Hey class, remember back in March when we were going to class every day? Remember the first VERY LONG POST I wrote you after school became what it is now? Like Einstein said, time is relative, and it has certainly been passing in a strange way this semester. I feel like I have known you for several lifetimes instead of five months. Somehow everything is moving faster than it ever has and slower than it ever has, simultaneously. What I'm saying is, summer is almost here. You've finished all your assignments, and even your late work will be done by the end of today. We have one more week together for enrichment, and then you'll be out on your own, transformed into juniors, starting on the second half of your high school lives. Every time summer rolls around, every time I clean up stray papers from my classroom and verify grades for the last time, I always sing the "Summertime" song to myself: "Summertime and the living is easy," like Etta James says. This week, your enrichment activities were to map out your own specific goals and make them SMART. For our last week of school, we're going to talk about English class specific summer goals to help you succeed in the rest of your high school language endeavors. There are 3 main areas for you to focus on: 1. Summer Reading 2. Annotation 3. Sentence Structure Summer reading is a reality of every grade-level transition at Bellaire. As for the annotations and the sentence structure, we (the English 2 teachers) asked the English 3 teachers what skills you guys would need to succeed in English 3 next year. They said if you had an understanding of annotating and sentence construction, you would be set up for success. Summer ReadingFor summer reading, you can choose to read any one of the following three books: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, and Sunrise over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers. These books are for Academic English 3 and College Prep English 3. If any students are planning on signing up for AP English Lang, the books are different. If you are interested in AP English next year, please email or Remind me to set up a TEAMS meeting, and I'll tell you about the summer requirements for AP. If you have any questions about the summer reading, I will post a couple of English 3 teacher email addresses in Google Classroom for you to contact. If you want to read a murder mystery with strong and innovative point of view, try out The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I read it in college and loved it. The video above is a promotional trailer for a stage production of the book. If you enjoyed reading Night in class, you will probably love The Book Thief. Marcus Zusak is one of the most compelling authors I've read recently. Highly recommended. Many of you are already familiar with Walter Dean Myers' work: he wrote Monster and Bad Boy. Sunrise over Fallujah takes place post 9/11 during the war with Iraq. I don't think it's possible to choose a bad book from this list. I will say, if it were me, I would choose The Book Thief: such a beautiful book. Happy reading!! AnnotationAnnotating a text means writing on it and engaging with it. If you are in a position to buy your own copy of your summer reading book, annotating that book is a really good place to start because you will have some activities and assignments associated with your book when you return to school in the fall. This video from Lisa's Study Guides gives a lot of specific strategies for annotating. I love looking at all the examples of annotating and notetaking on Pinterest and Instagram. Some students out there have elevated these skills to an art form. Your annotating doesn't have to be as codified, neat, or artistic as these annotation super-stars to work. Any form of annotating, no matter how messy, can help you engage with and deepen your understanding of any text you are reading. Sentence StructureYour English 3 teachers also recommended that you brush up on the different types of sentence structure. Sentence structure and grammar in general is a different kind of skill from literary analysis. In my experience, some students love it, some students hate it, and very often the students who loved literature hate grammar and vice versa. But studying sentence structure can have big, big payoffs for you, the kind that last your whole life. Understanding the way language works can help you create more sophisticated sentences of your own and communicate with the world more effectively. It can also give you the basic framework of understanding you need to make learning the structure of a second, third, or fourth language easier. Khan Academy has a free and easily understandable learning track for syntax, which is just another word for sentence structure. Here is the link. Well, guys, that's a wrap, LAST POST-wise. Stay safe, stay positive, stay healthy, stay curious. It's been my privilege to teach you this semester. Happy summering!
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AuthorI'm a Houston high school teacher in the Spring of 2020. Welcome to my adapted, socially-distanced, quarantined English II classroom. Archives
May 2020
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