Swift's Vision

 "Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."  --Jonathan Swift

High School Linguistics

In addition to AP English, American Authors, and Writing Lab (crazy year!!), I also teach an elective course on Linguistics (I designed the class for my Master's thesis project).  For those of you interested in learning more about teaching Linguistics at the high school level, I invite you to visit:  http://highschoollinguistics.blogspot.com

Juan and Sabrina meet our guest speaker on Dec. 21st

Going To See a Play

There is something special about seeing a play:  the lights dimming, the characters entering, stepping out of  regular routine for a day.  Today our AP class went to see the Milwaukee Rep's performance of A Christmas Carol.  Most exciting to me is that some students were seeing their very first play!  After the performance we enjoyed a sunny stroll along the Milwaukee River Walk and had lunch at the Grand Avenue Mall.

 

 

Looking at the World

I ran across this quote from Louise Gluck in this week's issue of The Week:

"We look at the world once, in childhood.  The rest is memory."

I would add that we get a second chance to look at the world:  in parenthood.

My family playing in the leaves

The Worms Have Arrived!

My Writing Lab class has taken on the creation of a school-wide composting program.  A few weeks ago, Kate Carney from Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful visited our classroom to teach us more about composting.  After her visit, students wrote a letter to Sweet Water Organics to ask for a donation of red wigglers to help us give indoor vermicomposting a shot.  On Friday, Kate came back with the worms!  Students had a contest to see which group could write the best morning announcement to educate our peers about the benefits of composting.  One of the things we were surprised to learn is that every American throws away an average of five pounds of garbage a day.

MSL students and teachers:   Listen to the announcements to hear when we'll be collecting leftover fruits and vegetables from Lunch D to give to the worms.  Also, we plan to sell our composting product at Festival of Nations on March 7th.


Here are some pictures from our work on Friday:

Working on advertising our project

Networking with teachers to get coffee grounds

Leaves=worm food!

The worms will also eat newspaper and paper bags.

For indoor composting, you want the mix to be 75% brown.

Back from raking

There they are!

Making our worms a home

Coffee ground success!

Getting out the last of our worms

Almost done!

Class photo!

The compost bin in place in the greenhouse over a drain surrounded by bags of leaves!

Fifth Hour Artistically Presents...The Great Gatsby

In American Authors, students were assigned to translate The Great Gatsby into an art project.  They had the options to draw a chapter, scene, symbol, setting, or character.  One student chose to write a poem and one chose to write a screenplay of Chapter One.  We will save our creations for our Festival of Nations project in March when we present Midnight in Paris, focused on Paris in the 1920s and inspired by the Woody Allen film.

Oedipus Rex

Kreon addresses the Chorus in third hour

Oedipus and Kreon having a pretty serious chat about the problems in Thebes

This week our class acted out Sophocles's play Oedipus Rex.  For homework each evening, students traced all of the images relating to sight, blindness, light, and darkness.  This weekend they are starting their essays on the role of sight in the play and looking for an article written by a scholar that they will use as support in their essays.

Our Milwaukee Art Museum Field Trip!