Friday, August 31

We took notes on our first batch of rhetorical terms today and those need to be used to annotate the excerpt of the Obama speech you received yesterday. If you missed the notes they are available on the P drive: student/kralkueter/AP Language/Basic Rhetorical Terms. We also took a look at grades. If you aren't happy with yours come and see me during lunch! Have fun at the football game tonight. Go Norse!

Thursday, August 30

Third period AP remains under a curse and again didn't get to have much of a class due to the lock-down drill. Seventh, we finished our discussion of "Geraldo No Last Name" after your English teacher stopped babbling to you about miscellaneous reminders. Homework tonight is simply to read and think about the excerpt of the Obama speech--no writing is needed just yet! Excellent thinking in class; keep it up!

Monday, August 27-Wednesday, August 28

How time flies! Monday we reviewed the precis you wrote with a partner on Friday and tried your hand at writing a precis for the ending of Tortilla Curtain on your own. This will be your second grade in AP. :) Because of the junior class meeting, we did not have class on Tuesday. During our micro-mini class period on Wednesday you started class by completing a quick timed writing, then we began discussing your annotations on "Geraldo No Last Name." Hope to see many of your parents and guardians at Thursday's Back to School Night!

Friday, August 24

Today "all y'all" shared the highlighting of details you completed for homework and with a partner added annotations. Then, we wrote our first rhetorical precis (see link to the left if you need the handouts again). Your homework this weekend is to use that sentence as the start of a Brief Response. Don't stress this...it's personal impressions. Be thoughtful as you've already shown you are and you'll be fine! Have a safe and restful weekend. :)

Thursday, August 23

Today, we started discussing the summer reading of Tortilla Curtain and started close reading two passages. You're finishing highlighting one word per paragraph for homework tonight and we'll continue our discussion tomorrow. Remember that your first in-class essay will be next Thursday or Friday and the prompt is to your left of this paragraph in the links. You'll be able to use any of the readings and I'll hand back your summer homework as well. Good job in discussion today!

Wednesday, August 22

In our micro-mini class period today we didn't even get through the syllabus, much less the lesson! We discussed the OPTION of CU Succeed credit for second semester. Start talking to you parent(s)/guardian(s) about this if you're interested. You won't have to do anything more until January or so. Again, the cost is about $225 for three college credit hours. Most importantly is the Nikki Giovanni quote: “I’m a Midwesterner…and one of the things I think Midwesterners do very well is work hard. We don’t expect magic; we make magic." Get ready for the work and the MAGIC!

Tuesday, August 21

One day down! Today, we began thinking about "Good fences make good neighbors" and the poem that this line comes from: Robert Frost's "Mending Wall." We cleared up a couple questions about summer reading: your grade is based on whether or not you did all, part, or none of the work--not on "correct" answers. If you demonstrate reasonable effort, you'll be fine. Also, hang on to copies of Tortilla Curtain for a bit.... Remember, all summer homework is due no later than class time Thursday. Keep learning classmates' names!