End of first week

We both agreed that the first week went really well and told the 9th grade class how pleased we were. Two students were added to our class, so we have 14 now. They finished their last part of the HOLT test, and then I went over some more homonyms. Most of them I found in their first writing assignments. I reviewed parts of a sentence with them; nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The in-class assignment was identifying sentences and fragments. I then had them create a sentence off the top of their heads using the above three parts. I plan on going over prepositions with them on Monday, and a possible quiz later in the week over the terms. The library dropped off all the teacher materials for their literature book. I'll be starting with A Christmas Memory on Monday. The English department chair dropped off a bunch of lessons after I left, which will be a big help. Their homework over the weekend is to write a one page reflection on "Respect."

With the 8th graders, I had them finish the last 10 questions from the previous day's assignment. We then reviewed the elements of a novel and I added setting. I then had them read aloud the story Broken Chain by Gary Soto. I stopped them at certain parts so we could discuss what was going on and apply their knowledge of terms to the story. We ran out of time, and I told them we'd finish on Monday, but they wanted to find out what happened, so I told them to read it over the weekend for homework. (Even though I said I wasn't going to assign any because of the HOLT testing.)