Marking Period 1
For the first marking period, we wrote personal essays and we created our ideal bookshelf (basically books or series that we really enjoyed reading and why we decided to put those books on our ideal bookshelf). We also had to write four reading responses a week, which was very difficult to do (good thing the reading responses didn't have to be that long!).
Marking Period 2
We read "The Diary of a Young Girl" (about Anne Frank's life) and we talked about the Holocaust and how Anne was feeling while she was hiding in the attic. After we finished the book, we did RAFT projects (basically mini-projects about the book) and had the option to do more for extra credit (the requirement was four, and we got to choose from a sheet of paper which four we wanted to do). We also began our editorial unit.
Also, the reading responses changed to eight responses per two weeks (which, for some reason, made us less stressed). We also began to do portfolio walls, which we had to update the week we didn't have responses to turn in.
Also, the reading responses changed to eight responses per two weeks (which, for some reason, made us less stressed). We also began to do portfolio walls, which we had to update the week we didn't have responses to turn in.
Marking Period 3
For this marking period, we finished our editorial unit and we began our book clubs (we read about dystopian literature). We also dropped the reading responses since a lot of people were running out of pages in their notebooks. For my book club group, we read "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and we had to create a project about the book. My group decided to do a video project about the book. Luckily, the deadline was extended until the fourth marking period. Our class also had a student teacher (most of us really like her!) and she did a mini-unit with us, where we read and analyzed the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson (it was rather disturbing) and afterwards had a debate about tradition vs. change.
Marking Period 4
For this marking period, we finished our Dystopian Literature Project (we finally finished the video - it took us three weeks and ended up being around 20 to 21 minutes long) and we began to read Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and learned about sonnets and went into a bit of detail about his life. We still haven't finished reading it yet.