Wednesday, 9/26/12

Hi! It's Cristopher Hernandez and here is what we did today in Ortega's:

• As usual we started with SSR, however this time around Ortega reminded us that we should be reading more outside of class. As the goal is to complete books rather than get a high page count.
• Next we got our Literature Circle books (V for Vendetta, In the time of Butterflies, Persepolis, or 1984) and we assigned reading.
• Finally, we received our scores for Poetry Out Loud (Cris and Jamilex were chosen to continue in the competition) 

Note: those with graphic novels should e-mail Ortega extra discussion material before Literature Circle discussion (ortega.jen@gmail.com)

Don't forget to complete your first reading assignment by Friday!

Hey East House! (Tuesday Sept. 18, 2012)

Hey East House! It's JD Pabon, and I'll be your scribe for this week! We had a lot to catch up on as Mrs.Ortega was out of town. So here is what we did:

Writing Workshop: We discussed what we will be doing during writing workshop as of now. For example, we had to work on wither our Senior Project timed writing essays, as personal narrative or do the reading autobiography for today's writing workshop. We will receive 30 mins from now on, and will also have other subjects for our writing workshop! Also Mrs. Ortega told us that we can set up an appointment with her for our college essays.

*Will also have to show our work to the class for feedback every writing workshop!

Notebook: We also received our notebook entries 10 and 11. (10: Writing workshop Sept., 11: Writing feedback)

Poetry Outloud: And lastly we worked with a group of 2 or 3 for Poetry Outloud practice. Be prepared to recite them on Wednesday!

Homework: Practice and memorize your poem for Poetry Outloud!

I hoped this helped you guys out, and I'll see you guys on tomorrow!

Tuesday, 9/11/12

Hey East House, here's what we did today in English in case you forgot:

SSR: Also known as "Shut Up, Sit Down, and Read!" We read for 20 minutes while Mrs. Ortega was recording what people were reading and where they sat.

Assign scribe duty: Right after, Mrs. Ortega introduced the English blog and the way it works. Everyone is required to do one week of scribe duty throughout the year, and any leftover weeks can be done for extra credit. Most people signed up for weeks up until next year. For this week, I'll be your scribe! 
*My name is Alfonso by the way, Hi!!! :D

Notebook Setup: We started using our notebooks today, so we set them up with a table of contents that uses 3 columns. The 3 columns were assignment #, title, and page #. We taped those assignments in our notebook, but make sure you SKIP 3 PAGES after the table of contents. The first 5 assignments were as follows in order of page and assignment number:

1. Class Intro
2. Mathemagician
3. TAL: Blackjack Alt. Notes
4. POL Poem
5. ABC's ( and D's) of Timed Writing

Intro to Timed Writing/ABC's (and D's): After setting ourselves up, we started on our notes and discussed why timed writing is important. We also learned about a new way to approach timed writing assignments and here's a brief review and the time it should take to get done:

A: Assess the prompt < 1 minute

B: Brainstorm < 5 minutes

C: Choose Order: < 1 minute

D: Discover Errors < 1-2 minutes

Reading Autobiography: We finish off the day with a quickwrite that tests how quick we can write. Our topic for writing was about our earliest memories about reading, and we had (correct me if I'm wrong...) about 15-20 minutes to write.

Homework for today: Practice your poems for Poetry Out Loud, and they will be due by 9/18/12. Have an awesome week and I will see you tomorrow!!!