Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

The Day In a Nutshell:
1) Circle
2) Reading quiz
3) Empires Falling activity
4) Ernie's Ark themes activity

Adminastrivia and Notices: 
Careers Unit

Vocab Words

Circle:
What's the most interesting thing in the history of the world?

Empires Falling
Make sure you have this document about why the Roman Empire fell on your computer.
Task: We'll be reading one paragraph at a time with the goal of reporting out, in the simplest way possible, why Rome fell.
Protocol to Use:
-Two people act as readers;
-after a reader is done with one sentence, they ask each other person "what words or phrases do we need to define?"
-Define those words
-The reader then asks each person, "What do you think the sentence, or part of the sentence, means?"
-After listening, discuss to get agreement and write i in your notes.
Target: Explain 13 reasons why empires fall.
Target: By the end of class, you will know how to read at the speed of comprehension AND be better at chunking sentences into manageable parts.

Ernie's Ark
We need to understand how the author develops a theme in the book.
1) Whole class: Practice with Cast Away -- what abstractions is the story about?
2) Half class: Story by story, brainstorm abstract topics from each chapter.
3) Half class: 1/2 the kids swap groups to add to/refine the existing list.
4) Half class: Refine the list next to each chapter to one or two abstractions.
5) Whole class: Cross check the lists to minimize repetition.
In your group with others who have the story, find parts of the story that connect to that topic.
6) Then, identify objects in the story that may be important.

Target: Learn what authors do to advance a theme.

Homework for Honors
TBD

Careers Unit Kickoff
We'll be spending the month of October examining educational paths and careers.  The site for the project is here: OHCHS Sophomore Careers Unit

Future: 
Common Assessment for ELA
Interesting fact about Rome/Presentation
-Bizarre American tradition or fact
-Something we do today that we got from the Romans
Planning for Downtown Norway -- investigating to answer some questions
Food grant
Computer Etiquette

Note taking