Tuesday, May 31st

Today - vocab 17 ex. 5 is due. Tomorrow ex. 6 is due and your quiz is on Thursday.

You should be finished with your research now. If not, that's alright. There will be computers in the classroom to finish that up. You should be writing the body of your speech now. That will be due tomorrow. Your entire speech should be written on notecards by Thursday so that we can do peer reviews.

Monday, May 23rd

Today, we'll be going over what this speech is going to be about. Then, we'll look at buzzwords to use when giving the speech to your hypothetical audience of college admissions officers.

In your groups, pick one of these websites to look for FIVE buzzwords.

Augsburg College

North Hennepin Community College

Normandale

University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!)

Hamline

Hennepin Tech

Friday, May 20th

VOCAB DAY!

We'll be taking our Vocab 16 tests and starting the new packets for vocab 17. This should be a day to catch up on anything you need to turn in.

Thursday, May 19th

PRESENTATIONS! We're going to finish them up today. Also, vocab 16 ex. 6 is due today, as well as the entire packet tomorrow. Tomorrow, as you know, is the quiz for that packet.

Also, tomorrow, don't forget to turn in your reflections and any other papers that go with your theme triangle projects.

Tuesday, May 17th

First things first - let's go over vocab 16 ex. 5

Then, we're going to explore a concept called barriers to entry. This is a concept that makes it hard for people to understand other communities. For example, let's look at two newspaper websites:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Star Tribune

In order to gain entrance and understand a culture (whether it be a city, country, school or neighborhood), we need to know some of the cultural codes, which included vocabulary, how you act and how you look.

We'll break into six groups. There will be three texts (chapters from The House on Mango Street (pgs. 28-30, 84-85, & 106-107) Brent Staples's "Black Men and Public Space" (pgs. 297-300) and a Newsweek blog article). Two groups will read each text and answer these four questions:

• What is the big problem in what you read?
• What is preventing that problem from being solved?
• Has this ever happened in your life?
• How can somebody solve it?

You will answer these questions as a group and then we will get together to have a large group discussion.

Monday, May 9th

1. Quiz over the ENTIRE book. Don't worry - it's just an essay quiz and you get to use your book.

2. Begin theme triangle project.

DUE TOMORROW: vocab 16 ex. 2

Choose one question to answer. Each answer should be AT LEAST a half page long. Do not worry about writing organization, grammar or spelling - that's NOT what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is that you can answer these questions based on what you know of The Secret Life of Bees as a WHOLE book.

Here's the breakdown of scores:

Do you use quotes or paraphrases (so, otherwise, evidence) from the book? ____/2

Do you explain how this evidence relates to your answer? ____/2

Do you have a correct understanding of the events in Bees. ____/2

Did you answer the question? ____/2

Is your answer at least half a page? ____/2

Go ahead now and pick a question to answer. Please, please, please put down the number of the question you are answering.

1. Do you think T. Ray loves Lily? Why or why not?

2. How has Lily's relationship with her mother changed?

3. What do you think are the positive and negatives of Lily's community?

4. If there were a sequel to this book, what would be the plot? Why do you think that?

Thursday, May 5th

VOCAB DAY!

You will have your quiz and then the rest of the hour to finish the next vocabulary packet.

DUE MONDAY: Finish up The Secret Life of Bees.

Monday, May 2nd

We're starting debates today! Today, you'll prep for your group's debate and tomorrow will be the show down. Also, prepare for your Bees quiz.

DUE TOMORROW: Be prepared for the debate; vocab 15 ex. 5