Tuesday, September 9, 2008

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Tonight at Boone we are having a guest speaker in the auditorium at 7 p.m.--Dr. Something will be talking about a year he spent "as a teenager." Might be interesting, and it's free. Also tonight at BHS in my classroom, at 6:30, is the travel meeting for the spring break trip to Germany. This is probably my last year traveling abroad with students (I've been at it since 2002!) but I'd like to go out with a bang, so to speak. Come if you are interested.

(There are other travel opportunities this year that might interest you, too--the band is apparently doing a spring break trip, and one of the foreign language teachers might be organizing a trip to Italy at some point. I'll post more specifics if I find out for sure.)

SOPHYS (Periods 1 and 2): Today is the day for Edusoft Benchmark Testing. Some of you will finish quickly; others will require the whole period. Bring something to read. Would you like a suggestion? How about. . .oh, I don't know. . .The Count of Monte Cristo? Sounds good to me! Bring a pencil for your testing--I have some but they are of shockingly low quality.
Sadly--no Author of the Day today.

APees: Now that you have done your Guidance thing, I want to clarify what's due for the next focus paper. Here is the contract I'm willing to offer:

IF you turn in your paper on time, both in person and on www.turnitin.com;
IF it is double-spaced and has a cool title; and
IF you made a good-faith effort to address either prompt, then. . .

You get a 100 on this paper.

(I believe in a concept called "The One A Paper." Some of you write one each week, because you are always going to hit the 8 or 9 level on the College Board scale; some of you are so, so talented in other academic areas, but not language arts, and an A is as foreign to you as AP Calculus Success would be to me. So. . .you get a 100, and I mark the HECK out of it. Brutal. Slashy. How the AP readers would grade it. But you can take a risk, jump out on a limb, make outrageous claims, and experiment with your writing without the worry that your grade will die just in time for progress reports. Honestly, who doesn't like a 100?)

Focus paper due Friday--by 4:30 p.m. in my hand, and by midnight that night on www.turnitin.com.

Today in class--Oedipus Rex and oracles! We start with the four questions on the oracle sheet, and work our way into Higher Levels of Meaning.

Word of the Day: mendicancy (noun): the practice of begging for alms or food; related to extreme poverty. (This word occasionally appears in 19th century texts--Dickens, etc.)