10/18 starting something new!

Hi everyone!

Today we are beginning something completely new! Yes, today Topham's Attic introduces Pain Free Vocab! Increase your usable vocabulary one word at a time! It is a concept whose time has come, and a time whose concept has found a place to be!

Here's how it works (and it is SO SIMPLE that it hardly needs any explanation at all!):

Each day I will post one new word to add to our Universal Vocab Lists. (All classes use the same lists. What the heck? Everyone can benefit from new words, right?) I'll link it to the dictionary.com site for that word, which will give your definitions, sentences, and someone pronouncing the word out loud: basically all that you need to know to make it yours. I will also add it to the Universal Vocab List on the left side of the blog. As the semester progresses, make a special endeavor to add these words to your in class conversation, to your essays, etc. Sprinkle them into outside conversations as well. Soon you will find that they have become your words.

And if at some point I decide to give a quiz about them or some such thing...it will be no problem for you because you will own these words!


So with all of that preamble, here is the first word:


preamble


(Click on the word to go to its meaning.)

CW: 

• Tonight, create a poem from the various images in your folders. When you make your posters, the poem as well as the images will be on it. Tomorrow, however, you will be workshopping the poems so that you can make them as strong as possible in a brief time. Bring pix and poems back tomorrow. (Glue sticks would help.)

E3H: 

• Good discussions today, especially 8th period. The mysticism (kabbalah) on which the sect was founded in Eastern Europe in the 18th Century (which, as you pointed out, seems to contradict the orthodoxy of their apparent behaviors) is very important to our understanding of Asher's dreams and struggles in the novel. For your next reading assignment: finish Book One (p.150) for Tuesday. (However, since we will be moving quite quickly, you might read further if the opportunity arises.)

• As to the fantasias: we will be in Lab 356 tomorrow (just meet there) to finish your work on them. If you are already finished, bring WW materials to work on. Fantasias are due on Thursday. If a few people are not ready that will not be a problem; if a large number are not ready, that will be a problem. Your best bet is to bring your project on DVD or upload it to youtube. As to the written element of the project, it can be completed later; it need not be finished on Thursday.

Note: although I will not be in class tomorrow, I will be in school through 6th period, so show up for your conferences!

E2CP: 

• Nice conversation, folks! We talked about the Shakespeare poem and why you didn't like it and then about the more modern ones and what made them work for you. The assignment for tonight is to examine the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" and find ways of explaining what is poetic about it. How do we justify that this little tiny slice of life is a poem? Write your thoughts in your journal, which I am going to collect tomorrow!

Best. Wedding. Ever.





and just for fun, more little child silliness:



Have a nice day. And remember...