Monday May 18

On Monday please bring a new (2nd) copy of your paper to read in class. I will give bonus points to those who remember their additional copy and actually read the paper in front of everyone. You will be having a substitute teacher that day. Please be attentive and polite.

Field Trip Cancelled

Sorry to announce that we will have class on Monday May 18th. The sophomore field trip has been cancelled.

Thanks For A Great Year

A big thanks to all my students for a fabulous school year. Going forward, I hope all of you remember the incredible vocabulary words you learned, the comma rules and sentence structures you memorized, and how to avoid any and all redundancy in your writing.

Have a great summer!

End Of Year Schedule

The end of the year is in sight! I am sure everyone is just as excited as I am. For the benefit of everyone I am publishing the class schedule for the rest of the year!

Friday May 1: WOD, time in computer lab working on final paper

Monday May 4: VQ #15 (last VQ of the year), back in computer lab for final paper

Wednesday May 6: straight to computer lab for final paper

Friday May 8: students again in computer lab for final paper

Monday May 11: final day in computer lab FINAL PAPER DUE AT END OF CLASS

Wednesday May 13: review of entire semester's word of the day

Friday May 15: MID TERM EXAM ON ENTIRE SEMESTER'S WOD

Monday May 18: Sophomore Class Field Trip

Wednesday May 20: Final Exam Review

Friday May 22: School dismissed at Noon: more final exam review

Tuesday May 26: FINAL EXAM!!!! GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Final Paper: A word of warning, advice, and overview

For the final paper of the year, I want you to write a paper of advice, warning, and overview for the benefit of next year's students. Your paper must start with an introductory paragraph, which must include a three-point thesis, have at least three main paragraphs in the body of the paper, and end with a conclusionary paragraph. Your three-point thesis should focus on advice, warning, and a class overview.

Paper must be 40 lines long, 12 points, 1 inch margins, double spaced. EVERYTHING MUST BE LABELED.

Required Elements: Total 60 points
Adverbs: 10
Adjectives: 10
AAN 2
IIAS 2
IPP 2
Nepp 2
IAC 2
Appos 1
PIP 1
BCC 1
IA 1
complex sentences -no more than 10 (10 points)
"to be" verbs - no more than 10 (10 points)
compound sentences - at least 6 (6 points)


In addition to the Required Elements, students must comply with the following:
1. verb tense: use only present tense
2. transitions: all sentences & paragraphs must logically flow from one idea to another
3. vocabulary: use interesting, original, and colorful vocabulary
4. redundancy: avoid redundancy in sentence structure, vocabulary, etc.
5. WOD: students must include 5 words of the day in their paper,

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE IS 180, awarded as follows
40 points for length (1 point per line
60 points for required elements
10 points for only using present tense
15 points for clear transitions
15 points for original, interesting vocabulary
10 points for lack of redundancy
20 points for turning in paper on time
10 points for including 5 words of the day


BONUS: 10 bonus points for including an extra 5 words of the day

Spring Break

Have a great spring break everyone. There is no homework assigned for my class so enjoy your time, especially those going to Europe!

tornado drill

Nothing like a tornado watch to keep things exciting. It was nice to see students behaving in an orderly manner during the experience.

Wednesday we will continue learning about Independent Clauses. Students do not need to bring in a word of the day. Somehow I don't think students will remember to prepare for a vocabulary quiz during spring break.

Class D needs to prepare for a quiz on relative pronouns, correlating conjunctions, and coordinating conjunctions.