Monthly Archives: January 2013

1/31/2013

by

We read The Coming of Beowulf today – wow. What I can I say about Beowulf? He’s pretty awesome.

He really represents the values of the Anglo-Saxons. We talked about the difference between being COCKY and CONFIDENT – and that Beowulf was confident.

We also discussed why it was significant that Beowulf asked Hrothgar for permission to kill Grendel rather than busting in and kill stealing.

After we finished listening to the bards, there was little punk kid who was smoking, and blowing smoke in the face of a crew member. This crew member lost his/her cool and beat this guy and killed him. Oooooohhhhh nooooooo!   We then took an Anglo-Saxon Culture as WERGILD to prove that we did respect Anglo-Saxon culture – we have to pass the quiz… OR ELSE the Anglo-Saxons will come after us. And here is another group quiz:

1/30/2013

by

OK, Sorry about that last post. I was just too tired to update.

We started reading Beowulf – The Wrath of Grendel. Print Beowulf Text to OneNote and get the notes from a crew member who took good notes. Zully took good notes, Lorena took good notes, Brittany took good notes, and I’m pretty sure that in 3rd block, Victoria took good notes.

Here is a blurry picture of Grendel. GRRRR!

After that, we were given a bunch of quotes and we sorted them into FATE and FREE WILL.

Lastly, we tried on CHAIN MAIL! This is the type of armor that Beowulf wore. Here are some of my pirates wearing trying it on. 🙂

I’ll add more chain mail pics in the next posts.

 

1/29/2013

by

Arrrrrrgh!

We did a lot of little things today, me mateys.

We started out doing a word search – Riley gave us a picture from the book Animalia and a sheet with  a letter on it. If you have the letter A, write as many A letters down inside the letter that you can.

So, you can see from this picture that there are a whole bunch of A’s in here. Write them down in your letter like Zully is doing down below.

So, if you need a letter, choose one of the following:

Or you can choose this one:

To go get the letter, go to LMS, Beowulf, Vocabulary to find the PDF file of either C or P. Print it out and start writing down words!

When you are done with that, you will then a ten word alliterative sentence. If you have C, you are going to write ONE sentence that MAKES SENSE that has AT LEAST TEN (school appropriate) C WORDS. If you have P, you are going to write ONE sentence that MAKES SENSE that has AT LEAST TEN (school appropriate) P WORDS. Write this sentence around your letter.

Think of it this way: start out with a base sentence, like:

Ellen Eves entered the east entrance.

That’s only five E words, so I need to add more.

Think of and adjective for Ellen, like this:

Energetic Ellen Eves entered the east entrance.

Look at your VERB. Think of an adverb that can describe it.

Energetic Ellen Eves eagerly entered the east entrance.

Still short? Try adding adjectives such as colors and numbers.

Energetic Ellen Eves eagerly entered the east entrance eight times.

Energetic Ellen Eves, when she was only eighteen, eagerly entered the east entrance eight times.

Nine Words! This is  where I suggest going to the dictionary to find an E word that you can incorporate and using PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES.

Energetic Ellen Eves, when she was only eighteen, eagerly entered the east entrance eight times with an entourage after the examination.

Then, we listened to The Breaks and watched Riley dance crazily around the room. You kinda missed the show here, but she was demonstrating caesuras.

What you need to do is on an index card, write caesuras on the front, and then write the following four words around it in the four corners: pause, suspense, comma, break.On the back of the card, write a definition for caesuras using those four words. Ask a crew member for help if you need it. 🙂

Then, we worked on kennings. A kenning is pretty much just a fancy nickname. The Anglo-Saxons used them, so to understand the bards, we need a little nickname practice. Go to the Beowulf vocabulary folder in LMS and click on the Kennings Drop Box. In the message section, read the instructions and give me a nicknames for each of those five objects. Again, if you need help, ask a crew member. 🙂

Lastly, we worked on the Hagar the Horrible cartoon. If you need a blank one (3rd block), ask the Captain for one. You will give the cartoon dialogue using three vocabulary words from the Word Storm. Either ask to see a crew member’s Word Storm, or stop by Riley’s room after school and she can print you hers.

1/28/2013

by

Today, Riley started out today with the Riley Review of Peanut Butter Jelly Time – it was pretty much just a small mini-lecture reviewing all the history bits from last week.

Captain Riley as a Celt

Remember that OLD ENGLISH is not the same thing as ENGLISH.

Our adventurers came back from their reconnaissance mission tired, but with much knowledge. We learned that there is an old, epic king who is very generous, noble, and honorable who might be willing to help rebuild The Revenge (that’s the name of the ship, remember?).

But what does epic mean? We watched The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and identified what made this ULTIMATE, and then we took notes over an epic. Get those notes from crew member, Zully.

We then worked on the Epic Dude. Using our notes, find an epic hero and fill out the template.

One last bit of great news: ALL of my students have leveled to cabin boy!

1/25/2013

by

This is the best Friday of my entire teaching career. Seriously.

Admiral Ekster came in to observe me in first block, and my students made me look like a BOSS. It was like I bribed them to act like this.

Then, in second block, I had three students who filled in their nuggets and start to do their assignment from yesterday -Aaron, Cris, and Josh were given an Extra Davy Jones’ Locker pass right then and there.

We had about 45 minutes to finish up Peanut Butter Jelly Time, and then we taught the rest of our group members our pictures.

We also worked on the Word Storm, which was just our way of organizing all the important vocabulary words by syllables.

Here is one from a few years ago.

We will have a group quiz next week – you will be able to work with your Peanut Butter Jelly Time group, use your poster, and use your Word Storm.

Have a great weekend!

1/24/2013

by

Avast, landlubbers and cabin boys! We decided to leave port and head out for a journey to Scandinavia.But like any good sailors, we have to look at maps. So, we looked at a map of the British Isles. This won’t be worth any XP, but you will be able to use this when we meet the Boss of the game (the final exam).

As we were out at sea, a dragon attacked us! It scared quite a few of us, and actually destroyed the ship – it took down our mizzenmast, with the crow’s nest. Sadly, we lost poor Tanner in the attack. The dragon ate him. 🙁 That’s what you get for being absent.

So, there were. Stranded on a strange land. We didn’t know if these people were friendly, cannibals, or even where we where! Cap’n put us into groups (based on our nature/demeanors) and we set out on a recon mission to investigate where we are and what kind of people we are amongst.You are either a Peanut, a Butter, a Jelly, or a Time. (Tanner, you are a Time).

Read your sections from the textbook, highlight the important items, and then DRAW them on the index cards you were given. An index card for each section (that’s why you have three index cards.

Just saying, I love my classes this term. So far, you guys are rocking my Viking horns!

1/23/2013

by

Ahoy, mateys!

Captain Riley started off today by finishing the character sheets (specifically the attributes) and then we all gave ourselves the merit Deja Vu – when means we can redo any assignment for full credit (excepting late points). Make sure that she sees this so she can give you credit for your character sheet!

Then we did a foldable in LMS called Three Promises – Riley’s Three Promises are:

  1. I promise to make sure that if you take the time to do the work, I’ll take the time to grade it.
  2. I promise that I will not give you work that I haven’t done myself. I don’t give “busy work.”
  3. I promise that as long as you follow the five R’s of Vistas, you’ll pass my class.

Take the template that she gave you, and write her three promises! Also, change the clip art. 🙂 Drop this off in the drop box, and print this bad boy out and create the foldable as well.

We then watched a short video called “Wear Sunscreen” – the file is in YouTube and can also be found on YouTube as well. When you have watched it, find one piece of advice that for whatever reason is really meaningful to you, and use it as a writing prompt. I am not going to give you a length requirement or a time requirement – I just want you to write. Don’t worry about spelling or mechanics – this is just a free write. I want you to write this on paper – this is a personal writing assignment, and I find that typing is a rather impersonal task. Put pen (or pencil) to paper and feel the heft of your words on the page. Deep stuff, huh?

Turn that in the OSD (Old School Dropbox). This is up at the front of the room, but just ask if you can’t find it. 🙂

 

1/22/2013

by

Welcome to English IV!

Every day, I (or someone else) will post what we did in class. This is great resource to use if you miss a day, or just forgot what we did.

First day, we talked about the gamification of the classroom and why we are doing and then we created character sheets. We talked a lot of nature and demeanors (there is a sheet in LMS for you to look over) and Riley really does look at those. The first group assignment will be based on what you put down for those, so choose carefully!

Make sure that you do the First Day survey that Riley has for you – there are a few people who were present today, but she just didn’t do the survey!

Riley is on a point system, and you can earn up to a total of 1500 points throughout the year, so earn as many as you can!

We talked about Achievements (like on XBox or Steam), Merits and Flaws (super powers you can get at progress report times), and Booty (one time use cards that give you a class privilege). Everyone who was at school today earned a freebie – Davy Jones’ Locker (a restroom pass) and the achievement Deja Vu (you can redo any assignment for full credit)!

Lastly, we did the Archetype Match. There are five words. For each word, assign it a color (as in Architect was assigned yellow the picture). Then, find the definition for the word and two pictures. Each word has a definition and two pictures. Here is the example that we did in class:

End of Term 2

by

My finals are done, grades are in, and I’m just sitting here on campus waiting for the noobs to get here.

I’ll be teaching all English IV this term (huzzah!), I’ll have an all girl group for STAR/REading, and I’ll be doing ELA TAKS tutoring in the evenings for Second Chance two nights a week.

I don’t have time to mess around.

See – PROOF that I’m a full-time pirate. If you are lucky, you might get one when you sign go on adventures with me!