What We've Been Up To...

I haven’t posted here in a while, and I apologize for the lapse.  (That is, I apologize to anyone who might be reading…the tricky thing about a blog is one can never be sure if anyone’s checking in!)  So here’s what we’ve been up to in language arts.

We’ve been reading and discussing a variety of poems and short stories, honing our ability to look at the figurative meaning of texts.  We’ve been examining how various literary devices appear in the poems and stories and, of course, doing some creative writing of our own.  We’ve read and analyzed “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Silken Tent” by Robert Frost, “Garden of My Childhood” by Kuangchi C. Chang, and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou.  Today, students will begin work on a formal analysis paragraph about one of those pieces.

Next week, after critiquing and finalizing the analysis paragraphs, we’ll begin studying Shakespeare’s Macbeth, beginning with a look at some background information about Shakespeare’s time, then launching into a “reader’s theater” reading and discussion of Macbeth.