Monthly Archives: January 2008

1. Email or call three sustainability organizations to determine whether or not they are interested in working with 8th graders over the next three months. Keep copies and/or notes about every step you take. A “progress report” is due next Thursday, 2/7. Click here to get the business letter and phone call script we composed. If you run into a problem, let me know, and I will help you. DO NOT GIVE OUT PERSONAL PHONE NUMBERS OR ADDRESSES! Also, do not save this until the last minute.

2. Read and highlight four readings on Tenement Life in the packet I handed out in class. Start tonight and complete by Monday in preparation for Monday’s field trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

3. Core B: Bring independent reading book!

Click here to get the business letter and phone call script we composed. Thanks for typing it up, Sophie! You should be diligent about contacting three sustainability organizations and hearing back from them by the end of next week. If you run into a problem, let me know, and I will help you. DO NOT GIVE OUT PERSONAL PHONE NUMBERS OR ADDRESSES!

Due tomorrow, Thursday, January 31

You have one more night to prepare for our next Socratic Seminar on “Lady L,” the Statue of Liberty, and all she symbolizes. Complete the Lady L packet (click here for directions; readings you have to get from me in person): read, annotate, and reflect on

1. Hakim Chapter 7

2. Lazarus poem

3. Hamod poem

4. Lester article

Attach your definitions AND NOTES that answer all the questions about mood, imagery, etc. to the packet. I will collect these after the Socratic Seminar–be ultra prepared!

Due Thursday, January 31

You have two nights to prepare for our next Socratic Seminar on “Lady L,” the Statue of Liberty, and all she symbolizes. Complete the Lady L packet (click here for directions, but readings you have to get from me in person): read, annotate, and reflect on

1. Hakim Chapter 7

2. Lazarus poem

3. Hamod poem

4. Lester article

Attach your definitions AND NOTES to the packet. I will collect these after the Socratic Seminar–be ultra prepared!

1. Type up your summary and reflection on today’s Image Gallery activity, as explained in the handout. There is no length requirement, but aim for about one typed page, double spaced, 12 point font. Refer to specific comments, not to judge them, but to illustrate your points.

1. Read Hakim’s Age of Extremes: Preface, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5. Complete 8 questions from worksheet on a separate sheet of paper. Don’t forget to use the proper LREI heading!

1. Write a one page typed (double spaced) response to the film “The Great Debaters.” What impressed, moved, bothered, confused, inspired you about it? Why did we do to this movie–how does it connect to Core? BE SPECIFIC.

2. Prediction Worksheet on Gilded Age/Progressive Era. Make educated guesses!

3. Core B: Bring independent reading book!

Excellent job leading the MLK Assembly, you brilliant people!

homework due tomorrow, printed out at 8:20am:

1. Read Bill Bryson’s “Wordplay” from his book I’m a Stranger Here Myself and David St. John’s poem “I have always loved the word guitar” (see below). Absent people–just read the poem below.

Then, write two poems about words, starting and ending with the lines “I have always loved the word __________ ” (or “I have always hated/disliked the word ________ “).

GUITAR 

by David St. John

I have always loved the word guitar. 

I have no memories of my father on the patio

At dusk, strumming a Spanish tune,

Or my mother draped in that fawn wicker chair

Polishing her flute;

I have no memories of your song, distant Sister

Heart, of those steel strings sliding

All night through the speaker of the car radio

Between Tucumcari and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Though I’ve never believed those stories

Of gypsy cascades, stolen hoses, castanets,

And stars, of Airstream trailers and good fortune,

Though I’ve never met Charlie Christian, though

I’ve danced the floors of cold longshoremen’s halls,

Though I’ve waited with the overcoats at the rear

Of concerts for lute, mandolin, and two guitars–

More than the music I love scaling its woven

Stairways, more than the swirling chocolate of wood 

I have always loved the word guitar.

1. Answer the 10 Socratic Seminar Follow-Up questions on a separate sheet of paper, typed or handwritten legibly. If you were absent today, answer only number 1.

2. Decide what piece of creative writing you would like to submit to the LREI Literary Magazine. Bring in a PROOFREAD, EDITED paper version and a flash drive with a digital version. If you cannot decide between a few options, bring them all in. We will spend Wednesday’s Writing Workshop preparing these submissions–you must participate and come prepared!

3. Core A: Bring independent reading book!

Due Tuesday, January 22

1. Read the directions first, then read, annotate, and answer questions about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

We will have a Socratic Seminar on Tuesday about this famous speech. Be prepared with insights and ideas!

1. As decided within your group, type up/prepare either summary, reflection, presentation, or visual.

2. Read other two articles in packet and answer questions a, b, and c.

If you have any questions about details of the above, click here.

Where to find the articles if you lost them or were absent:

Where the Air Leaves Them Breathless:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/nyregion/thecity/05asth.html

MLK Day Editorial: Environmentalism and Civil Rights:

http://www.duke.edu/web/ESC/2006-01-13MLKday.html

Europe Takes Africa’s Fish:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/world/africa/14fishing.html?th&emc=th