Funny words from Twain, but ones I'm hoping students save for the lazier days of summer! It seems that students are keeping up with the reading; I am trying to give them time each day to at least begin the chapters. I've plotted them out on a calendar to finish the book by the end of the year, reserving two days at the end to watch the movie, Tom and Huck.
At the same time, students have been adding words to their personal dictionaries and doing some activities around elements of fiction. Our class discussions of the novel center around summarizing the story, analyzing characters, examining Twain's language, and identifying broader statements that Twain seems to make about human nature through the antics of Tom and his community.
On Thursday I will give a writing assessment based on the novel. Students will have a choice of four prompts; they will write on ONE and share their short essay with me by the end of class. On Tuesday I will give them the general topics of the prompts (Twain's language and character analysis) so that they can think about and perhaps decide which they want to do; if they wish, they could also make some notes on the general topic they choose. The assessment will be open book and open note, if the student makes notes to use.
HOMEWORK:
Monday: Finish rdg. ch. 13/14; begin "Escape to Jackson Island" page in packet.
Tuesday: Finish rdg. ch. 15/16; add to packet pgs. Think about writing topics; make notes.
Wednesday: Finish rdg. ch. 17/18; add to packet. Think about writing topics; make notes.
Thursday: Read ch. 19, 20; Ch. 21: read first long paragraph and last section only.
Friday: Finish rdg. 22, 23, 24; work on vocabulary activity (due Thursday 6/15).
