Monday, January 4, 2010

Welcome to the new year, if not the new semester--we still have until January 25 or so to finish this quarter. I've been reading online about the debate between pronouncing this year "two thousand ten" vs. "twenty-ten" and I have to say that I am partial to the brevity and power of the latter. Regardless of what you call it, though, we have entered a new decade, and I truly hope that each of you finds great fortune, knowledge, and understanding in your future endeavors.

Announcements:

1. For those of you who still need service hours for NHS, I have an opportunity for you--I could really use some help this week cleaning 313 in preparation for district and state level visitors from the Advanced Studies Department. The first item on the rubric they are using states "A clutter-free classroom is evident," and man am I in trouble. Right-brained over here; need some help.

2. If you are on the Project X-Mas committee, thank-you note season is upon us! Many, many people helped us reach our goal this fall, and we need to thank them appropriately. I've already sent e-mails to the entire faculty indicating our gratitude, but see Mary Claire for individualized thank-you note plans. Service hours, as always, are given for your work on this committee.

3. Sophys: You will need to acquire a personal copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White before the end of January. It will be our primary grammar guide for the spring term.

4. Seniors: You will need to acquire a personal copy of Jane Eyre IF you wish to annotate as you read. Our first reading in the Romantic unit will be Frankenstein, available in the BHS library, but JE lends itself more to marginalia. If you are so inclined, it's a worthwhile investment--and you can take it with you to college next year for literary magic 8-ball purposes!

Today's Lessons:

Gifted English II: Julius Caesar--review key concepts from December, review Act I main points, and distribute thought questions for Act II. We will also be going over the memorization assignment, which is due by the end of this month as well. Two of you are already finished. Bravo! I will have a finished calendar for you by the end of the week with all of the registration dates for next year's classes, as well, and can start meeting with you one-on-one to help make decisions about your schedule.

AP Lit and Comp: I asked each of you to annotate "Preludes" by T.S. Eliot; today in class, we are going to analyze the heck out of this lyric poem. Come prepared to TP-CASTT and beyond, and to massage a lot of diction. Mere months to go until the national exam, my peeps. Months to go.

Announcements: Mid-October Version

I hope that everyone enjoyed their three-day weekend break, and that Homecoming was fabulous! And I truly hope that no one saw my face. . .if you saw the Puppet Show on Friday, you know what that means.

The end of the first quarter is rapidly approaching, and while most of you have been keeping up admirably with your make-up work, I still have a handful of sophys who owe me make-up assignments from extended absences (swine flu is very real, people) and APeeps who need to make up the Mactest or a Macquiz or two. I am frantically grading submitted work this weekend, and anticipate printing out a ProgressBook roster for everyone to check by the end of business on Monday. As I've posted here before--frequently--I am having immense trouble wrapping my brain around this program, and not a little bit of it is the disconnect between the ProgressBook platform and my Macbook. (Apple, not Macbeth.)

If you detect a discrepancy between a paper you have in your possession and the score online, please see me ASAP. That said, I should have your averages updated with two weeks to spare for those of you interested in submitting make-up work or resubmits for the ORex papers. Again, e-mail me at jennifer.hilley@ocps.net if you have questions, but please give me the rest of this weekend to sort through everything. I have never had so many students--and y'all turn in all of your work! Well, most of you.

Community Service: I have service letters for about ten of you who have already done comm serv this quarter, but if anyone needs hours for NHS or for Bright Futures, I could still use help in the following arenas:

1. Project X-Mas. We are starting to collect for this project at the end of this week, and Katie C. needs help with her crafts committee. Beacoup hours available here.

2. English Department Office. Mrs. Nicoll and I need some help straightening this out for the Writing Center--cleaning the appliances, finding new homes for the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, and hanging of student art. Hours available after school AND during a research period, if you are available.

3. Sophomore Locker Creation in the Sarcasm Closet. Many of my sophys never got lockers, for various reasons, and I had some students relocate two bookshelves into the Sarcasm Closet. These need to be organized so that the sophys can store materials here.

4. General filing and non-confidential paperwork management. There are a myriad of things I cannot have you do, for legal reasons, but some tasks can be done by students--filing, listing paperbacks, sorting through extraneous materials.

I'm also interested in getting Information Society back off the ground this year, and re-instituting the Contemporary Literature Reading Circle. Both of these cultural (!) opportunities can yield service hours. And, of course, consulting in the Writing Center is the primary means by which I award comm serv. I will be distributing hours sheets at the end of the quarter, so be sure that you sign in each day that you serve during A or B lunch.

So. . .need hours? See me. I want to help you reach your goals, and I am lazy enough to have plenty of opportunities for you to do so. :-)