Week 2: Frankenstein Letters 1-4 and Chapters 1-4 “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge After our unexpected break week before last, we kicked off our second class by discussing and analyzing the very strange, but very important poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel
Introducing Animal Farm to young writers I love sharing George Orwell’s Animal Farm with students. What follows is an outline of how I introduced the novella’s first four chapters to my class over a two-week period during a November 2016 writing lesson. Dystopian literature discussion We began with
Weeks 5 and 6: Frankenstein, chapters 17-24 We are finished with Frankenstein…boo! One of my favorite book studies to date. Next week we move on to George Orwell’s classic dystopian tale…Animal Farm. What happens when a bunch of pigs launch a rebellion? Hmm…gee, I wouldn’t
Weeks 3 and 4: Frankenstein, chapters 5-16 Our second 90-minute make-up class was a success! I do believe we are caught up and where we need to be. Regular 60-minute class will resume this week at the scheduled time (11 am Eastern). The Poetry of Percy (Shelley) No discussion of
Welcome Back! Our first live class got off to a great start! It’s always fun to “see” everyone again after the summer break. Please remember to have a headset for next week so we can turn on the audio for about 10 minutes to discuss our novel. Also, BEFORE
Greetings Literature Families! Welcome to The Writer’s Community—a place for parents (and students) to read re-caps of our live classes and some of the things we’ll be working on during our time together. Students will find their Course Schedule and Syllabus on WizIQ, but since parents don’
Student Sequels Pre-order from Amazon! We picked up where we left off last week with a discussion of the many different symbols found within To Kill a Mockingbird. Students have been working on an essay regarding the most obvious symbol of the mockingbird, but there are several others that are
Analysis Chapters 17-24 Our discussion of last week’s reading led us into an examination of three of the trial witnesses…their testimonies and their demeanor on the stand and a discussion of the events in this section. We finish the reading this week! I then pulled up a map
Analysis Chapters 9-16 This week’s focus was on courage and conflict (both internal and external). We talked about how the different characters are showing courage in ways that are unique to their current situations. Atticus showed courage when he had to shoot the mad dog, and must continue to
Analysis Chapters 1-8 After our journaling prompt, and a quick review of the background reading from the Glencoe Guide, we dove right into character analyses of the main characters that we’ve met so far and talked about chapters 1-8. Please stay on track with the reading (we need to
Intro: To Kill a Mockingbird After a journal/free-write on courage, we learned about our next author, Harper Lee, and how her famous manuscript almost became one with the slush-ridden New York City streets (it’s true!). As always, we spent time understanding the cultural and historical context of our
A Last Look at Ántonia We started our last class on My Ántonia with a writing prompt that asked us to imagine that we are moving to a foreign country and we don’t speak the language. The only people we will know there are our immediate families. We don’