Eng 9: Speak Begins

We're continuing with our Power of One unit with our next whole class reading: Speak.  This isn't a difficult book to read, but it can be a difficult one to discuss.

Over the next several weeks we are going to go into some pretty intense places and this will require tremendous empathy and our three core principles of this classroom -- something we need to review and dig into more here in the middle of the year -- acceptance, communication, and trust.

• We have to accept that we are all heading into this book from different points of view and different experiences.
• We have to communicate our ideas and thoughts clearly and effectively and remember that our actions speak as loudly as our words.  That communication is as much about listening as it is speaking.
• We have to trust that we will be heard and that we can trust the ideas and feelings shared here during our class time can be honored with respect and dignity.  We also have to trust ourselves to try things and take big risks.

We'll be doing some activities in class to help us work on accepting, communicating, and trusting -- each of those being one word.  In fact, I think I'd like us to do some self assessment in those areas and choose the one -- the one word -- on which we'd each like to work over the next several weeks.

For Tuesday, we'll start with our new vocab: Roots 9.   (9! This is a big deal folks!).  We'll take 10 minutes with Quizlet to get accustomed to the new words.

From there, we will spend ten minutes on No Red Ink.  If you did well on your Commonly Confused Words 2 Quiz, you have ten minutes of free time or time to explore other aspects of No Red Ink including getting ahead on our next section -- complete sentences.   If not, do some Commonly Confused Words 2 practice and get ready to retake the quiz.

Then we go on a field trip down to the front of the building.   We'll be doing some work on recapturing what it was like to be entering school on the first day as we try to empathize with Melinda, the protagonist (main character) of Speak.

From there we will start reading Speak and comparing our experiences to Melinda's.

SHOW YOUR WORK.

Read.  TBA.

Blog.  The 10 Lies They Tell You in High School.

In a blog post, list the ten lies you believe you were told on the first day of school at Mt. Blue. Then compare and contrast your list to Melinda's in Speak.  Where are there commonalities and differences?

Due.  Thursday.  Feb 25.