Thursday, September 30, 2010

(Thurs)Day of the Dead 9/30.2010

   After a failed and sleepy, then grand "Hello Smith", the daily slide on the powerpoint was reviewed.
HOMEWORK for today is to finish SAT exercises 5, The Macbeth comparison paper due (no exceptions for not turning it in!), and to print out the rubric for the essay. The MACBETH ACT V quiz and the SAT 5 quizzes are tomorrow, so study up.
The Macbeth comparison paper also needs the cited sources (in comments) and the paper linked here has all three moive sources and the mook source. For any more citations go to http://easybib.com/, but it is probably unnessecary.
Today in class, we also read the thrilling conclusion to Macbeth with quite a few dead. summary (contains spoliers)

So, two quizzes tomorrow with SAT and Essays due.

Totally Terrific Thursday!!!

Today was an ordinary day in Smith's 5th period English class. Today we read Act 5 of Macbeth and finished the play. Macbeth comparrison paper is due tomorrow. Everyone needs to print off the Macbeth rubic and bring it to class tomorrow. There will be NO execptions. This rubic is called the Macbeth Comparison Paper Rubric, it is on Smith's web page http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Default.aspx?tabid=1924. The paper must be in MLA format which can be found at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. With the paper, there must be a works cited as the last page. The works cited has to be on its own page and must be the last page of the paper. The paper must be put on top of the works cited and those two must be stapled. The rubic must be laid on top of the paper but NOT stapled. The scribe from period 2 has hyperlinked the correct works cited to his post so, if needed you can find that post and look at that for help. Also due tomorrow are the SAT exercises, lesson 5. Remember, the Macbeth Comparison Paper is due tomorrow and Smith does not except any late work! Also by October 8th you will need Fahrenheit 451.
Quizzes
  • SAT tomorrow
  • Act 5 tomorrow
Tomorrow is the varsity football game and the blackout! Go Warriors!!!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Wednesday Period 5

Happy Wednesday! Today in Ms. Smith’s period 5 class we came in with our normal ‘hello Smith’ and quickly sat down. To start we learned the MLA style of formatting our papers, we used a very helpful website that is linked below. After we all felt very comfortable with how to format our paper, we proceeded to watch the Macbeth videos. The class was very amused, to say the least, by the apparition and Macduff family murder scenes! Finally, we finished up with beginning to act out scene 5 of Macbeth! Have a great rest of your Wednesday! The week is halfway over!!!!
Don’t forget—there is writing lab tomorrow to help improve comparison papers!
Tonight’s Homework:
·         SAT exercised and test Friday 10/1
·         Macbeth comparison paper due Friday 10/1
·         Macbeth quiz on act 5 will be Friday 10/1
·         Fahrenheit 451 book by next Wednesday  10/8
·         Bring in comparison paper on flash drive for tomorrow (in MLA style)
Helpful links:
MLA format-
Paper Improvements-

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Totally Terrifically Normal Tuesday

“Hello smith!” (Still not old) Everyone just ate lunch and is pumped for another day of Smith’s 5th block class! Don’t forget SAT lessons due Friday, the comparison paper due 10/1, and you need 451 by 10/8.
At the beginning of class Smith handed back our SAT lesson from last week and the grade for our word trace presentations. She also showed us an easy way to revise your paper if you can’t make it to writing lab today or Thursday.  Go to this site - http://www.sascurriculumpathways.com/ or Smith’s teacher page and click on the very first link. Welcome to the writing reviser! The login is ahswarriors. All lowercase and no spaces. Copy your paper and paste it into the writing reviser toolbox. Then you can see feedback on your paper, like number of sentences, weak words, and wordy sentences. You definitely should use this even if you go to writing lab.
Then we started reading and discussing scene 3, act 4 of Macbeth. Good job to our actors! If you have any questions, blog, and hopefully someone nice will answer you. If you don’t have a question, try to help your classmates please! Shakespeare wrote this act a little differently due to his extreme use of irony, both verbal and dramatic. Also he introduced a character with real emotions and feeling.  Then the act 4 quiz!
Have a great day!

Monday, September 27, 2010

CHECK YES MACBETH

In second hour English today, we finished up the last of the presentations and handed in our Lord of the Flies books including annotations. Congratulations to the hand and blood groups; you made it through the presentations! Backtracking slightly, remember, we have some SUPER important work to do this week: a possible Quiz over Act IV in MacbethFahrenheit 451 is to be in class be October 8th, (the usual) SAT Vocab lesson 5, and the Scene Comparison Paper is due on Friday, October 3rd. REMEMBER: FOR ADDITIONAL HELP, WRITING LAB IS EVERY TUESDAY AND THURSDAY IN THE STUDY CENTER. 

Leaping back to the presentations...

HAND:
  • Key Points: hands need cleansing and are dirty from the sins they commit, Macbeth says it the most
BLOOD:
  • Represented: guilt, death, literal blood, evil
  • Key Points: it showed great connections between night (the need for cover of the actions), sleep (the death represented by blood), and hand (the need for blood to be washed away and cleansed), Macbeth and Lady Macbeth say blood the most
Tips for Presentations:
  • Look at the audience... NOT THE SCRENE
    • This doesn't mean the visual should show any less effort, but that you merely should KNOW what you're talking about
  • How can this be fixed:
    • Take notes up with you, there's nothing wrong with a note card
    • BE EXCITED!
      • Try recreating a scene to entice the audience and draw them in
    • Think OUTSIDE of the box
      • Remember the guidelines from previous presentations, but remember to EXPAND your horizons and PUSH your limits
    • Ask for extra time if you and your group need it
After we finished the presentations, we continued on to read Act IV, Scenes 1 and 2 of Macbeth. Smith gave the class a HUGE HINT before we even began the reading: "This scene is incredibly different" but we, as a class are left to figure out why.

Key points of Today's reading:
  • The Apparitions:
    1. The Armed Head: stated Macbeth should beware of Macduff
    2. The Bloody Child: said that no child born of a woman will hurt him
    3. The Child with the tree branch: told him of the successions of Banquo's descend and Birnamwood (a forest) must move to Dunsinane hill
      • This one still hasn't mush meaning yet, but Smith says we'll know soon enough
    • REMEMBER: the witches are out to make Macbeth over confident: by sharing these snippets of prophecies, he gets an extreme boost
      • They aren't lying to him, they just aren't giving the full truth
  • Lady Macduff:
    • She's angry at Macduff for leaving her and makes it clear (to her son) that he is a traitor
      • However, she doesn't know that Macduff is trying to save their country
    • She and her son get murdered because Macduff wasn't there to be slain by another one of Macbeth's killers
      • Remember: "With blood, there will be blood."
That's just about it for English today! Good luck this week!

Macbeth Act 4 Questions

Friday, September 24, 2010

Living the Paparazzi Life

Today in 2nd hour English Honors, the usual PowerPoint was filled up with our daily tasks, however the Word Trace Presentations and the SAT Tabloid Paper took up the bulk of the class.  There was a major change to the introduction of class today because we didn't recite our usual "Hello Smith". After we settled down, Smith told us to take out our planners and jot down the homework for the weekend. (Homework): finish the Lord of the Flies annotations, which are due on Monday. Also don't forget to start on the Macbeth paper, you can choose from one of the three outlines we've completed in the last couple of weeks. Also don't forget to go into Writing Lab, which Smith highly recommends, it takes place in the study center (by the auxiliary gym) on Tuesday and Thursday all day. So go during an off hour.
Next on the agenda was the SAT quiz over this week’s words. The test today involved writing humiliating stories and headlines about celebrities in Microsoft Publisher. This wasn't too difficult because everyone loves besmirching the usual faces in People magazine, so the words came to mind easily.
After we completed our tabloids, we started presenting our word traces. Here are the notes from the groups in 2nd hour (Except for blood who will present on Monday):
Man- what woman thinks of man, what man thinks of man
Natalie, Mackenzie, Brooke, Courtney, Hannah-
Red= what man is supposed to be
Light blue= what woman are supposed to be
White shows quotes that tie them together
Quotes:
LM ask to be a man- woman are portrayed as weak
Look to the lady- ladies are weak, take care of women and tend to them
Are you a man? Questions manhood and stereotypes that we are to live up to
Strong bold men – Macbeth struggles with being a man and what that means
Lady Macbeth is the one who doesn’t struggle with being
Question: do the main characters defy stereo types of their sex?
Night- Jared, Maggie, Dominic, Brendon, Frank, Rachel
Sleep is at night
LM, Banquo, M say it the most, all fear the night
Evil= night
Scary moments happen at night
Visuals to accompany words
Blood happens at night- night covers up deeds
Used Wordle with Prezi to show common links- last included-livelong- interesting interpretation (livelong the night- bad things will always happen at night)
Sleep-Chad, Chris, Aaron, Andrea, Jenna, Olivia-
Death- sleep
Sleep= loss of innocence
Sleep= inner peace; sleep doesn’t come because of bad dreams and loss of innocence- curtained sleep protects king, but curtains have been drawn back.

Hand- Savannah, Anna, Whitney, Victoria, Kelly, Paul
Hand symbolized the actions that were done- hand
Night= is like a glove and covers-up what the hand does
Man= hands are part of man but M blames the hands.  Doesn’t want to accept responsibility for his actions.  Takes away the guilt, justification for his actions.
Blood= symbolize sin and guilt will never go away even though the blood is physically on his hands, it resides inside, Can’t get rid of guilt.
Action of murdering sleep
Tagxedo
 Don't forget to print off the rubric http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Portals/7/Language%20Arts/Smith/Comparison%20Paper%20Peer%20Evaluation.doc
  for the Macbeth paper and to go into Writing Lab on Tuesday and Thursday. Smith said 1st period on Tuesday is the best time to go because there are not as many people in there. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! PLAY HARD IN ALL YOUR GAMES THIS WEEKEND! GO WARRIORS!!!!!

Santation day!


As we walked into class we got the wonderful privilege of cleaning the desks. Then as all the dirt was wiped away from the powers of Clorox wipes we were greeted by the usually "Hello Class". Then we jumped right into the regular PowerPoint. Smith also made a recommendation to go to writing lab next week before we turn in our comparison papers. It is every Tuesday and Thursday all day, but not before or after school. The best time to go in is on Tuesday and first period because most people are not there. Also Smith has on her website some helpful links.

Our second order of business was turning in unit four's exercises. Soon after that we started on our PSAT quiz using Microsoft publisher. This week each group of three was employed by a tabloid magazine. We had to make interesting tabloids using our PSAT words.


The two groups that got to present today were hand and sleep.



Sleep:
* Group sleep also used prezi with a tagxedo
* There tagxedo was in the shape of a crown
* Each box of their prezi was a definition or an analyzed word.
* They talked about how Banquo was afraid of the night because King Duncan was killed in the night
* Group sleep also told us that they believe that Shakespeare thinks that by sleeping you are a step away from death.

Hand:
* Used prezi and in their prezi there was a picture made in tagxedo.
* There tagxedo was in a shape of a hand
* In each box of there prezi there was a different quiz. A group member would analyze it for the class.
* At the end they talked about some main points.
* One of the points the emphasized the most was that your actions are always displayed on your hands and you can never get rid of it no matter how hard you try to.





Not even a minute after group hand was done the bell rung and we all left class.

HOMEWORK: blog questions, LOF annotations, print of the rubric for annotation LOF, and our essay is due on Friday
* There is the rubric and helpful tips on how to annotate on Smith's website

HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND!! GO WARRIORS :)

Word Trace Presentations

Period 2:
Sleep
Night
Hand
Man
Blood

Period 5:
Sleep
Night
Hand
Man
Blood

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Thursday, September 23


Today, we started off with the usual "Hello, Smith," which never gets old. Today's class went by very quickly, as we were having so much fun working on our word trace projects.


Today in class:

-we started off with a blog post, creating a topic sentence about the character named Jack in Lord of the Flies. The question was: In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, what does Jack most value and why?

-next, we got together with our word trace groups to work on our projects. The words that we have been assigned for this project are blood, hand, man, night, and sleep. These projects are due tomorrow!! Each group will explain to the class why Shakespeare repeatedly used this word in his play Macbeth, and the role that their word plays.

-some ideas that Smith gave our class of how to present were: Prezi, Wordle, Glogster, Tagxedo, Webspiration, and Photo Story.


Homework:

-SAT words Lesson Four is due tomorrow, with all of the exercises completed. We will have a quiz over Lesson Four tomorrow

-Lord of the Flies annotations are due on MONDAY. If you are still confused on annotations, here is a link to Smith's teacher page, which has a document on annotating: http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Default.aspx?tabid=1924

-Our essays are due next Friday, October 1st

*For our essay, we can choose one of the three outlines/essays that we wrote on Macbeth, Lady

Macbeth, or the dagger scene.

-The word trace projects are due tomorrow


Have a great day!!

Word Trace Work Day, Thursday September 23

As we walked into class, we started the day of with the typical " Hello Smith " and we got the ball rolling. We started out with a Lord of the Flies Blog post which can be found here: http://smith9h1011.blogspot.com/2010/09/lord-of-flies-topic-sentence.html#comments

The rest of the hour was spent working on our Macbeth word trace projects. Using the different online tools that were talked about in class yesterday, ( Prezi, Wordle, Tagxedo, ect. ) each group tried to get as much done as possible.

Remember, we are presenting the Word Trace projects TOMORROW along with our SAT words being due and the corresponding quiz. On October 1st, our Macbeth papers are due and if you need help, go to Writing Lab in the Study center on Tuesday and Thursday.

Have a great day and see you tommorrow!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Wednesday, September 22

Wednesday is always the hardest day because it is right smack in the middle of the week. Today our daily "HELLO SMITH!" wasn't good enough, so we had to repeat it.
Today in class:
-exchanged back our third comparison paper edits
-clarified questions on SAT exercises
-took Act 3 Macbeth quiz in groups
-discussed alternative ways to present word traces with your group(words were: Man/Night/Blood/Sleep/Hand):
*PPT
*Prezi
*Webspiration (make an account, you can collaborate with other group members)
*Glogster
*Wordle
*Tagxedo
*Photo Story/Movie Maker
(tomorrow in class we will have the whole time to work on our word traces with our groups)

Homework for tonight:
-LOF annotations/whole book due 9/27 (make sure you have answered all the blog questions about it, and put your "brain" in the book)
-Decide which of the 3 comparison papers you want to write for your final paper
-Final Macbeth comparison paper due 10/1 (use writing lab on Tuesday and Thursday)
-SAT #3 exercises due Friday 9/24 (test on Friday also!)
-Word trace projects will be presented on Friday 9/24

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Anther day in the life of period five!

Class started a little later today. But, as usual Smith came in and welcomed us with the same "Hello class!!" We went over homework then she told us that we might get one more day to work on the word traces with our groups. Smith also mentioned today's cross country meet, which is always quickly responded to by Whitney saying when the next volleyball game is. Soon after the daily PowerPoint we jumped in to reading the rest of Act III in Macbeth. When we finished reading the important scenes of Macbeth, Smith showed us a little bit about webspiration. We did not have to go over prezi since we already got a preview of it during the research about the Elizabethan age before we started Macbeth.

HOMEWORK:
*  annotate LOF (next Monday)
* SAT unit four (questions tomorrow, due Friday)
* word trace information (work on it tomorrow during class)
* edits (tomorrow)
* Macbeth Act III quiz (tomorrow)

*** you can reach the Powerpoint under Smith's page
*** helpful reasource if you are not understand Macbeth
 
> cross country got first in all divisions today :)

Profuse Amounts of Blood in Macbeth (period 2)

Tuesday the 21st. Today was one of the few days that the class did not have to repeat our usual “Hello Smith!” (Even though it was pretty mediocre.) The homework:
  • annotate LOF
  • do lesson 4 of the SAT (all five exercises)
  • the peer edits for the dagger scene are due tomorrow
  • Act 3 quiz is also tomorrow.

So if you missed today then you should probably read Act 3 of Macbeth about five times through. Andrea, you better be reading this because your absence today really let your fellow murderers down! We started with Act 3, scene 2 which takes place at Macbeth’s new palace. He and Lady Macbeth talk about how they have been having terrible dreams about the killing of Duncan and Macbeth tells of something awful that will happen this night but will not elaborate. Lady Macbeth is still unsatisfied and wonders if there is more that they have to do to be happy.
                Act 3, scene 3. Two murderers are standing outside and a third one appears. They are confused as to why there is a third and are almost too distracted when horses come around the corner. They jump on Banquo and kill him. Banquo knows what has happened and tells his son, Fleance, to run away. So the murderers failed in half their mission.
                Act 3, scene 4. A banquet begins and the first murderer tells Macbeth that Fleance escaped.  Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo sitting in his seat and Lady Macbeth makes excuses for his insanity. After all the guests leave, Macbeth decides to go find the witches the next day to figure out why all these crazy things are happening to him. You’d think he would realize that he brought all of this upon himself….
                Act 3, scene 5. The witch’s boss scolds them for giving Macbeth a prophecy. But she’s a bit of a hypocrite because she decides to mess with Macbeth’s confidence and this will eventually lead to his downfall.
                Ac t 3, scene 6. Now both Macduff and Lennox suspect Macbeth. Macduff goes to England to retrieve Malcolm because he just wants Macbeth out.
                We took a look at different ways to do a presentation. Some options are a prezi, webspiration, and a couple others that Smith will explain tomorrow. Study up!!

Lord of the Flies Topic Sentence

In a well constructed topic sentence, answer the following question: In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, what does Jack most value and why?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Monday, September 20th English Honors

Our agenda today in class was…


• Introduce SAT exercise 4
• Check LOF blog-discuss LOF ending
• Collect outlines for paper and exchange (edits due on Wednesday)
• Begin Act 3, blog questions
• HW: Annotate LOF, SAT, scribe, edit outlines, word trace

First, we discussed the ending of LOF in detail and the symbolism in the book. This was a very in-depth discussion on multiple subjects.

Then, we exchanged the outline for the dagger scene using a game of musical chairs. We circled the desks until the music stopped and then we exchanged papers with whoever’s desk we stopped on.

Next, we acted out Scene 1 of Act 3 of Macbeth. We had to rush to put away our computers after that because we ran a little late the whole class period.
It is also why I finished this scribe post at 10 PM.

A Wonderful Macbeth Monday

As we walked in the door and got our computers we got the usual greeting of "hi everyone" and we all replied "Hi Smith" but then we did some no so usual things. We all took out our calenders and wrote down the homework. Our homework is to finish annotating LOF which will be due on Monday, do our peer edits, due Wednesday, look for our word in the word trace, we will probably present on Thursday or Friday, and we have to do our SAT vocab, lesion 4 is due Friday and there is also a quiz on Friday. After writing down our homework we discussed the end of LOF. There were many questions about the ending of the book. We talked a lot about the beast and how the beast changed through out the book. At the end of the book we decided that the beast was exactly what the littleuns thought, it was the evil inside of us and there was no real beast it was all within us. After finishing our discussion we got to the exciting part! We played musical chairs to exchange our dagger scene outline. We all walked around the room until the music stopped, then once it ended we sat down at a computer close to us and that was the outline we needed to edit. After we loaded the outlines to our flash drives we all sat down and read act 3 scene one of Macbeth and started scene 2!
I hope everyone had a great day and i will see you all tomorrow!

Musical Chair Monday- September 20, 2010 Smith's English

Today, in english, Smith started out with the usual, "everyone pull out your planners", to read us this weeks assignments. In case you didn't get the homework, here it is... remember to annotate Lord of the Flies. That is due next Monday, September 27. Our edit on the Macbeth dagger scene outline is due Wednesday and keep working on word trace for you groups. We will probably be presenting  Thursday or Friday. Lastly, SAT chapter four has been assigned, due Friday like always. Remember when you are annotating to put your brain "in" the book! You can keep a journal, write a blog, or take notes in the book. Whatever works best for you. After planning out in our heads how we were going to complete all this homework, Smith switched us over to discussing Lord of the Flies. Many questions were asked. The questions and answers can be found here. After we got all questions clarified, we got our dagger scene outlines ready and played musical chairs to exchange them. How it worked was we danced around the room until the music stopped, whichever computer we ended up at, we got that outline! After that fun exchange, we continued back to our seats to read Macbeth Act 3 scene one and part of two. Have a great rest of your Monday and good luck with the homework!

Macbeth Act 3

Here is the wonderful place to post your questions, connections, and understandings about Act 3.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Bring on the Quizzes! September 17

As homecoming week came to an end, Smith greeted us with with a smile and an agenda. The homework included finishing Lord of the Flies ( not including annotations ), the corresponding blog post, and a comparison essay of Macbeth's dagger scenes. After this was all jotted down, we got the ball rolling by starting our Act 2 Macbeth quizzes in groups. Now what could be more interesting than an advertisement full of SPAM and SAT?  That was the context of this weeks vocabulary quiz, and that took up most of the class period.  Have a great homecoming weekend!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Sunny Days and Challenges

It was a warm, sunny day in Centennial, Colorado. The school was abuzz. Friday September 17, 2010 was more than just any ordinary Friday—it was Homecoming Friday, and the class couldn’t wait for a pep rally and enormous football game scheduled for later that day, plus a parade and dance to occur the day after. Unfortunately, Smith rained on our parade in fifth hour with two quizzes that were by no definition easy--but we embraced the challenge! To kick off the class, Smith relayed the homework (Lord of the Flies chapters 9-12 [annotations aren’t due until Monday, September 27], Lord of the Flies blog response, and the comparison outline of the dagger scene in the Macbeth movies due this Monday, the 19th). If you’re anything like me, you haven’t started any of these assignments yet because of the multiple tests on Friday and Homecoming activities, so buckle down and get to work before the weekend wears you down! After jotting down the homework, we turned in our SAT exercises on the stool, and in groups of three tackled the one-page, hot pink, Macbeth quiz, which consisted mostly of quote identification. Here’s a quick riddle for you: What is the best way to consume mushy ham and turkey product at once? SPAM! Remember the pictures of spam we had to print out for Friday’s class? After we finished the Macbeth quiz, we used these photographs to create an advertisement for a new type/line of spam that included all fifteen SAT vocabulary words from Lesson 3 plus context clues. Since classes were ten minutes shorter to allow time for the pep assembly, these challenging quizzes consumed the entire class period. If you missed Friday’s class, be sure to make up the Macbeth and Lesson 3 vocabulary quizzes ASAP and keep up on the homework assignments! Below is a link to instructions/guidelines for writing the Macbeth comparison paper outline. Remember, these outlines need to include an introduction, conclusion, and three body paragraphs each with three main points! Have a terrific Homecoming weekend and keep smiling!


Links to Worksheets to Help with Annotations: http://arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Portals/7/Language%20Arts/Smith/How%20to%20Ask%20a%20Great%20Question.pdf (help with asking questions as you read)


LOF V. Macbeth- Closed Caged Match 9-12

Macbeth declares an impassioned phrase when he feels that he is caught in all the turmoil he has created. He says, "It will have blood they say. Blood will have blood... (Act 3).

What did Macbeth mean? How does this ring true for Macbeth? How does this also connect to the situtation Jack and Ralph find themselves in Lord of the Flies. Also, include any final impressions of LOF. What did you think?

How did the annotating go for you? Did you feel as though there was a change in your learning/ understanding of the text? Are you seeing big connections to Macbeth?

Thursday, September 16, 2010

"What would Shakespeare do?" Thursday

We started the day with," Hello Smith!". . . even if we had to do it twice:)
Smith assigned us our homework which was-Read LOF (finish 9-12 by Monday; annotations due by the 27th), study and/or complete lesson three SATs and there is a quiz for tomorrow which we have to. . .Print out colored pictures or words of SPAM (like the canned meat), work on word trace and the Dagger Scene Outline (due Mon.).
Then we took a couple of minutes to exchange our edited papers with our partners and wrote down on the chalkboards what make the qualities of a tragic hero for example,
  • Flaws
    • like the having the "blinders on" and not being able to see anything but what they want
  • Nobility
    • this gives them the ability to have a great downfall if they start high up
    • also most tragic heroes need power (Macbeth needed King Duncan's trust in order for him to come into his home and be murdered (oh the irony)
  • Catharsis ( a cleansing, audience needs to feels like all is right again)
And also what it takes to challenge the system as with
  • Courage
    • Jack had courage to walk away from the main tribe
    • Macbeth had courage to kill Duncan
  • Persistence
    • Ralph keeps urging everyone to keep the fire going
    • Lady Macbeth has to continually push Macbeth towards the murder
  • Confidence
    • Piggy keeps getting put down by the other boys but he knows that what he has to say is valuable so he continues to speak
    • Macbeth doesn't even consider getting caught-he must be very confident
  • Intelligence
    • Jack is smart enough to know that his new troops need fire if they are going to cook the pig
    • Macduff is able to put two and two together to be suspicious of Macbeth killing Duncan
Finally we worked with our word-trace groups to find out who said that word or words pertaining to that word the most often, connections through our quote (like in my group, sleep [yay!], we were to connect what we were talking about to the night group), connotations (Implications) we found relevant, interpreting the word usage and quots. We asked ourselves, "What would Shakespeare do?"
Hope everyone has an awesome Friday and a wonderful Homecoming!!!

SPAM-tastic Sporty Thursday!

We started off the day with the usual “HELLO SMITH!” Then we exchanged our edits for the Lady Macbeth scene essays and outlines. I find editing fun because I just recently discovered how to do track changes and comments!

Next we did the word trace. Here are the five words: man, blood, sleep, night, and last but not least, hand. We found our assigned words in our Macbeth books and wrote them down to discuss them. The key is to look for connections to a tragic hero and what it takes to CTS (that’s challenging the system for any of you who don’t know). Using quotes from the word trace, the class was split into groups and we interpreted how the words were used in the play Macbeth.

Word trace

· Connections

o Tragic hero: actions lead to demise, has to have fatal/tragic flaw takes over them, Gilded image between real image and what’s inside, start from position of nobility and falls, audience needs to learn something; catharsis – cleansing, something good must come, tragic hero makes mistake and realizes it

o CTS: futile system (Macbeth), civilization/survival/fear /democratic – Ralph v. dictatorship – Jack (LOF), first be part of the system, think something is wrong and want to fix it, perseverance, determination, confidence, against society, not afraid to do what’s needed, curiosity/thinking differently – outside the box, organization – have to have a plan, needs follower/supporter

· Who says it the most?

· Connotations?

· Interpretations

Our homework for the night is reading LOF 9-12, SAT exercises, outline paper on the Dagger Scene due Monday, and to bring colored SPAM pictures and words.

That was all for today! Here's a link to Smith's teacher pages to see our agenda for the week. Click on week 4. I hope everyone's having a great Homecoming Week!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Wacky Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Here is today’s agenda. First in English Class today, we talked about any questions we had about SAT Lesson Three. Some one asked what to do on Exercise 3 (p. 41 #s 1, 2, 3, 4).Here are the answers. What is in blue is how we got the answers. Semi-colons separate parts of the question. Commas separate different possible answers.


  1. Look at the roots listed above: plunge, under; to come out of something; bringing something together; important, necessary; able to connect; to carry together
  2. "translate" can be broken down into the following roots: trans:across, through; lat: to carry. So "translate" means: to carry across
  3. elated; transfer, transpose
  4. "integr" means "whole" so...integrity; look at the roots again...we want to use “co”... correlate, collect; dismantle, disintegrate
  5. Sentence, adolescence, presents, entrance, ignorance, etc.


We then watched the videos for the Dagger Scene of Macbeth (Act II, Scene 1, Lines 33-64). A comparison paper is due Monday (I'll talk about that more below). These outlines are the choices we have for our final Macbeth paper (so do a good job on them!). Here’s my notes from the movies:

Royal Shakespeare Company
    • Dark room
    • Fog in background
    • Macbeth mutters his words throughout the scene
    • He appears to be very scared
    • Seems to be literally seeing a dagger
    • He then pulls out a real dagger
    • The scene has a creepy feeling
    • A hand bell sounds
    • Rolls up sleeve as if he is going to murder the king soon after
    • We don’t actually see him murder the king
    • Appears as if he is close to mental breakdown
English Shakespeare Company
    • Urban setting
    • Setting is around a fire escape
    • Macbeth thinks half the lines, says the other half
    • Not whispering
    • Seems to be literally seeing a dagger
    • Pulls out dagger at same time as RSC version
    • A church bell sounds
    • Camera shot from top of fire escape shows him walking up right before murder
    • Doesn't show him actually killing Duncan

Roman Polanski
    • Seems to be outside the castle in the dark
    • Imagined dagger is shown on the screen as if the viewer is inside Macbeth's mind
    • Dagger is shiny
    • Dagger floats above him
    • He then draws the real one, but the imagined one still floats in front of him
    • He thinks later part of the lines
    • Actually shows Lady Macbeth pulling church bell
    • Shows servants passed out on the ground, wine spilled all over
    • Grabs servant's daggers
    • Shows Macbeth entering King’s chamber
    • Pulls covers off king using dagger
    • King Duncan awakens
    • Macbeth stabs him repeatedly
    • Crown falls on grown (symbolic)
    • King covered in blood
    • Macbeth again stabs king in neck (to make sure he's dead)

We then talked about the outline that is due Monday.  We’re just comparing the dagger scenes.  Here’s the outline for our outline:
  1. Intro
    1. Attention Getter
    2. Background Info
    3. Thesis (3 points of comparison) - could include: tone of voice, attention to dagger, camera work, setting, costumes, sound effects, music
  2. Body Paragraph
  3. Body Paragraph
  4. Body Paragraph
  5. Conclusion
We are just doing a detailed outline, not any full writing of the paragraphs.
A couple of tips from Ms. Smith:
  • Pay attention to when there is a dagger and when there is not in the movies
  • In any paper if you write "In the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)..."  you can then refer to it as "RSC" throughout the remainder of the paper
Our homework is:
  • To finish Lord of the Flies by Monday (annotations due the Monday after that)
  • Finish Lesson 3 of SAT book by Friday
  • Peer Editing of our outline that was due Monday is due TOMORROW
  • Dagger Scene Outline Due Monday 
That's all we did in class today! Have a great day!