Student Share

Hoof Prints

By Kristin

Pure tranquility,

Nature’s calm,

Beast and human as one.

Balletic movement,

Effortless aids,

Piaffe and tempis,

Tempo and leg.

Muscles aching,

Sweat from the sky,

Thoughts rushing in.

Beautiful job, Kristin!

For Sandy Hook Elementary

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-By W. H. Auden

What a sad day for our country.

Measuring the Universe

Here is a cool movie to show your students when learning about measurement, or even statistics!

Starting as an empty white room, Roman Ondak’s Measuring the Universe at Tate St. Ives has grown through the contribution of around 90,000 participants to a constellation of black marks.

For more information about Roman Ondák and Measuring the Universe, visit MoMA.

Online Presentation Programs

This week in Comp Lit, we are learning about presentation software like PowerPoint and Impress. If you are working on a class project, there are many interactive online programs like Prezi and Glogster... and they are free! Check out the presentations below. These autobiography book reports were created by my English students last year.

Anne Frank Timeline by Kennedy

  Soul Surfer by Cody

View more PowerPoint from rsol68

Anne Frank by Alyssa

Anne frank on Prezi

  American Sniper by Mackenzie

View more PowerPoint from rsol68

 Nikola Tesla by Logan

Excellent work!

If you create an online presentation, send it my way and I will post it here!

Epic Characters

The Pirate... The Magic Cow... The Ringmaster...

Sounds like an epic tale!

I found this postcard at Cabanon Press and thought it might come in handy. 

When you look at these images, you just can't help thinking up 

a great story.

If you were going to write an epic tale,
what three characters would you choose?

Teens + Digital Media

As a "teen between the ages of 13-17"...
What are your thoughts on the information posted above?

Six-Word Memoirs

When looking for juicy tidbits of writing wisdom, I came across a funny site called Six-Word Memoirs. As you are learning about and writing your own memoirs this semester, I thought this was only fitting!

Okay, so here's the deal. Can you come up with a memoir in only 6 words? I believe you can! Think of an event in your life. Perhaps it is something that happened to you today. Now explain the moment in six words.

Here are a few samples from the site's archives
to get you warmed up to the idea:

Relaxing with the family. So cozy. 

Dressed up today, I love compliments.  

A blank paper is my enemy.

Broken iPod means a broken life. 

You get the picture. Bring on your six-word memoirs, people!

50 Teen-Approved Novels

The following 50 books (and series) were enthusiastically recommended by the high school freshman in my homeroom class. If you are a fan of young adult fiction, print out this list and take it with you to the library or your favorite bookstore. This list may also come in handy as you do your holiday shopping!

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Acceleration by Graham McNamee

Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Beauty by Bill Walace

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Build Your Self Esteem by Glenn Harrold

Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima 

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

Gone by Michael Grant

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Haunting Tales by Mary Downing Hahn

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

If I Stay by Gayle Foreman

Lady Grace Mysteries by Grace Cavendish

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien

Magyk by Angie Sage

One Piece by Eiichiro Oda

Penguin Anthology of 20th Century Poets by Rita Dove

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Surviving Hitler by Andrea Warren

The 39 Clues by Gordon Korman

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 
The Rangers Apprentice by John Flanagan

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Secret and The Magic by Rhonda Byrne

The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John

The Wrecker by Clive Custler

Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Warriors by Erin Hunter

What I Saw and How I Lied By Judy Blundell

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

William series by Richmal Crompton

Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

Sharing is Caring

Well kids,

We have successfully completed Sections 1 - 3 and are half-way through the Comp Lit course! Now it's time to share.

What was your favorite Class Connect, lesson or activity in Sections 1 - 3? 
What did you like about it?

I look forward to your answers!

Text Formatting Assignment

In Computer Literacy, we are learning about formatting pages and text in word programs like Microsoft Word. To check for understanding, I created this end of unit assignment using an excerpt from The Outsiders (a novel many of my students are reading in their English courses this semester).

You will need three files for this assignment.

Instructions:

Original Text File:

Sample of Completed Page:

 

This assignment asks students to change the margins, format text, create columns and add a header and footer. I have gotten positive feedback from my Comp Lit kids AND it's a fun one to grade!

If you would like to download a printable copy of the instructions and the sample, click the link below.

The Outsiders Text Formatting Instructions

Then, copy/paste the excerpt below into a Word or Writer file for kids to manipulate:

An Excerpt from The Outsiders

By S. E. Hinton

Dally was waiting for Johnny and me under the street light at the corner of Pickett and Sutton, and since we got there early, we had time to go over the drugstore in the shopping center and goof around. We bought Cokes and blew the straws at the waitress, and walked around eyeing things that were lying out in the open until the manager got wise to us and suggested we leave. He was too late, though; Dally walked out with two packages of Kools under his jacket.

            Then we went across the street and down Sutton a little way to The Dingo. There are lots of drive-ins in town--- the Socs go to The Way Out and to Rusty's, and the greasers go to The Dingo and to Jay's. The Dingo is a pretty rough hangout; there's always a fight going on there and once a girl got shot. We walked around talking to all the greasers and hoods we knew, leaning in car windows or hopping into the back seats, and getting in on who was running away, and who was in jail, and who was going with who, and who could whip who, and who stole what and when and why. We knew about everybody there. There was a pretty good fight while we were there between a big twenty-three-year-old greaser and a Mexican hitchhiker. We left when the switchblades came out, because the cops would be coming soon and nobody in his right mind wants to be around when the fuzz show.

            We crossed Sutton and cut around behind Spencer's Special, the discount house, and chased two junior-high kids across a field for a few minutes; by then it was dark enough to sneak in over the back fence of the Nightly Double drive-in movie. It was the biggest in town, and showed two movies every night, and on weekends four--- you could say you were going to the Nightly Double and have time to go all over town.

            We all had the money to get in--- it only costs a quarter if you're not in a car--- but Dally hated to do things the legal way. He liked to show that he didn't care whether there was a law or not. He went around trying to break laws. We went to the rows of seets in front of the concession stand to sit down. Nobody else was there except two girls who were sitting down front. Dally eyed them coolly, then walked down the aisle and sat right behind them. I had a sick feeling that Dally was up to his usual tricks, and I was righte. He started talking, loud enough for the two girls to hear. He started out bad and got worse. Dallas could talk awful dirty if he wanted to and I guess he wanted to then. I felt my ears get hot. Two-Bit or Steve or even Soda would have gone right along with him, just to see if they could embarrass the gurls, but that kind of kicks just doesn't appeal to me. I sat there, struck dumb, and Johnny left hastily to get a Coke.