Week 3

As the week comes to a close, I feel like the students and I are settling in.  In preparation for our upcoming Article of the Week Assignment,  we practiced annotating  another article "What it Takes to be Great."   I showed them a few short clips of some people who are "great" in their field-Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and a classical pianist.  We discussed how all of these people make what they do look so easy.Of course, in the article we learned just how much TIME these people put into becoming great!  After reading and annotating the article, students reflected on how confident they feel about annotating the text and describe, in their own words what it means to annotate.  

"Instead of quickly reading through and having to reread something, I learned to read slowly and REALLY read it.  It (annotating) helped because I knew what I was reading, and I actually understood it."

-Student

Based on their responses, I feel we are ready to move on to the second part of the Article of the Week assignment which is writing a one page summary/ response. I will model (not very glamorous) that part of the assignment and have kids practice with me. Then, students should be able to tackle the assignment solo!

On another note, I wanted to share the six-word memoirs from each of my classes.  Students seemed to enjoy this assignment and most put careful thought  into each word!  Not only did I get to teach about syntax, diction, connotation, and denotation, I learned so much about my students-in just six words!

Period 0 Slide Show      Period 2 Slide Show                   Period 4 Slide Show