Shakespeare Projects

Currently, the freshmen are reading the play Romeo and Juliet and preparing for next week's field trip to see a performance in Indy. However, I wanted to pause for a moment and share some of their Shakespeare projects from awhile back. As you can see, they shared some truly inspired creations.

Check back next week for a recap of Thursday's field trip!

Shakespeare's Childhood Home in Stratford-upon-Avon

A Queen Elizabeth Cake

A Recreation of Shakespeare's Globe

The Wonderful World of Shakespeare

"I can't wait for English class so I can learn about Julius Shakespeare!"

~an anonymous student in my 7th period English 10 class

As this semester begins, most of my classes are delving into the wonderful world of William Shakespeare. My freshmen classes are preparing to read Romeo and Juliet, with a field trip to see the play on Janurary 28th. Similarly, my sophomores are revisiting Shakespeare with the play Julius Caesar.

All classes are currently completing research projects that require them to dig more deeply into the historical backgrounds associated with their learning. For freshmen, this means exploring Renaissance England and the life and times of Shakespeare himself. For sophomores, this project requires a mental trip back in time to ancient Rome, which was the inspiration for Shakespeare's play about the infamous ruler Caesar.

Although there's some natural trepedition about reading Shakespeare, I hope my students will discover a love of theater, language, and iambic pentameter as we begin this dramatic journey into Shakespeare's realm.

Welcome, 2010! Also, welcome back to all of my students as we prepare for Spring Semester. I look forward to working with everyone and adding new bloggers to our virtual community.

December Post of the Month

Can you believe another month has almost passed? Of course, with Christmas Break, December is rather short, not that anyone's complaining! Once again, it is time to announce our newest Post of the Month. This time, our winner hails from Period 1.

Congratulations to Meghan for her reflective post entitled Finals Week! As a senior, she delves into past memories and looks toward her future as well. Be sure to read her post soon, as her class's blogs will be removed at the end of the semester, when Period 1 switches from Grammar to Creative Writing.

Goodbye, Bloggers

As this semester comes to a close, we must say goodbye to our Period 1 bloggers. My Grammar class is only a semester-long class, so those particular students will no longer be members of my overarching blogger community. We will miss them all!

This has been my first experience with blogging, and I am so proud of how my students have handled this new and modern learning tool. Although I will no longer be administrator of these fine student blogs (thank you, Mrs. Sims, for reminding me of this important fact on your own blog), I hope they will continue to utilize their blogs on their own time. Remember, I will not be able to monitor any further blogging activity, but I am pleased with everyone’s contribution thus far.

Check back next semester as my Creative Writing students (my new Period 1 class) set up their blogs and join the online collaboration with their own unique voices.

Happy Blogging, Everyone!

Building Bridges

Today, the Freshman Academy held a competition in which mentor groups built a bridge using only newspaper and masking tape. Each bridge had to fit certain height, width, and weight requirements. This activity was designed to promote creative thinking and team building skills. Boy, did the students impress! In fact, we had to add extra weight just to narrow it down to our finalists.

Congratulations to Mrs. Reising's and Mrs. Smith’s mentor groups!

P.S. No one may believe it, but after the competition, my students kept adding weight to my group’s bridge back in the classroom. How much did it hold? Five packages of copy paper and nine grammar textbooks. At the same time! This was about sixty-seven pounds—I know because my students weighed it. Amazing!

Mrs. Smith's Final Exam Project

For this final exam project, students will be placed in groups of two or three, depending upon class size. Each group will be assigned a specific topic from the semester. These groups must come up with creative ways to teach or present their topics to the class using the technology of Open Office Impress (similar to Microsoft PowerPoint). During these final presentations, all students must take notes for each presentation. These notes will be used to do the final step of the project, which is “Dump Your Brain.” In this activity, students must write down each topic that was presented, along with a brief paragraph about what they learned in the presentations.

Topics for each class are listed below.

Grammar: Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives & Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions & Interjections, Direct & Indirect Objects, Predicate Nouns & Predicate Adjectives, Gerunds, Infinitives, Participles, & Appositives

English 9: Chapters from A Day No Pigs Would Die (1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15), Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, & Verbs

English 10: Cold Equations, Book of Sand, Pit & the Pendulum, The Bass, the River, & Sheila Mant, Nouns, Pronouns, Action Verbs (T/I), Linking Verbs (PN/PA), & Adjectives & Adverbs

Each Impress presentation is worth 40 points. The Dump Your Brain activity is worth 40 points. Thus, the entire final exam project is worth 80 points total.