Composition # 65: "You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you." --Walt Disney

Read "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Princess and the Tin Box"

Composition # 64: "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." --Andre Gide

"A Cask of Amontillado" Irony Group Short Response

Composition # 62: "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." --Indira Gandhi

"The Cask of Amontillado" Character Short Response

Composition # 61: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire

Read and discuss Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado"

Begin "The Cask of Amontillado" Short Response

Composition # 60: "It is never too late to be what you might have been." --George Eliot

Close reading of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"

Composition # 59: "People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude." --Marcus Aurelius

"The Cask of Amontillado"

Composition # 58: "The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." --Marcus Aurelius

"The Cask of Amontillado" Figurative Language Boxes

DUE TODAY: "The Cask of Amontillado" Vocabulary Boxes (Started in class 11/15)

Composition # 57: "Three can keep a secret, if two are dead." --Benjamin Franklin

Submit "The Cask of Amontillado" Vocabulary Boxes

Begin reading and discussing Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado"

Amontillado Reading notes and Character Chart

Composition # 56: "Revenge is a dish best served cold." --proverb

"The Cask of Amontillado" Vocabulary Boxes (Finish for HW)

Review Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire"

"To Build a Fire" Figurative Language Boxes

Reading Questions

Composition # 52: "Courage is the resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." --Mark Twain

Read Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire"

 

Composition # 51: "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." --Mark Twain

"To Build a Fire" Vocabulary Boxes

No Composition

"To Build a Fire" Vocabulary Boxes

MLA Word Processing Mini-Lesson

Computer Lab for Smarter Balanced Assessment

Composition # 50: "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The Scarlet Ibis" Combo Assignment # 2

Composition # 48: "What you really value is what you miss, not what you have." --Jorge Luis Borges

Finish "The Scarlet Ibis" Selection Quiz/Test (Pairs)

Composition # 47: "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." --Teddy Roosevelt

Collect "The Scarlet Ibis" Combo Figurative Language Short Response

"The Scarlet Ibis" Short Response # 2 (Pairs)

Composition # 46: "Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle." --Napoleon Hill

"The Scarlet Ibis" Short Response # 2 (Pairs)

Composition # 45: "The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time." --W.B. Yeats

"The Scarlet Ibis" Short Response # 1: Group

Composition # 44: "It is not length of life, but depth of life [that matters most]". --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish reading "The Scarlet Ibis"

"The Scarlet Ibis" Combo Assignment

Composition # 43: "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." --Confucius

Figurative Language Worksheet

Read "The Scarlet Ibis" to (601)

Composition # 42: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." --Jackie Robinson

Finish and Submit "The Scarlet Ibis" Figurative Language Boxes # 3

Continue Reading "The Scarlet Ibis"

Maintain Character Chart

PSAT (22 min. periods)

Composition # 41: "Everyone must row with the oars he has." --English proverb

"The Scarlet Ibis" Figurative Language Boxes # 2

Composition # 40: "The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work." --Harry Golden

Submit "The Scarlet Ibis" Figurative Language Boxes # 1

Word Origins worksheet

Composition # 39: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." --Lao Tzu

Finish and Submit "All-American Girl" Short Response

"The Scarlet Ibis" Figurative Language Boxes (Finish for HW)

Composition # 38: "Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do." --Lin Yutang

Finish and Submit "Snow" Vocabulary Boxes

Read Julia Alvarez's poem "All-American Girl" (170)

"All-American Girl" Short Response

Composition # 37: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt

"Snow" Vocabulary Boxes

Composition # 36: "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The Scarlet Ibis" Vocabulary Boxes

Composition # 35: "Courage isn't having the strength to go on--it is going on when you don't have strength." --Napoleon

Read Julia Alvarez's short story "Snow" (194)

Answer questions 1-6 (195)

Submit "Snow" Figurative Language Boxes

"Snow" Short Response

Composition # 34: "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." --M. Kathleen Casey

Read, highlight, and annotate Julia Alvarez's short story "Snow" (194)

After You Read (195) 1-6

"Snow" Figurative Language Boxes

Composition # 33: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." --H.G. Wells

"The Most Dangerous Game" Dynamic Short Response

Composition # 32: "Character, not circumstances, makes the man." --Booker T. Washington

"TMDG" Short Response

Composition # 31: "Freedom entitles you to do something, not to not do something." --Shel Silverstein

"TMDG" Character Short Response 1-3 Group

Composition # 30: "Never [beg] for that which you can earn." --Miguel de Cervantes

Working with Direct Quotations Mini-Lesson

Unit 5: Quotation Marks Worksheet (Front and Back)

Punctuation and Capitalization of Direct and Indirect Quotations Worksheet

Composition # 29: "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are." --UNKNOWN

Correct Open notes Multiple Choice Quiz

"TMDG" Figurative Language Boxes # 3

Direct Quotations Mini-Lesson

Quotation Marks Worksheet

Composition # 28: "If you fell down yesterday, stand up today." --H.G. Wells

"The Most Dangerous Game" Multiple choice Quiz (Open Notes)

Composition # 27: "Winning isn't everything, but wanting [to win] is." --Arnold Palmer

"The Most Dangerous Game" Figurative Language Short Response 1-4

Composition # 26: "Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." --F. Scott Fitzgerald

"TMDG" Figurative Language Short Response (Yellow Handout)

Composition # 25: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Finish reading "The Most Dangerous Game"

Complete Character Chart and Notes

Composition # 24: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." --Stephen King

Continue Reading "The Most Dangerous Game" (42-first column of 49)

Character Chart

Composition # 23: "What you are will show in what you do." --Thomas Edison

"TMDG" Character Chart and Reading Notes

Begin Reading Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game" (39-42)

Composition # 22: "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him." --Aldous Huxley

Finish and submit "The Grandfather" Reading Check 1-3

Finish and submit "The Most Dangerous Game" Figurative Language Boxes # 2

Possessive Nouns/Punctuation and Capitalization of Direct and Indirect Quotations Worksheet

Composition # 21: "Anyone can be a barbarian; it requires a [tremendous amount of] effort to remain a civilized man." --Leonard Woolf

"The Most Dangerous Game" Figurative Language Boxes # 2

Composition # 20: "Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear." --Albert Camus

Finish and submit "The Grandfather" Reading Check Questions 1-3, 7

Composition # 19: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." --Friedrich Nietzsche

"The Most Dangerous Game" Vocabulary Boxes

"The Most Dangerous Game" Figurative Language Boxes

Submit Late/Absent/Revised Work

Composition # 18: "It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles." --Buddha

"The Most Dangerous Game" Vocabulary Boxes : Colon

 

Composition # 17: "Never cut what you can untie." --Joseph Joubert

Read, highlight, and annotate Soto's "The Grandfather"

Colon Mini-Lesson

Complete Use of the Colon 1-9

Composition # 16: "Have the courage to act instead of react." --Earlene Larson Jenks

Submit Late/Revised Work

Review and Collect Use of the Apostrophe/Unit 5: Apostrophes

Return Graded Work/Portfolios

Composition # 15: "Do or do not, there is no try." --Yoda, Jedi Master

Read "The Grandfather" (49)

Complete and revise incomplete and incorrect work

Composition # 14: "Every man is guilty of all of the good he did not do." --Voltaire

"The Grandfather" Figurative Language Boxes

Read Gary Soto's personal essay "The Grandfather" (49)

 

Composition # 12: "Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."

"The Sniper" Short Response

Composition # 11: "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read, highlight, annotate, and discuss Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper"

Composition # 10: "A friend to all is a friend to none." --Aristotle

Read, highlight, annotate, and discuss Liam O'Flaherty's short story "The Sniper"

Continue working on "The Sniper" Figurative Language Boxes

Composition # 9: "What worries you, masters you." --John Locke

Finish and submit the following three assignments: Unit 4 Similes and Metaphors Figurative Language Boxes; "The Sniper" Vocabulary Boxes, and; "The Sniper" Figurative Language Boxes

Course Outline/Parent Letter Due Today!

Composition # 8: "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." --Viktor E. Frankl

Sentence variety lesson: Using the Colon

Start "The Sniper" Vocabulary Boxes

Composition # 7: "Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking." --J.C. Watts

Discuss and Revise  "Thank You, M'am" Short Response--Protagonist and "Thank You, M'am" Short Response--External Conflict

Composition # 6: "Adversity introduces a man to himself." --Unknown

Complete and Submit "Thank You, M'am" Short Response--Protagonist

Composition # 5: "The time is always right to do what is right." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Finish and Submit Unit 4: Similes and Unit 4: Metaphors Worksheet

Finish and Submit "Thank You, M'am" Figurative Language Boxes

Course Outline/Parent Letter (Due Friday, August 26th)

1. Composition # 4: "When you forgive, you in no way change the past--but you sure do change the future." --Bernard Meltzer

2. Unit 4: Similes and Metaphors Worksheet

3. Begin working on "Thank You, M'am" Figurative Language Boxes

 

1. Composition # 3: "Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." --Theodore Roosevelt

2. Review Literary Notes: protagonist, antagonist, external conflict, internal conflict, dynamic character, static character

3. Read, highlight, and annotate Langston Hughes's short story "Thank you, M'am"

1. Composition # 2: "The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything." --Theodore Roosevelt

2. Finish In-Class Personal Essay

3. Work on Editing

4. Receive Planner/Agenda Books

5.  Literary Terminology Notes: protagonist, antagonist, external conflict, internal conflict, dynamic character, static character

1. Practice Composition: "Life is like a box of chocolates." --Forrest Gump

2. Composition # 1: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." --Abbie Hoffman

3. Continue working on Personal Essay

4. Edit and Proofreading

Class Introduction

Student Survey

Begin Personal Essay (in-class)