Mr. Knight's Class

Mr. Muller, upper school English teacher, came to our class and taught a sonnet by Shakespeare.The kids enjoyed meeting and learning with him.

We pictures of our childhood room and used the drawing to stimulate memories and then poetry based on our memories.

We spent two days on analyzing Hardy’s “A Darkling Thrush” and finished with a “extreme” quiz on the poem.

We we wrote a short IR essay on why 8th graders should read our chosen book. One focus was support ideas with textual examples. Another was sophistication of language.

Monday: IR assessment, mini-essay HW read “The Darkling Thrush” Why should 8th graders read your book? In a mini-essay suggest two reasons why an 8th graders should read your book. You might talk about the life lessons it teaches, the entertainment value the book holds, or many other valuable aspects the book contains. I. a. [...]

We had a great discussion on the poem, “Shoulders.” We focused on the metaphoric language and themes. Students also tried to connect the poem to others we have read.

We used today to finish importing our poetry videos. Kids sure have learned some valuable technical tools.

We learned a tremendous amount about using cameras; this was our first attempt. The goal was to make a poetry recitation video. Our early struggles will help us when we begin making our film festival videos.

Tuesday- import and edit poetry videos HW read the “Shoulders” and “Fueled” Wednesday- reading quiz and discussion HW “Saturday at the Canal” Thursday- discussion and quiz Friday- “Popcorn poem” HW type popcorn poem and finish IR Monday IR paragraph (for grading) computers Tuesday poem in groups Wednesday room poem

We began to experiment with creative poetic phrasing; the result is a poem that uses non-traditional pairs of words.