Welcome to the new year, 2020 - 2021!
October 12 - October 16 Plans
Monday, Tuesday: Worksheets and discussions about "Lost" and "Hunted"
HW: Read "The Land That God Forgot" for Thursday
Wednesday: Touchstones
Thursday: Journal Entry and discussion about "The Land That God Forgot"
Begin reading "Surrounded" in afternoon
Friday: Journal Entry and discussion about "Surrounded"
HW: Read Epilogue in OWM
October 5 - October 9 Plans
Just to summarize, since I have failed to put these plans up here sooner, this week we
have been focused on reading and responding briefly to The Other Wes Moore. By
Monday of next week our goal is to be completed through the third section, finishing
with the chapter titled "Hunted."
September 29 - October 2 Plans
This week's schedule is diverging somewhat from our focus on the essay, although we
want to move independently from the rough draft form to the finished.
Secondly, we will be reading further in The Other Wes Moore, completing Chap. 2
Tuesday: Rough Draft considerations
maintaining a dominant impression, development
Wednesday: Focus on The Other Wes Moore: role models
Thursday: Discuss Chap. 2, "In Search of Home"
how do people search for a home?
Friday: Final revision work on college essays
HW: College essays due Monday
September 21 - 25 Plans
This week will be structured almost entirely around the composition of our college essay.
Here are the major phases and concerns with that:
- creating a strong opening
- crafting an approach or sequence that continues to develop the opening
- using the concrete images collected earlier throughout the writing
- establishing and maintaining a dominant impression for the essay
One other emphasis for the week will be on starting our first book for the year, titled
The Other Wes Moore. It's a memoir, which is a genre I know you have read before with
Mr. Dold, but there's always an inexhaustible supply of memoirs, and the exposure to
a different reality always pulls people in. This book takes an interesting look at two
individuals whose realities differ from one another, but they didn't have to wind up as
different as they did.
September 14 - 18 Plans
Monday: Generally discuss college concerns, allay fears
Admissions officers are looking for a reason to accept you, not reject you.
Tuesday: Return to essays
1) Topic determined
2) Begin to collect sensory details (see, hear, smell, taste, touch)
*Our intent is to convey life experience, and therefore we need to convey
the details that connect us to life.
3) What was said? Capture dialogue, thoughts.
Wednesday: Continue/Complete Collected Sense Details
Begin to turn sense details into strong phrases and sentences
Thursday: Decide on a dominant impression that you want to develop through
the essay
Create Openings
*Use specific elements from stories
e.g.: actions, descriptions, direct statements, conversation, etc.
Friday: Choose an opening
Organize the essay's approach
What sequence will you use? Why? How will the sequence serve your
dominant impression?