Reading Logs

Link to our new reading logs. Click here.

Extra Credit: Collect Book Recommendations

Students, you can earn 1 point extra credit (up to 3 points total) for each additional, thoughtful, complete reccomendation form you email in to kfishman@columbia.k12.mo.us. These reccomendations can be from your family members, teachers, friends, etc. However, YOU should be the one asking the questions, typing up the answers, and sending them in.

Here is a link to the questions and form we used in class:
book recommendation 

Happy Reading, Mrs. Weaver

Games

Mrs. Weaver Reccommends Taboo and Scattergories:

Anaylsis Questions for The Raven

Analysis Questions:

1.       What is the mood of this poem? How does Poe establish this mood?

2.       Name 3-5 specific examples of alliteration within this poem:

 

3.       Name 3-5 specific examples of assonance within this poem:

4.       Name at least 3 internal rhymes within this poem:

 

5.       What phrases are repeated throughout this poem:

6.       Summarize the story of this poem:

I want to write a novel for all shapes, sizes and different types of people.

Even though I’m funny, I always know when it’s time to get serious.

A lot of young people have thanked me for giving great advice, to help them through their difficult situations…

It makes me feel like a great person to help others in good and/or bad situations.

HELP = LOVE

To me, my happiness comes through that!

I’m a book for you!

--Tomre’l Monai Gianquinto- Miller

What is love?

Love, love, love

What is love?

Is love just like hate or is it different from it?  

What is love?

 Can someone tell me what love is?

 Is it just a word?

Is it a just a saying guys use to get their girl back after they did wrong?

Can someone please tell me what it means?

Is love to care for someone?

Or is it to be happy?  

I pay attention in class but I still don’t know what is love.

Can someone please tell me

with all their heart tell me what is love?  

I have been in school ever since kindergarten

and still don’t know what is.  

What is love?

 Is love a way of saying that I want to be together?

 Is love a powerful word that mothers use to tell their young babies?

What is it please?

 Tell me how can I describe love?

Is love a word for trust and loyalty?

 Why me?

How come no one can tell me what love is?

Is love a word that you can use to tell your friends and family how you feel about them?  

I would do anything for someone just tell me what is love. 

Please tell me, on everything I love, I just want to know what I love is.

I’ll even sing Mariah carey “I want to know what love is”.

I would do anything for I just want to know so badly.

By: Shavonna Petty

A Note of Inspiration

I guess you can’t have a doubt on your mind--you just have to try and brush it off. Devote yourself to all your goals and you will accomplish them. Never think you can’t do something, everyone has the capability of accomplishing their dreams. If you want to make it in life and be successful, you need to have an education, because without an education you can’t get what you most want. Going to college opens more doors for you then only going to high school. They say to never let anyone tell you you can’t and that includes yourself.

Genaro Cabrera

Shout Out

Today was a fabulous day in literacy seminar. In addition to the new bookcases full of books (see below) we also launched our reading partnership program today.  Students and community partners read and discussed Edgar Allen Poe’s creepy short story Tell Tale Heart.  (It was very appropriate for the Halloween season.) To reread the story yourself click here

A special shout out to our RBHS reading partner participants: Mr. Bones, Ms. Struchtemeyer, Ms. Sullivan, Mr. Giessman, and Mr. Collier.  

An extra special shout out to our partners in education volunteers from State Farm Insurance. Thanks: Adam Peipert, David Thompson, Allean Britton, and Liz Brown. 

We’re all already looking forward to our next reading partnership day on November 9^th, 2011.

Appreciatively, Mrs. Weaver and the Literacy Seminar Scholars

Shout Out

A heartfelt thank you to Mr. Austin (former literacy seminar teacher at RBHS)! Mr. Austin lent us a  fabulous reading library. Thanks also to his third block for their help in getting the reading library from his classroom to ours. We cant wait to read through all these cool new titles.

Love

Love is...
What is love...
Love doesn't have a definition...

Does she love me or not?
I am so cold without her around
But, when I hear her voice
I get hotter than the sun.

What am I?
What is she?
Put us together, we are complete.

--Travon Tumey

Stuck

I am stuck between these world

Where do I go?

Is there a place for me?

For without hate you have no love.

Without love you have nothing.

Can we live in peace

Or do we suffer in hate?

Give me answer to that,

Which is a mistake.

For we lose what we love

And keep what we hate.

--Amber Light

Tell Tale Heart Discussion Questions

1.    What sort of conclusion is the reader most likely to make after reading these early lines from the story? “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded….”

2.    What is the mood of this story? How does Edgar Allen Poe establish this mood?

3.    Is the conflict in this story external or internal? Could it be both?  Give evidence from the story to support your answer.

 

4.    Why do you think the main character “admits the deed” to the police officers?  What do you think the narrator is really hearing at the end of the story?  What makes you think so?

5.    Other reactions to the story:

6.    New vocabulary words:

This world

This world

Must I live within a world filled with lies and cries

to love is to fly with melodies and sweet cries

with a deep emotion of someone you really care for.

Hate is to die, not to fly in the sky

it’s to fall in a field of spikes.

To understand is to care and listen

so open up your guards and ignore the fears.

I am scared within a world of surprises

but as long as I have love I do not need anything.

Hate can fry in a skillet,

because if I’m hated on I’m winning

and I’m doing something right.

LaShone Visca Gates Jr.

ASSIGNMENT: Write at least one verse of a collective poem. Verses should be on the themes of Amachai’s poem: love, hate, understanding, personal identity within turmoil etc. Be creative. Each verse should include specific sensory details and thoughtful word choice. If you are stuck you might start with one of the following starters: 

Must I live within a world….

To love is to…

Hate is…

To understand is…

I am…. within a world of….

Half The People In The World

Half The People In The World

by Yehuda Amichai

Half the people in the world love the other half,
half the people hate the other half.
Must I because of this half and that half go wandering
and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle,
must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like
the trunks of olive trees,
and hear the moon barking at me,
and camouflage my love with worries,
and sprout like frightened grass between the railroad
tracks,
and live underground like a mole,
and remain with roots and not with branches, and not
feel my cheek against the cheek of angels, and
love in the first cave, and marry my wife
beneath a canopy of beams that support the earth,
and act out my death, always till the last breath and
the last words and without ever understandig,
and put flagpoles on top of my house and a bob shelter
underneath. And go out on rads made only for
returning and go through all the apalling
stations—cat,stick,fire,water,butcher,
between the kid and the angel of death?
Half the people love,
half the people hate.
And where is my place between such well-matched halves,
and through what crack will I see the white housing
projects of my dreams and the bare foot runners
on the sands or, at least, the waving of a girl's
kerchief, beside the mound?

Video Clip

Bring Your A Game (20 minute video)


Thanks, Mr. Collier for sharing this video with our class. It sparked a lot of rich discussion.

Inspiration

Someone who inspires me is Coach Ofodile. I want to be like him when I grow up.  I want to go to college and then the NFL like he did. When I’m done with the NFL I want to coach high school football and have a winning record. He is a fun guy to be around especially when his “coaching mood” is off. He’s helped me by talking to me about school and talking to me about how I can step up and do better. We talk about how it will all work out.

Rashad Huggins