Final Exam Study Guide

STUDY GUIDE
For final exams next week, you should use your sourcebook and your four column notes to study. The test has multiple choice, true false, fill in the blank, matching, and short response. In class we came up with a list of lessons/concepts to study:

Poetry
Literary Techniques
Word Roots (4-column notes)
Timed Writing
Leads (QqacSs)
Conclusions (Pepi)
Features of a feature article/angles
Works Cited
Punctuation Road Rules
Plot/Conflict
QAR (TAS, OMO, AAM)
Sci Fi lit circle book (short response)

Permission Slip: Life is Beautiful

We're still in the middle of literature circles but we're thinking ahead to our next event. In Language Arts this year, we’ve found our students need more practice understanding irony. We would like watch a film that demonstrates situational, dramatic, and verbal irony and gives us the chance to meet the state standards in speaking, listening, and viewing. Many literary techniques are easily observed in the “text” of a film. The film we would like to show is Life is Beautiful (La Vita E Bella), an Italian film that won three Academy awards--best actor, best foreign film, best music (for Nicola Piovani’s original dramatic score). In this film, an Italian man chooses to hide the atrocities of the concentration camps from his young son by pretending that they are playing an elaborate game. His intention is to ensure that, for his son, life will always be beautiful. Much of the movie actually takes place in Italy, developing the main character and showing the love and happiness of their family before they are sent to the concentration camp. It is rated PG-13 for Holocaust-related thematic elements but because it is often viewed through the eyes of a child, there are not graphic depictions of violence or death. In the past, our students have been moved by this powerful and sensitive movie. We hope that you will trust us to discuss these issues thoughtfully and professionally. We have attended special workshops to ensure that our teaching of Holocaust issues is appropriate and sensitive. Please call us if you would like more information about the film. It is readily available at any video store or the public library if you would like to preview it yourself. Please return this permission slip by May 19th, 2010.

Literature Circle Discussions and Windowpane assignment

For literature circles, you will have two major discussions (see dates below). On each discussion day, you should come to class with a completed windowpane assignment. It is also your responsibility to have the required reading completed for each discussion. Each reading day (see below) you will be given time to read in class and we'll have a short mini-lesson halfway through to break up the reading time. Any reading or notes you don't finish in class, you will need to finish as homework. As we've been reminding you in class, you may need to get your own copy of the book from the library or bookstore.

Lost your windowpane assignment? Click here.

Feature Articles-due today!

We collected feature articles on Friday (4/30) and we'll continue collecting them from A day on Monday (5/3). If you didn't turn it in on your due date, we will accept it late without penalty. However, a zero will be in the grade book until we get it.

Need a copy of the rubric? Please attach it to your finished Feature Article. You can find that here.

Don't forget to get a copy of your literature circle book. Order them (see last post) or check them out from the library.