Week at a glance October 14 - 21, 2011

Curriculum focus: determines meaning of words through knowledge of word structure (11.1.3.K3), generating writing based on personal experience (11.7.1.1), organizing and planning a written piece (11.7.1.3), shares a draft with others to elicit feedback (11.7.1.5), revises the draft (11.7.1.6), edits the draft (11.7.1.7), composes persuasive writing (11.7.2.1c), adapts writing by identifying, analyzing, and understanding audience (11.7.2.2), writes using one or more text structures when appropriate to a achieve a specific purpose or to address a specific audience: problem/solution (11.7.2.4d), develops clear and purposeful ideas with sufficient evidence and/or relevant detail to satisfy purpose using sufficient evidence, examples, anecdotes, quotations, expert opinions, and/or statistics (11.7.2.1d), organizes ideas in a logical structure (11.7.3.2), writes with energy and enthusiasm (11.7.3.3), selects and employs words to convey message in an interesting, precise, and natural way (11.7.3.4), creates text that flows easily with a variety of sentence structures (11.7.3.5), uses standard writing conventions effectively to enhance readability (11.7.3.6)

Root words for this week (root - definition - examples):

1. anthrop - people,human - anthropology, philanthropist, misanthrope
2. ego - I or self - egotistical, egomaniac, egotheistic
3. humus - of the earth - human, humble, exhume
4. mater/matr - mother - maternal, matron, matriarch
5. pater/patr - father - paternal, patron, patriot
6. vir - man or manly - virtue, virile, triumvirate

Parent/Teacher Conferences - WRHS will be hosting Parent/Teacher Conferences Wednesday, Oct 19, and Thursday, Oct 20, after school from 4 - 8 pm.

This week will be an interesting week as we have some extra time while the other Junior classes wrap up The Crucible.  One complaint I hear every year is that we never have enough time to do any creative work.  That changes this week as we do a quick, three-day short story unit.  Students will discuss the essential elements of a story on Monday and begin creating their rough drafts.  On Tuesday, we'll add a surprise twist to the unit.  Students will wrap up the unit, typing multiple drafts in the computer lab on Wednesday.  Following our root words quiz on Thursday, we'll preview our next unit: the Junior Research Essay.

• Mon: New root words; quiz on Thursday.  Creating a short short story - discuss the essential elements and create a rough draft.
• Tues: The Short Short Story - assignment, examples, and requirements.
• Wed: Meet in computer lab B.  The Short Short Story - all drafts due by the end of the hour.
• Thurs: Root words quiz.  Junior Research Essay - preview the assignment, requirements, and examples.
• Fri: No school