this is a good week to start your first major essay. The answer to that question of course is that there is no time like the present! So here is the rough schedule for the week:

Monday: Read Thinking as a Hobby and annotate in groups. Start looking at SAT Vocab Week 2 and get going on the grammar from Chapter 4 in the TLC if you haven't started it already. It takes a while (early reports are about 3 hours if you try and do it all at once). Buy your ASB card.

Tuesday: Go over Thinking as a Hobby together as a class and then introduce and explain the first paper. If you haven't already, Buy your ASB card.

Wednesday: Go over the grammar. Deal with any ongoing confusions about the essay and maybe look at an example from a previous year. Haven't you bought your ASB card yet? Do you want to lose Cabbage Patch/ASB Week?

Thursday: Writing Day in the Study Hall Lab! Focus! Focus! Focus!

Friday: SAT Vocab Quiz Week 2 and take the first step toward being the 2nd class in a row to win as juniors and then again as seniors!

DGP is dead! Long live Grammar!

This year, we will not be doing DGP in AP. Instead, we will be working through the Grammar as Rhetoric and Style activities in our TLC book. If you browse through the table of contents, you'll notice that each thematic chapter contains a grammar section that focuses on a particular grammatical element. The first one appears at the end of Chapter 4 and explores the appositive.  For Wednesday of the coming week, please complete all of the exercises in the Chapter 4 grammar section beginning on page 167 (there are 5 exercises with 5-10 questions a piece).

As I told 6th period when they asked, this may be done on paper or the blog. Since we'll be going over it in class, it may be better to have it on paper. Students last year preferred paper for the grammar assignments.

If you want one of those grammar shirts, you can get one here. WARNING: they are overpriced. Really? $25 for a grey t-shirt?

FYI: Word has just come out that the parent/student online access to grades will go live on Monday.