May 18th Daily Plan

9th Grade - First, we discussed what the next month of school will look like, since we are on the last 3.5 weeks of class for the year. Basically, I explained that we have the "Romeo and Juliet" unit to finish, and then we will have a short debate unit over several specific topics. Between the two units, this will about for 8-10% of students' total grades - so anyone who is on the cusp (i.e. an A- or a C+), what we are currently doing will have significant impact on your final grade.

We then continued on with reading the play in class, only going through Act 4 Scene 1, which sets up the final plan for the story. Students completed a worksheet where we looked at the plan and made predictions of potenially complications to the plan. Extra credit was given to the student with the most creative but believable plan.

10th Grade - Sophomores also discussed what the next month of school will look like. The final month will be similar in terms of credit to the way the 9th grader set-up is; approx 10% of the final grade for the class being based in on The Critical Thinking unit, and our next unit on the novel A Separate Peace.

Sophomores needed to turn in their Critical Thinking Portfolios today. What needs to be included is listed in last weeks blog posts.

I also returned the drafts I received last week, with corrections and suggestions for the Final Draft, which is due at the end of class tomorrow.

Common Criticisms -

Be clear! Many students still have vague vocabulary (i.e. "things") that can easily be interpreted differently by different readers.

Read it out loud! For grammar and punctuation errors, read your paper out loud making sure you match the punctuation you wrote - it will help find the natural and unnatural pauses.

Connect it to the idea of critical thinking! A necessary component of this essay is that you connect your ideas to why critical thinking is important.

Make sure to check the rubric before turning it in! The final draft should match all the criteria on the rough draft rubric AND the final draft rubric.