Work Due Friday, March 30th
According to our original work schedule for this quarter, there are two Blog entries that you do not have to have done by this Friday, Book Synopsis 10 and the Editorial Commentary entry. All the other entries should be done for this Friday, March 30th, and include:
1. Historical Entry on Trieste
2. Geographical Entry on Trieste
3. Personal Interest Entry on Trieste
4. Book Synopsis number 9- 250 words this time
The other two items to be finished are:
5. Book Synopsis 10: must be either a BIOGRAPHY or a work of Historical Fiction. Proofed rough draft and final post due by Tuesday, April 3rd. Length is to be 250-300 words.
6. Editorial Commentary: Teacher approved. 500 word maximum. We will review how to do this in class on Thursday, and will base our work on making a "commentary" on The Chocolate War.

I noticed in class Monday that many of you have not finished your three entries on Trieste. Please have them done for Friday. Almost everyone has posted Book Synopsis number 9, however. It would be great to be able to focus as a group on the Editorial Commentary writing all together as a class.
We have a little less than three total weeks left in the third quarter, with the last week divided from the rest of the 3rd quarter by the Easter Holiday break.

Wednesday, March 14th: Staying on Task today...
Remember to stay on task today!
We need to have the first three blog entries (see Monday's entry) done and on the Blog today. I want us to move ahead Friday. Of course, there is always someone who needs a bit more time... but we all have to move ahead.

Tomorrow we will work on The Chocolate War, and on Friday, back in the lab, those who have not chosen their book for "book synopsis #10" will do so. Remember the instructions from Feb. 20th: the book for #10 MUST be either a biography OR a historical novel: and it must be approved by "moi", herr pastore. (Note: whichever you chose for #10, you will have to do the opposite next book...).

Reading our Class Novel: The Chocolate War
Please continue reading The Chocolate War , as we will begin to discuss it in class on Thursday. If you have finished reading the novel, here is a website where you can go to get more background on the author and the themes of the story at a special The Chocolate War website.
(note: you can also make LINKS on any of your blog entries quite easily...ask if you want to know how).
I am trusting you to read the novel so you can participate in our class discussions, and eventually write a blog entry on the novel at the end of the quarter.
However, I am giving you the website, which has chapter summaries and character analysis, in order to help you read what is at times a difficult book.
Thanks for doing the best you can with this novel!

Monday, March 12th: Keeping up to date!
It is imperative that everyone be finished their first three blog entries of this quarter by the end of class on Wednesday. The three entries are:
-Historical entry on Trieste
-Geographical entry on Trieste
-Book Synopsis #9
The rules for each one of these posts are on my February 20th entry- go back and read that entry (or the handout I gave you that day also!) if you are not 100% sure what to do for these three entries.

Summing up Class: Friday, March 9th
Today in class everyone was productive most of the period. Several of you were reading on the couches, several were writing handwritten rough copies, several were researching for their historical and geographical blog entries on Trieste, and several were writing final blog entries (one of us was cleaning his locker to find a notebook, but that counts as being productive too!).

I would like to remind the class that our new "posting" procedure for our Language Arts blogs is to write our first final copy on the word processor on the computer, and then cut and paste it into Blogger. we have discovered that trying to type directly into the Blogger site during some of our class periods is inefficient due to the longer up/download times between our IST server and the host servers in the USA for Blogger.com. This new procedure should help us all out and be more productive.
Remember what Stefano, the tech consultant, told us today when we started class: that there is nothing we can do because of the speed "bottleneck" between Italy and the Blogger.com host servers in the USA. But he also said that if we write, save, then cut and paste into Blogger, we will be able to do our work with a minimum of frustration.
This should save us all time as we move forward in this quarter. Thanks!