Labor Day Weekend

We have just wrapped up our fourth week of school, and we get to celebrate a long weekend.  Monday is Labor Day, and I hope everyone enjoys their extra time away from school.

Just a reminder, Jr. High Football will play Bassfield at home on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. Football players will be allowed to wear their jerseys, and Cheerleaders will be allowed to wear their cheer uniforms.

Thanks to everyone who has completed reading comprehension assignments via www.easycbm.com.

YOU ROCK!

Figurative Language

Figurative Language is the use of words that go beyond their ordinary meaning. It requires you to use your imagination to figure out the author's meaning.

“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper.”      

-T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

These poetic lines use onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia refers to words that come from sounds. What do you think of the image in the poem? What do you think Eliot means?


Definitions for this week:

 Figurative Language  

 comparing different objects in a way it might not make sense

 Simile

 a comparison using like or as

 Metaphor  

 comparison not using like or as

 Hyperbole

 an exaggeration

 Personification  

 giving human qualities to animals or objects

 Word Relationships  

 these express grammatical relationships between words

 Synonyms

 words with the same meaning

 Antonyms  

 words with opposite meanings

 Multiple Meaning Words  

 words that can have several meanings, depending upon how they are used in a sentence

 Homonyms  

 words that sound the same but have different meanings

 Compound Words  

 two words combined to create a new word.

 Nuances

 little or small differences

Open House/Meet the Teacher Night

I would like to invite everyone to meet the teacher night. It will be held on Monday, August 12th from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. We look forward to meeting and talking with you! See you there!

First Week

We had a successful first week of school! The students were excited to see their friends and teachers. The teachers were excited to see their students and colleagues. We hope this excitement continues throughout the year.

REMINDER: INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS DUE MONDAY

Standard English

Be prepared to discuss the following questions.

Why is it important to use Standard English grammar to compose and edit?

What do you think Standard English grammar means? 

HINT:

"We need to know Standard English, but we need to know it critically, analytically, and in the context of language history. We also need to understand the regularity of nonstandard variants. If we approach good and bad grammar in this way, the study of language will be a liberating factor--not merely freeing learners from socially stigmatized usage by replacing that usage with new linguistic manners, but educating people in what language and linguistic manners are all about."

Edwin L. Battistella, Bad Language: Are Some Words Better Than Others? Oxford Univ. Press, 2005.

Definition of STANDARD ENGLISH

: the English that with respect to spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary is substantially uniform though not devoid of regional differences, that is well established by usage in the formal and informal speech and writing of the educated, and that is widely recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken and understood.

"Standard English." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 5 Aug. 2013.

The First Days of School

Welcome to the start of a wonderful and successful year. I am looking forward to meeting and working will all of you. This year in addition to teaching 8^th grade ELA, I will be coaching archery, so I am extremely excited! During the first couple of days of school, student will be receiving their textbooks and loads of information regarding classroom procedures and routines. We will discuss classroom expectations, school policy, and much more.