Out of Order

The one problem I have with the school is that there are only two copy machines, and they're both out of order. So the test I was going to give my 8th grade students will have to wait. Luckily, I copied the 9th grade tests yesterday, but we didn't have enough time to review today. I went over denotation and connotation with the 9th graders. I used words like, "sick" which is slang for "cool," much like "bad." I then got some words like, "trip" and "phat" from the students. The handout I used had common words and their task was to plug the positive ones into a template paragraph, and then write the same paragraph using negative feeling words. We then read and interpretted a couple poems and went through the poetry terms list as well.

I created a movie review criteria sheet for the 8th graders to use when they start writing about their movie. I will bring in some sample reviews tomorrow for them to look. The review follows the same basic elements of a book review with some additional terms to look for. I played Pocahontas for them and explained each of the terms in relation to the movie. Disney films are easiest to view and point out the elements because they are basic in structure. However, the students were able to remember and identify certain elements from The Birds, even though we had watched it about two weeks ago.