Greetings!
We had a fun class today -- we covered a lot of material. As usual, we started out with our QuickWrite. Here’s the prompt:
January 6th is the “birthday” of Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fictional detective is known for his powers of deduction–the ability to reach conclusions by logical reasoning. He’s famous for solving unusual mysteries and his partner is Dr. Watson. What is your favorite mystery story or movie? Describe what it is about. Why do you like it? What do you like or dislike about mysteries?
Or you may write about a real mystery, or unsolved mystery, you’ve heard about. How would you try to solve it?
What are some mysteries you are trying to solve?
No Words of the Day today
I handed back the rough drafts of the Mystery Stories. These were amazing! I found myself thinking of the plots and characters long after reading and correcting them. Many students wrote more than they usually did, and they were pretty creative. Students are to revise their rough drafts into final drafts for next week. Ask your student to share his/her story with you.
We've now finished our 6 short stories of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To round out this literature unit, students are to write an essay exam in which they address the question, "Is Sherlock Holmes a Hero?" They must first define what a hero is and then apply their definition to Sherlock Holmes. I encouraged them to use the quotes from their Sherlock Holmes Quote assignment to support their opinions. We had a lively (heated?) discussion over some of the finer points of Sherlock’s character. Students had some profound observations. I am looking forward to their written responses.
We had a brief Grammar lesson on Independent and Dependent Clauses. We worked on them a bit in class, and students should correct their work before handing it in. There are 2 worksheets due next week.
I gave them their next book, Great Short, Short Stories, they have a reading assignment, and a Short Story worksheet to complete for 2 of the 3 stories. On the syllabus it says “Short Story Annotations,” however, annotations are on pause until we have a mini-lesson on annotation. That will be in the next few weeks.
As a culminating activity to our Mystery Unit, students finished part 2 of our Class Mystery Game. Students picked up their assigned roles and began where they left off last week interviewing all the suspects (classmates) to solve the case of “who dunnit”--in this case, who is guilty of injuring popular girl Angela by pushing her down the stairs at Generic High School? Justice must be served! It was entertaining to observe them interviewing each other and trying to follow the clues, make inferences and not be thrown off by all the red-herrings. It got a little heated at some points! Students are to fill out the assessment sheet of who their suspects are. The assailant will be revealed next week.
Assignments for next week
Short Stories: Read Pushkin (162); Tolstoy (169); Chekhov (26)
Short Story Responses (No Annotations)
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