Seminar Room 4 Around the World

Use this space to let us know if you have any interesting locations checking out your blog!

Mr. J

Reminder and Homework

No Iliad or other blog work today. Use the time to read ahead in your book review books or to write your book reviews if you are done. Next week there will be more homework, so use this time productivly. Don't forget you need to have journal entries and a list of vocabulary words as part of book reviews. See important documents.

Period 4 - Remember you have me in the morning tomorrow (Friday). You will meet in my room in the morning for attendance and then we will go to High Tech High International as a group.

Mr. J

Reminder

Don’t forget that we have a socratic seminar tomorrow (Thursday 2/22). As we discussed in class, the starting topic is going to be the same as tonight’s Iliad reflection. You should also come to class prepared with your own discussion topics.

If you are in period one and you arrive late and we are not in the room, you should go to the MUN room at HTHI.

Period 4, I have not heard back from HTHI yet, so you should assume that our socratic seminar will be at our school in our room.

DUE THR 2/22 - Disagreements and Fights ...

In the spirit of exploring the universal qualities of Homer -----

In your blog write about a time when you had a big disagreement with a friend - or other person - that led you or the other person to regret things that were said or done. Focus on the negative consequences of the disagreement and decisions that you or the other person made that might have made things needlessly worse. You can also write about something similar from literature or the movies, or even about other people that you know. Remember this is a public forum so be careful what you write. You can change names and fictionalize details.

DUE THR 2/22 Iliad Reflection - Book One

Answer the following question in your blog. Please cut and paste the question above your answer and put it in bold.

If you were an ancient Greek, which of the following statements would you agree with?

A) Achilles’ rage is justified and I support his decision not to fight, even if it means the Greeks might lose lots of men, or even the war itself.

Or

B) Agamemnon is the commander, as such he is in the right, and I support his decision to ask for Achilles’ war prize Briseis – even if it means that Achilles will sit out the war.

Your answer should be a good solid paragraph, have a topic sentence, and MUST use evidence from Homer. Evidence can be direct quotes or examples of scenes/character decisions etc...

DUE WED 2/21 Fahrenheit 451 Rewrite

Remember that your Fahrenheit 451 rewrite is due tomorrow, WED 2/21.

Print out the copy that you are going to give me at home. I would like to avoid having a group of people printing out at school, walking in and out of the room due to printer problems, taking 20 minutes to find a computer that works etc... Remember you have a quota of printouts, so you want to conserve as much as possible anyway. Print out the copy that you are going to give me at home, and bring it in.

If you don't have a printer at home, that is an exception.

If you have a printer at home (which is the majority of you), the only excuse for not having a print out at school is if your printer is broken and you have a note from your parents.

The rewrite does not have to be on turnitin.com unless you have made substantive changes to it. If that is the case let me know and I'll delete your old one to make room for the new one.

Thanks.

DUE WED 2/21 Character Traits

Add to the notes on character traits that we did in class. You did "pride" in class and some of you had time to get started on some others.

Add to "pride" by listing two other character traits of Achilles AND find evidence of those character traits in the text (Book One of The Iliad). You should have two or three pieces of evidence for each character trait. Don't forget to list the lines, page numbers and give a short explanation of the evidence - think of the model we did together.

Most of what we discussed in class were negative character traits, but you might want to consider some positive ones, or ones that the Ancient Greeks would have thought of as being positive.

I will check this during silent reading

Mr. J

DUE WED 2/21 Iliad Reading

DUE WED 2/21 Iliad Reading

Read lines 408-586 (pp. 89-94)

Now that we have spent some time reading the Iliad in class I feel like you are ready to go out on your own a little. Remember, the key to reading comprehension with something like this is to go slow and look at the context if you don't understand a word. Also remember that you don't have to understand everything in order to get the main ideas and follow the story.

Add to your Iliad notes by

1) Ask questions about things that confuse you about the reading. Be prepared to share them with the class.

2) Give short bullet point summaries of the most important things that happen in this reading selection

Don't forget to indicate the book, page numbers, and lines number in your notes and to make sure they are all together in one easilly accesible place in your binder.

I will check this during silent reading.