Lesson Plan for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, October 11-13 2006

Dear Grade 8,
Please stay focused and concentrate on your work. You have to get a lot done over the next three days.

Wednesday, Oct. 11:
1. Finish posting the synopsis of book #1 for this quarter. It must be 150 words (ie. 140-160), be in complete sentences, and cover the 6W's (help each other remember them!). I expect to see the rough copy in your notebook from two weeks ago!

2. If finished 1 above, do the synopsis of book #2 for this quarter. You should have already written the 150ish word rough draft in your notebook. If, and only if you are finished the rough draft written in your notebook, you may type it in as a separate blog entry.

3. Make sure that Mr. Rossol has your blog info. on a piece of paper (thanks Mr. Rossol!). This means the BLOG web address, and the username and password.

4. Re-read the vocabulary and other items from last week's Wednesday blog to check if you knew everything on the quiz yesterday.

5. Write down your homework AND the lesson plan (below) for Thursday and Friday...)
HOMEWORK: Have book THREE ready for class tomorrow. If you need to go to the library, that is why you get recess and lunch on Thursday!!!! (stop whining!). Remember that class is in B2 on Thursdays...


Thursday, October 12th.
1. Read novel #3.
2. If finished, write the synopsis.
3. If finished, double check it.
4. If finished, triple check it.
5. If finished, quadruple check it.

Friday, October 13th.
Report to the library last period. Ms. Waldorf is expecting you. You are to:
1. Continue reading novel #3.
2. If done reading novel #3, write the synopsis.
3. If done 1 and 2 above...get novel #4.

I expect nothing less than perfect behavior. Ms. Waldorf will email me if there is any reason to do so, and imagine your parents surprise if they get a phone call from me in the USA because you did not behave yourselves in the library....I wouldn't want to be you of that happens (thanks for keeping me informed, Ms. Waldorf!).

LA8 Lesson Plan: Wed. Oct. 4th, 2006
1. Go to Grammar Site and do numbers 6,7,8,9,10 in the “Advanced Grammar” section. You did sections 1 through 5 last week. Keep records of what you have done in your notebook.
2. Write in your notebook the “words of the day” and their definitions.
WORDS FOR TODAY ARE:
a. Rural : adjective.
1. in the country; belonging to the country; like that of the country.
Ex. Rural life is quiet. As cities grow, they spread farther and farther into what were once rural areas.
2. of or having to do with agriculture.
Ex. rural economy.
adv. rurally.

b. Portray : transitive verb.
1. to make a likeness of in a drawing or painting; make a picture of.
Ex. to portray a historical scene.
2. (Figurative.) to picture in words; describe.
Ex. The book "Black Beauty" portrays the life of a horse.
(Synonym) depict.
3. (Figurative.) to represent in a play or motion picture; impersonate; act.
ALSO...portrayal: noun.
1. a portraying by drawing or in words.
2. a picture or description.
3. the acting of a role in a play.

c. Dignify : transitive verb, -fied, -fying.
1. to give dignity to; make noble, worthwhile, or worthy.
Ex. The low farmhouse was dignified by the great elms around it.
2. to give a high-sounding name or title to.
Ex. The boys dignified their old sailboat with the title of Ocean Queen.

d. Descend : intransitive verb.
1. to go or come down from a higher place to a lower place.
Ex. The river descends from the mountains to the sea. He descended in a parachute. (Figurative.) The shades of evening began to descend (William Forbes).
(Synonym) fall, sink.
2. to go or come down from an earlier to a later time.
Ex. a superstition descended from the Middle Ages.
3. to go from greater to fewer numbers; go from higher to lower on any scale.
Ex. The numbers 75-50-25 form a series that descends.
4. to slope downward.
Ex. The path descended from the cliff to the beach.
5a. to make a sudden attack.
Ex. The wolves descended on the sheep and killed them.
b. (Figurative:)
Ex. Hordes of relatives began to descend on the rich man.
6. to be handed down from parent to child; pass by inheritance.
Ex. This land has been in our family for 150 years, descending from father to son.
7. to come down or spring from; have as ancestors.
Ex. He is descended from pioneers.
8. (Figurative.) to lower oneself; stoop.
Ex. In order to eat she descended to stealing.
9. to proceed from general things to particular things in speaking or writing.
10. (Astronomy.) to move toward the horizon or toward the south.
v.t. to go or come down; move downward upon or along.
Ex. to descend the stairs to the basement. The winding trail descends the mountain.


3. This Day in History: October 4th, 2006
Another feature of our Language Arts Class will be learning about famous people, places and things each Wednesday. Please READ and take notes on the material below, as IT WILL ALL BE ON A TEST IN OCTOBER!!!
The three subjects of “this day in history” for October 4th are:
a. Jean Francois Millet
b. Frederic Remington
c. Sputnik

Millet, Jean Francois, pronounced mee LEH, zhan frahn SWAH (1814-1875), a French artist, was the most significant painter of peasant life of the 1800's. In 1849, he settled in the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau. He spent almost all the rest of his life there painting scenes from rural life. His most popular works include The Sower (1850), The Gleaners (1857), and The Angelus (1859). Such works dignify their subjects, portraying rural life at a time when universal suffrage in France made the peasant an important political force.
Millet was born in Gruchy, near Cherbourg. He was descended from well-to-do farmers in Normandy, and his knowledge of peasant life came from the perspective of a prosperous farmer. Millet's paintings became especially popular with American and French industrialists of the late 1800's. These industrialists appreciated the idea of hard work and social order, which Millet's paintings seemed to endorse. Millet influenced a number of artists, including the famous painters Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat.

Remington, Frederic (1861-1909), was an American artist best known for his action-filled paintings, drawings, and sculptures of cowboys and Indians. His works became famous for capturing the vitality and spirit of the West.
Remington was born in Canton, New York. He loved horses and outdoor life as a child and often sketched Western characters and dramatic battle scenes. He studied art at Yale University from 1878 to 1880. His first published drawing appeared in the campus paper.
In 1881, Remington traveled to Montana on the first of many Western trips. He decided in 1885 to become an artist and to devote his art to portraying the rapidly vanishing soldiers, cowboys, Indians, and open lands of the West. He lived in the East, but traveled throughout the West to gather material for his pictures.
Remington's early works were precisely drawn and full of detail. His illustrations for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha (1891) show his technique of this period. Remington later painted with less detail, but he expressed more moods and emotions. He used broader brushstrokes and became more concerned with color and the effects of light. Downing the Nigh Leader (1907) illustrates his late dramatic style. He also gained praise for his quietly romantic night scenes. In his sculptures, Remington made dynamically balanced figures, as in Bronco Buster (1905).
Remington illustrated many of his own books, including Pony Tracks (1895) and The Way of an Indian (1906). Many of his works are in the Remington Art Memorial in Ogdensburg, N.Y., and the Whitney Gallery of Western Art in Cody, Wyo.
Contributor: Sarah E. Boehme, M.A.,Curator, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

Sputnik is the name of a series of unmanned satellites launched by the Soviet Union. Sputnik 1, launched Oct. 4, 1957, was the first artificial earth satellite. It circled the earth once every 96 minutes at a speed of 18,000 mph (29,000 kph), until it fell to the earth on Jan. 4, 1958. The Soviet Union also launched nine much larger sputniks, from November 1957 to March 1961. The earliest of these carried the first space traveler, the dog Laika.
Contributor: Cathleen S. Lewis, M.A., Assistant Curator, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Monday, October 2nd lesson plan, LA8

Today we will set up our blog pages. In order to do so, you must first be able to show me the following:

1. Your spiral LA8 notebook.

2. Your synopsis (summary) of your first book for this year for LA8. It must be around 150 words.

3. Book #2. I at least must have the title.

4. The class notes and definitions for things we have been asked to look up so far:
synopsis:
Battle of Salamis:
etc.

If you can show me all of these items, you may go to www.blogger.com and set up your blog. To do so, you must follow the instructions below (cut and pasted from an early blog posting, and slightly modified):

First: You need a "user name". This will be your first name, last initial in lower case letters, and IST all together as one word. For example,

" mrpIST "

Another example, for a student named "Thomas Smith":
" thomassIST "

We will not use your last name so no one outside of IST will have this information, and it will not show up "live" on your blog.

Second: password. For the time being we will skip this, as it can be done at the last minute. However, as is written on your parent permission form, I as the teacher must always have your password. This means I get access to your blog, and can help you keep control of what you post. (NOTE: whatever your password is, I need to have it, and I will share it with your parents...so KEEP IT CLEAN!).

Third: Blog title. This will be your FIRST NAME ONLY followed by IST Opicina. For example:

" Mr IST Opicina "

Another example, for the student named "Thomas Smith":
" Thomas IST Opicina "

I do not want your last name to appear on the blog- that is forbidden, (as I wrote in the parent permission form) and as your parents agreed when they signed to permit you to do this. This is a safety feature to protect what we will do online, and to protect you.

Fourth: Blog address. This is the TOUGH one to do. It can take multiple tries to get a title that works. I am making this easy for you in this blog. The format we will use is the following one: IST + gr8 + first name + first initial of your last name

For example: " ISTgr8mrp "

This would be my blog address if I were doing this exercise.
Another example, for the student "Thomas Smith":

" ISTgr8thomass "

Thai crown princess launches royal blog

The address below will take you to an article about the crown princess of Thailand and the "blog" she is supposedly going to be writing:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001/ap_on_hi_te/thailand_royal_blog

Read the article and then tell me what you think. It will be interesting to see if the princess manages to keep her blog updated...