November 30, 2012

Today:

1. SSR
2. Daily OpEd
3. DC Chancellor Pro/Con

Today we read SSR for 20 minutes! Yay! Then we discussed some articles that people read the day before on Daily OpEd. Mostly we focused on the title of the article, because that is what drew us into reading it. Afterwards we received 2 articles that we put into our notebook as DC Chancellor Pro/Con. The articles were about a new chancellor who received a raise of $50,000, and some people felt that this was a waste of money. As a class, we discussed the pros and cons of this raise. For homework, we must read an article on Daily OpEd. One that you find interesting!

November 28, 2012

Today:

1. SSR
2. Grover Over
3. Writing Workshop

Mrs. Ortega did not come today, so our substitute was Mrs. Del Rusa. We did SSR for twenty minutes, no surprise there. Then we read an article titled "Is Grover Finally Over?" (A#44), which is about the downfall of Grover Norquist's ideas. We answered the following questions:

• What is Bruni arguing?
• What evidence does he use to support his argument?
• Draw a square or highlight important sentences.
• Choose a paragraph and explain the tone purposeful words create.

After that, we did writing workshop. Well, we actually just revised our Model Assembly Timed Writings (A#41).

November 27, 2012

Hey East House! This is Alex Ayala, and I will be your scribe for the week. 

1. SSR
2. Speech Component
3. Mini-Lesson Intros

Today, we read SSR as usual. After that, we received our Model Assembly Timed Writings (A#41) and we were introduced to the Speech Component (A#42). To help understand this component, we looked at our editorial picks and looked at their intro sentences. We ourselves tried to make intro sentences to our bills in the Mini-Lesson Intros (A#43). If an intro statement is to be successful, it should have:

• Shocking and surprising statements
• An anecdote (something to make it relatable)
• Something the audience can relate to
• Quotes (choose wisely and make sure the connection is there)
• and Questions

Our homework is to write an intro sentence to your bill and to continue looking at the OpEd. Also, Mrs. Ortega forgot to check the notebooks, so she will check next rotation!

November 20, 2012

Hello East House! First of all, I would like to say Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you have a wonderful Holiday, and have fun on black friday. :)

Agenda
- SSR
- Timed Writing

Today we commenced our fourth rotation with the typical twenty minutes of silent reading. Then we were given the task of completing a timed writing assignment on our bill.

Announcements
Mrs. Ortega will be checking our notebooks on the day we come back from Thanksgiving break. BE PREPARED

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break! Good luck with your applications!  :)

Friday Nov 9, 2012

Today:

• LC: Presentations 

No SSR today. today was just presentations on our literature circle books. Most groups went up today and did a great job.   And well that's about it for today. Enjoy your three day weekend!

Wednesday Nov 7, 2012

Today:

• SSR
• LC: Presentation Prep

SRR for 20 minutes to start off the class. From there it was the rest of class time to work on the literature circle presentation on Friday. By the end of class we had the pleasure see the first group present on their book, V for Vendetta. That is all.

Reminders:

• Prepare for your LC: presentation third rotation (Friday 11/9)

Tuesday Nov 6,2012

Today

• SSR
• LC: Prep

Today started as any other, with 20 minutes of SSR and the class went on from there. Ms. Ortega gave  IMPORTANT announcements today in class about the recent crimes that have taken place on Cal Poly's campus. Other than that class was normal as usual, working on the literature circle presentations that will begin on Friday. There is an extra credit opportunity fro groups that are ready to present Wednesday at the end of the rotation.

Reminder
- The Cal Poly police and escort service number is (909) 869-3070
- If you're on the campus, ALWAYS have a buddy, don't walk alone.
- Literature circle presentations are third rotation
 

Thursday 11/1/12

Crap, well this is really late, but I don't think anyone was absent, so it's all good.

Today
-SSR
-Group Theater
-LC

So once again, we started the class with SSR (shocker! :o). The book competition ends 1/2/12 so make sure to read and report to Ortega.

After SSR, Ortega introduced another option for our LC groups final. It's called Group Theater and for those of you that didn't get a paper explaining what it is, it's basically a radio show type of thing. Like the one we did for Pellegrini after The Most Dangerous Game.

For literature circles, I believe today was the day we should have already been finished with our books. So, start thinking about what you want to do for your final, guise.


I'm pretty sure that's it so, I'll see y'all tomorrow and I promise I'll do it on time this time.