Monthly Archives: January 2012

1/31/2012

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We started out making a prediction – what do you think is going to happen today based on the list of words that Riley gave us in class:

Beowulf Prediction

 Then we read The Monster’s Lair and the Battle with Grendel’s Mother – GRRR! FIGHTING! ATTACK!

We then sneezed about snow, and then we worked on a snow globe:

 

This is a Disney snowglobe with elements that show the setting of Disney.

Choose either Herot or Grendel’s Mother’s swamp and create a snow globe with at least five objects that show you understand the setting.

When we finished, we worked on our Foil Flip Doll.

3/30/2012

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Aaaachooo! We sneezed out Sneeze #5 today, and then we spent about ten minutes editing and revising ONE of those sneezes so that Cap’n Riley can grade it. Edit it so that it is mechanically sound (spelling, grammar, punctuation, run ons, sentence structure, etc) and revise it to fix confusing sentences, take away unnecessary stuff, or add to it.

We then read The Battle with Grendel – it took about twelve minutes. Not bad at all. And it made me hungry for chicken legs – that’s actually what I had for lunch today! It was FATED!

We ended the day doing an Open Mind Diagram for Beowulf.

  • Do this in PowerPoint. Make sure it is Portrait, not Landscaped.
  • Find an outline of a head or profile.
  • Find three images that represent Beowulf.
  • Around each image, write four words or phrases. If you use phrases, I want no more than 3 words in the phrase. (3 images X 4 words = 12 words total).
  • Two quotes that are correctly cited that show Beowulf’s personality or his actions.

 

The rubric is in LMS if you want to see specifics.

March 7th

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March 7th. That’s our ELA TAKS test date. We can do this, retesters! 🙂

This is my schedule as of right now when I will at Second Chance from 4-7:

  • Tuesday, January 31st
  • Tuesday, February 7th
  • Thursday, February 9th
  • Tuesday, February 14th
  • Thursday, February 16th
  • Tuesday, February 21st
  • Thursday, February 23rd
  • Tuesday, February 28th
  • Thursday, March 1st
  • Tuesday, March 6th

1/28/2012

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Sneeze #4 happened today! We sneezed about control. Just FYI – Riley is a bit of a control freak. She is not a fan of fate.

Today, we read The Coming of Beowulf and sections 6 and 7 about Unferth. Basically, Beowulf came to help out King Hrothgar of the Danes because Grendel has been attacking his people for twelve years. Everyone recognizes that he is hard core, except Unferth. Unferth puts him on blast, telling him that he heard that Beowulf lost a swimming contest and that if he lost a swimming contest , how could he possibly defeat Grendel?!?!

 Beowulf came back and said that he *WAS* hardcore, that he killed nine monsters that is mroe important than winning some swimming contest.

We then watched these weird cartoons – Strindberg and Helium and figured out what a literary foil is, and then Riley gave us one last assignment that will be due next Friday: A Foil Flip Doll.

Basically you get a doll and two “bibs” – cut them out.

Character #2 + a description.

 

Flip the last bib up and this information should be present:

Top: a definition of a literary foil in your own words. Bottom bid – an explanation of how Character #2 is Character #1’s literary foil.

CHARCTER #2 is so ________ he/she makes CHARACTRER #1 seem even more _________________.

1/26/2012

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Make sure you download the Beowulf text in LMS. It’s long (29 pages!), but print it to OneNote or Journal Writer. Today, we read The Wrath (Anger) of Grendel and took notes.

Then we talked about how the Christians believed in Free Will while the Pagans believed in Fate. So Cap’n gave us a list of quotes and we had to sort them into fate/free will categories.

Lastly, she gave us a cartoon that we had to narrate.

Make sure that you use at least three words from *her* Word Storm and that it narrates a story of some kind.

1/25/2012

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Cap’n is really sad that no one is taking her up on her offer of extra credit. 🙁

Anyhoo, today we started out today with a sneeze about tests. It could be anything – a driving test, a TAKS test, or even a pregnancy test.

We then reviewed our posters ONE MORE TIME with our group, and then we did a Gallery Walk. One person stayed with the poster, and the rest of the group rotated to be taught the posters from the other groups.

Afterwards, we went back to our original groups to take a group test. We had to give wegild because SOMEONE in the class lost composure in the game. Our wergild was to show that we respected the culture of the Anglo-Saxons by taking a quiz.

Luckily, he accepted a class average. We were lucky!

1/24/2012

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Riley leveled us up yesterday! I’m now  Cabin Boy! Half the crew is still Landlubbers, so make sure that you are getting your work in. Once the ENTIRE crew gets to Level 1 (that’s ALL classes), we will be rewarded with booty!

The Cap’n started out by giving us each a page from Animalia and we had to do a Word Seach on our letter by finding all of the letters in our picture.

 

Then, with the letter that we were given, we wrote a sentence with AT LEAST ten words that start with your letter. For example, if you had the letter E, you have to use ten E words in your sentence. You can have words that start with other letters – you just need ten E words. Check the rubric to see how she is going to grade it.

Then, we listened to The Breaks and did a Magnet Card summary over caesuras.

WE also learned about kennings, which is a compound nickname. Go to the drop box and give a nickname to the five things there.

We also did a summary sentence over what we learned today: Why the bards talk funny. A hint: A, C, and K.

When you finish, play the Scrambled Dark Ages game – you will see these on the quiz tomorrow (and on the final exam in March)! Don’t worry – the quiz isn’t scrambled – it’s multiple choice! 🙂

1/23/2012

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We were told that Beowulf is an EPIC HERO, but we don’t really know what that means, so we we tto the textbook to find out. We don’t want to accidentally offend King Beowulf when we meet him to request help to fix our ship.

We read and highlighted information from the textbook about epic heroes. We then created out own “Epic Dude” – think of a hero that is epic and fill in the blanks about him/her. Make sure you draw an object in the hand!

We watched the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and wrote an acrostic poem on the back of the Epic Dude that describes elements of an epic poem.

Pretty easy day!

1/20/2012

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We are all now officially pirates with Cap’n Riley. We tried on chain mail today – check it out:

Riley is known for unprovoked attacks on students
 

Vistas students are just as creepy as Cap’n Riley.

We then did a Word Storm, which means we generated as many words as pissbole about the Anglo-Saxons. We sorted them by syllables. The group that gets the most words gets awarded booty on Monday!

 
We ended the day with a sneeze. About peanut butter.
 

1/19/2012

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Today was the first that you little Bucaneers did real curriculum work. Woe to the student that missed today! You missed group work!

We started out by doing a pretty fun activit. The class was split into two groups (right side of the room and left side of the room) and we had to decide what archetype each Vistas staff member is.

After this was completed, we kinda sorta did a map. We labeled the countries on Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) and labeled the countries On Ireland (Ireland and Northern Ireland). We learned that Northern Ireland is NOT a part of the UK – ask anyone in class about it – they will be more than happy to demonstrate. 🙂

Then, we broke off into groups and chose a role: Peanut, Butter, Jelly, or Time. Each role had different sections of the textbook to read. Once you were done reading your sections, you drew pictures that represented what you read. Picture notes are pretty easy!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

If you didn’t finish your picture today in class, take them home and work on them tomorrow for homework. They have to be done for class tomorrow so your group doesn’t get behind.

 
Oh, and we will be having a group quiz sometime soonish. Don’t miss it!