Jan. 4th Daily Plan

9th Grade -

We continued on our introduction to Poetry unit. Today focused on providing a little Cultural Literacy context by giving the background information on a famous author (Robert Frost, author of the poem the class read yesterday), as well as working with several poetic terms.

The majority of the class today was focused on the idea of connotation in language, and how many words have a secondary associated meaning. Students took a short "connotation quiz" to evaluate which of three synonyms was positive, negative, and neutral.

The class also did an activity focused on the names of popular (and some unpopular) cars, and what connotation automobile names have to target an intended audience. We looked at the names of cars in the 1960s (Thunderbird, Charger, Mustang) and the 1970s (Rabbit, Pinto, Civic), and how the economic climate is reflected in the names of the vehicles.

The activity is on a hand-out provided in class, so if you missed this day, you can pick up a copy from me.

Poetic Terms Reviewed -

Connotation
Stanza
Couplet
Meter
Rhyme

10th Grade -

We continued working with the idea of inference, in anticipation of the B.O.E. exam focused on this skill.

To warm-up, students were presented another two images with which to develop a backstory by pulling details from the image to create the necessary information.

Students were also given the seven inferential question.

1) Background Information - (who, what, where)
2) Key Details (details necessary for understanding the plot)
3) Stated relationship (directly tells the reader how two characters interact)
4) Simple implied relationship (must infer the relationship between two characters through clear evidence)
5) Complex implied relationship (must infer the relationship between two or more characters through indirect evidence)
6) Author's Generalization - what message is the author trying to convey about the world through the story? What connections could you make between the text and the world around you?
7) Structural Generalization - what message (or lesson) could you take from the story based on the way the characters change from beginning to end?

We practiced developing this information with a story from the textbook - One Hundred Cows  (pg 639).

We also started on another, slighly more complex story from the textbook - High Horse's Courting (pg 647).