Per 1 Scribe Posts

Today in class we had a substitute teacher, Ms. Lahaise had sent an email to everyone saying she was going to be out. since we had a substitute and because we had a short class because of CST testing we didn’t have much to time to do anything really. so the assignment Ms. Lahaise left us was simple to get into out literature circle groups discuss the previous chapter we just read which was Kamala and then switch roles. Thats pretty much what we did the whole period.
the scribe for thursday will be garrett =)

Today Ms. Lahaise collected the homework from the people who didn’t turn it in yesterday and those who did turn it in yesterday got extra credit. Everybody has a 0% in participation “starting fresh” and you have to earn your participation. Many students are not participating and Ms. Lahaise doesn’t like that, she also said not to email her about this because she warned everybody. We then went to groups based on our lit circle roles and had to come up with 2 points. She changed our groups.
Group 1: Taylor, Michells D, Diana, Nischay
Group 2: Sonali, Bryan, Nezah, Joel
Group 3: Joe, Janet, Corina, Logan
Group 4: Anthony, Kimberly, Jackie
Group 5: Daniel, Michelle H, Belem, Leslie
Many students were absent today.
We then discussed Chapter 3 of Siddhartha. 
Janet did her book talk and if you have not yet signed up for a day you want to do a book talk, you have to because time is running out.   

Hey you guys!!! We were all pretty much ready to get out of school and to enjoy our picnic but, we still had to attend class. We turned in our homework and since we bring anything with us, Ms. Lahaise decided to show us a TED (we did a journal in our mind). I don’t remember the man’s name, but if you want to want to watch it, feel free to ask Ms. Lahaise, we didn’t have to do a journal on it. It was interesting it though. Basically it was about a man who went out gave out postcards that had secrets on them and some people were crazy enough to send some back. You get the big image here. So, not to waste precious time, Ms. Lahaise wanted to discuss the book. She pretty much had to force us to speak and threatened us that our grade would go down a whole letter grade for the day. 10% of our grade! It’s a big deal. Anyways, i thought we had a pretty nice discussion. Taylor connected it to Dante’s inferno and to Into the wild becuase the main character, Siddartha wanted to find what he was looking for. We mainly talked about the caste system how it worked, how existance is suffering, the main reason as to why Siddartha left and anything else. Other than our TED that we watched and the brief discussion that we had, there wasn’t anything else that we did. We do have a vocab quiz on Thursday and our homework is due. Make sure you participate, your grade will be affected!!

Next Scribe: Katherine Richards.

SO. today we watched a TED featuring Bryan Stevenson, and then discussed it.  Ms. Lahaise introduced us to our new book “Sidartha”.  We got copies of the book and took some important notes on the book.  We also made Lit Circle groups; the groups are:
1. Corina/Nischay/Kimberly/Joel2.Leslie/Janet/Harry/Logan3.Christine/Jackie/Michelle H./Belem4.Diana/Nezah/garret/daniel5.Taylor/Jimmy/Bryan/Michelle D.6.Anthony/Katherine/Sonali/ Joe/ Emma
The roles are illustrator, illuminator,  connector, and discussion director; and you need at least 5 ideas.

The next scribe is Emma

Today, was a fairly easy day due to
the short class period.  When
everyone walked into the room Ms. Lahaise asked the class if we were ready to
take the vocabulary test, and pretty much everyone simultaneously said “NO!”
The class grew very quiet, which clearly meant that we were all doing our last
minute studying. Everyone seemed to finish the vocab test quickly, and we had a
journal to do right afterwards. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the
great bully, the world and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised
to find it comes off in hid hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away
the timid adventurers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When we finished writing about the
journal we got new vocab words, so make sure to get them from a friend. When we
started our discussion on the journal Ms. Lahaise said she didn’t think we
understood what the quote meant, because we all had blank looks on our faces
when we were writing.  Anthony had
a go at what it meant, but Ms. Lahaise just shook her head, and said, “no.”  She decided that we should just break
the journal down and discuss it sentence by sentence. After we began doing that
it became easier for us. Jimmy said he thought it was about bullies and how
they are not always what they seem. I agreed with him, and said a lot of
bullies bully others, because they are insecure and they too are victims of
bullying. Ms. Lahaise seemed to feel the same way with Jimmy and I. Harry saw
the quote in a different way, and thought that Emerson meant the bully was the
world, and not a physical human being. 
Janet agreed with Harry, because she knew that Emerson wrote about
nature a lot. Although, Ms. Lahaise still thought he was talking about people,
she thought Harry made a very good point, and it could be that she just
interpreted the quote wrong. That’s when Logan said she is not wrong because
people see things in different ways, so it is just how she interpreted it
compared to Harry’s interpretation. 
That was the end of our journal discussion. 

Since Logan had brought up the fact
that some of us were missing assignments, Ms. Lahaise talked to the class about
our folders.  If you have a missing
assignment you should check your individual folder to see if it was just a
mistake. There are also two other folders, one that has papers with no names,
and another that has papers without titles or chapters. At that point Garret
shouted out, “we have our own folders?!” Ms. Lahaise was surprised that someone
actually asked that this far into the school year, and asked who said that, the
class just laughed. Many people went up to check if any of their work was in
either of those folders, which they were. Our class decreased the size of those
two folders substantially, and Ms. Lahaise laughed when she realized most of
period one’s work was in the folders. After putting our folders away, the bell
rang, and it was time for period two.

P.S.- Don’t forget that Thursday will be our last day to
work on our Inferno board games in class, and our presentations will be on
Monday.

The next scribe will be Nischay.

We walked in to class ready to take our wonderful weekly vocabulary tests. Before Ms. Lahaise passed out the test, she told us that the vocabulary tests are not worth a lot of points so its pointless for people to cheat on them, if they do, because it only leads to losing the trust she had for us. After taking our test, we had a journal up on the board(‘We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.’ -Anais Nin). Then, we did silent reading and got new words. Soon after, we went into our groups and started readin the last canto(canto 34). In our lit circles, we had to complete either two questions,footnotes,one illuastration with two explanations,connections, or illuminations about this canto. Later, we went back to our seats to discuss this canto. Many students were suprised to have read that Lucifer was a three-headed giant who was frozen in ice chewing up Cassius, Brutus, and Judas. Garrett asked an intresting question, “Why was ice assoicated with hell? I believe that fire usually represents hell.” Ms. Lahaise replied by stating that the sinners in this level of hell have tears frozenm on their faces with makes it a worse punishment. After we finished discussion about the last canto, Ms. Lahaise started talking about our project. Basically the project with be due on Monday, April 16, 2012. We must creat a board game consisting of two questions per canto and three questions about the lesson/overall message that we learned,in total seventy-one questions.. The questions cannot be opinionated but can be open-ended if the answer is pretty obvious. Ms. Lahaise  told us that we may work alone, groups of two, but no more than three people per group because then some people do more work then others. Here are the offical instructions that Ms. Lahaise posted on the calendar : https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1crRevI3k5a30-mhP1V73mYInBWVvOr9AbCS1DCkN4hQ. Have a nice spring break everybody!!!!!!

The next scribe will be Harry T.

We walked into class this morning and saw that Ms. Lahaise was here.  She started off our wonderful Thursday with a vocabulary test.  After that we had the amazing task of reading our “pleasure” book.  Once the last person finished the vocabulary test, Ms. Lahaise had us stop reading.  We went through the process of getting our new vocabulary words for next week.  A special guest, Ms. Aldrich, came into our classroom when we were just finishing up the vocabulary.  Before we started the deffinitions for the new words, Ms. Lahaise said that Ms. Aldrich would be coming in during this class to assess her teaching methods/style.  Next, we got into or lit circle roles and worked on canto 20.  We had to come up with 2 connections/questions/details/footnotes about this canto.  Ms. Aldrich left when we were in our lit circle groups. 
When we came back to discuss the canto as a class, Ms. Lahaise started to explain of final project for the “Inferno.”  Our final project is to create a board game.  You have to have at least 66 questions and answers, instructions, and a board game (either virtual or physical).  Ms. Lahaise will give us time to work on the project in class seeing as it is a group project.  Right now she is think of us working in our current literary circle, but she is not sure yet.  Ms. Lahaise showed the class an example of a board game that some of her students made in past years.  After that we discussed the movie (that we watched for homework) and canto 20.  Many people said that the movie felt “just like a review.”  Then the class started to discuss and talk about homosexuality and how it is relevant to the “Inferno.”  After that, our discussion became more about canto 20 and what are soothsayers.  If you do not know what a soothsayer is, it is someone who can see the future.  Ms. Lahaise told us that canto 20 would be the last time we (as readers) would see women sinners.  Now they will all be men.  She said that this is mainly because of the time period.  Finally we turned in todays assignment, and finished the day with about ten minutes to spare.
 
The next scribe will be Sonali.

3/19/2012
Class today began with a journal (“Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutic narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure, and separates the victim from reality.” -John Gardener) followed by silent reading. After that, we skipped over discussing it and immediately got into our lit circle groups to work on Canto 19 and complete three assignments for our role. While we were working, Ms. Lahaise asked us if anyone started the final project for The Inferno and mentioned that there was going to be a change in the directions, but didn’t specify exactly what that change was.
We were then told to go back to our seats and the discussion began. Ms. Lahaise decided to go over each role separately, beginning with any connections we made. A few people connected the sinners in this level of Hell to the people in the Canterbury tales: Kristine thought that the pilgrims had broken away from the church like Dante the Pilgrim, but that proved to be false and Harry connected the sinners to The Canterbury Tales’ Monk. Kristine also made the great connection to Martin Luther, highlighting how some people were able to purchase pardons for their sins. We then digressed from the lit circle roles into how bold Dante was while writing The Divine Comedy, for he had to judge all of those people and show his true opinion. For example, he had put the current pope at the time in Hell, which was an extremely courageous act.
Next up were the footnoters. Anthony mentioned how the footnotes said that the “lovely lady” in the Canto referred to the church and thought more into it, seeing it as a metaphor. He thought that having the church portrayed as a woman meant that it should be cherished, that it shouldn’t be taken advantage of, and that it should be kept pure. Joel highlighted the footnote explaining the punishment in this portion of Hell. As much as he didn’t like this Canto, he thought that the punishment was interesting and well thought out. The sinners, the simonists, were being punished by having their feet doused in oil and fire. This is a representation of the antithesis of baptism. Harry brought up how he thought this Canto was different than the others because Dante the poet takes this opportunity to voice his opinions about the church. This led into a talk about how to differentiate Dante the poet from Dante the pilgrim. Harry said that Dante the poet is a lot more bold and courageous, while his pilgrim persona is more timid and scared.
Many of the lit circle groups were missing a member or two, so there weren’t many discussion directors. Ms. Lahaise then announced that every group should have a discussion director no matter what.
Next we discussed the video we had to watch for homework. Overall, the class agreed that knowing about Dante’s history and about life during his time helped to understand The Inferno. The majority of us had no clue that Dante and Beatrice weren’t married, and we agreed that it explained why The Pilgrim was so sympathetic when he encountered the lustful in an earlier Canto. The video also explained the definition of a comedy, which Harry noted was similar to the Shakespearian definition. Ms. Lahaise then asked if the video was a better method than a lecture, and the class immediately answered that thee video method was the better option. We also talked about all of the symbols and patterns that Dante used, like the use of the numbers 3, 9, and 10. Taylor commented that Dante had to have thought the Canto through and planned ahead because the entire thing was so methodical.
To close up the class period, Ms. Lahaise talked about how Dante’s passion was finding his way, which incorporated into writing The Divine Comedy. She then asked us what our passions were. Harry’s is music, while Taylor’s includes YouTube and basketball. Joel didn’t know at first, but after Ms. Lahaise asked him a few questions he decided that it was computer building and watching movies. Logan immediately knew that his answer was body building and fitness. He then gave us a short science lesson on lactic acid and how it is connected to the way we feel when we exercise. We didn’t have time to hear about anyone else’s, but Ms. Lahaise promised that she would ask every single student, so everyone else, be prepared to share your passion on Thursday!
Tomorrow we’ll have a vocab test as usual, and check the calendar for any homework due Thursday.

The next scribe will be miss Michelle Do

3/13/12
Well today we started class by getting straight into
our journals. We had a quote on the board and everyone automatically
started complaining. The class insisted on watching a TED instead of
doing a quote, however Ms. Lahaise unfortunately didn’t have a TED
prepared. The class suggested that we watch the Mike Rowe TED, from
dirty jobs, but the tablet wouldn’t load it. Thus, lamentably the class
was forced into working on the quote. After the quote we proceeded into
silent reading time. After the silent reading, we began discussing the
quote. “Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared
to death.” – Earl Wilson. After talking about the quote we began to
discuss our lit circles for Canto 15 and 16. Ms. Lahaise asked a few of
us to share one of our quotes. What she had us doing was basically an
example of what we are supposed to be doing for our Lit Circle roles; to
have a quote or a passage and reflect upon it, only with our specific
role. After our canto sharing, she assigned new groups. She printed out
our names and placed them in a little bowl, the normal Lahaise way. So
our groups are:
Group 1: Leslie, Nischay, Jimmy, Nezah
Group 2: Daniel, Logan, Jackie, Janet
Group 3: Emma, Joel, Kristine, Michelle H.
Group 4: Diana, Katherine, Corina, Bryan
Group 5: Harry, Belem, Garrett, Kimberly
Group 6: Michelle D., Sonali, Joe, Anthony, Taylor
Once
our groups were formed, Ms. Lahaise gave us instructions, to read Canto
17 in our groups and then do a role about it. She told us to do one
question/quote for the Lit circle role. Once we were done with our role
she told us to switch roles for our homework, which you should look up
in the calendar. We went back to our seats, and she asked us how it
went. She was considering doing the flipped concept, where “homework” is
done in class and a lesson type is done at home. Logan connected
today’s journal quote with Canto 17, which reassured Ms. Lahaise’s
theory of switching. After discussing Canto 17 for a while, Ms. Lahaise
asked us a question. She asked us where we thought Dante’s actions
derive from. Either it be emotional or mental, and to prove our
theories.  Ms. Lahaise told us that we would try the switching thing
again on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean it can be less work just
because it is done in class. You have to keep it at a decent length. She
said that she would email us something to read , and she promised us
that it would be interesting. She told us to have one thing that we
learned from the reading prepared in case she asks us about it. It
doesn’t have to necessarily be written down, but at least have something
in mind. She then collected Canto 15 & 16 and also collected Canto
17, which we did in class. So that was the end of the class and we all
left.

Next Scribe is………. CORINA

So today Ms. Lahaise wasn’t here so we had Mrs. Gold. She explained to us how she had accidentally erased our assignment  and tries to rewrite it with the few smudges that were left on the board. BIG FAIL. Then she decided that she should email Ms.Lahaise for the assignment.The surprise she told us about on Tuesday was a one pager, which consists of:
2 quotes
2 thoughtful questions and answer
a visual
and an analysis with  a cluster of 5 to 7 different ideas
to be done on any canto of Dantes Inferno
this assignment was due at the end of class. After that we got our journal
Lincoln said people are just about as happy as they make up their mind to be. What is the nature of happiness we often equate it with fun or goodies of life is this what Lincoln means? If not what?
After that we reminded each other that on Monday Ms. Lahaise will be collecting 13 journals on monday so make sure that you have them all and that they are completed. By the time we finished the bell rang and class was finally over.

The next scribe will be… Kimberly

hey so today Ms. Lahaise was absent but the most beautiful woman in the world, Mrs. Gold subbed.  She gave us a majority of the period to work on furthering our Dante’s inferno work/reading.  Then a group from CSUN came in and gave the best presentation i have ever witnessed with my eyeballs it was insane.  it was about how to survive college or something. 

the next scribe is garret because he is in love

Hello everyone hope everyone is having a wonderful day, the class started as everyone sat down in their assigned seats as the bell rang. Ms. Lahaise passed out our Autobiography papers out that had all the components of the project with how many points possible and how many you earned. Sadly those who turned the AutoBio’s digitally she does not yet have grades for those. After everything was passed out we had our wonderful vocab tests that Ms. Lahaise loves giving out. After the test their was a journal written up on the board which we all had to do. 
Shortly after the journals we were broken up into our lit circle groups, Ms. Lahaise also mentioned that the next time we meet, we are going to change groups. As she managed to pull everyone back together she asked couple questions. It was so quiet I swore I heard crickets chirp.. because of that she made a new role, which was to randomly choose people and ask them what they wrote about. After our discussion she posted new vocab words followed by a sneaky comment by Logan saying all those words were Bombast… Hahahaha no. Then we had free time to socialize with our fellow peers. What and amazing first period. 

The next scribe will be the Biter…. aka Jackie T

Okay so right after the final bell rang we saw that most people in
the class were absent due to the field trip, sad times. However because
of the lack of students Ms. Lahaise allowed us to dedicate our day to
finish watching The Count of Monte Cristo. Before we started the movie
we wrote our journals. It was a brainstormer with the words:
competition, dying, and bus. Logan shared the poem he wrote then told us
that he is going rafting tomorrow and Ms. Lahaise expressed her
adventurous side by telling us that she wants to go shark cage diving.
After all the cages are SUPPOSED to be safe. Then Kristine shared her
story which starred Logan, Bryan, and Ms. Lahaise. While putting on the
movie Taylor made a comment to which Ms. Lahaise responded with a “your
mom” joke, unusual but one of the many reasons why we love her so much.

 **Go
to Jupiter Grades and check to see if all of your literature circle
roles have been put in, if not go talk to Ms. Lahaise, she has kept all
of our roles so she will have it if you did it.

***Bryan pointed
out that on the calendar it says we will start reading three cantos for
each time we meet, but do not fear, it has been acknowledged by Ms.
Lahaise that this may be too much work, so she has changed the
assignment. We are still doing two cantos for each homework assignment
but we are no longer required to do five questions for each canto, we
may now do only three. Also we will start reading one canto in class so
we can finish the poem before spring break.
     With this very
generous change she also told us that the literature circles are still
not super amazing and she knows we can do better so we should try
working harder.
     *Do not summarize the cantos! She wants us to think critically and analyze what we read!
      Also
if you have the connector role but are having a really hard time
finding connections you are allowed to do the role of the illuminator instead, but only if you can think of absolutely no connections.

The
next report card will only consist of: literature circle roles,
vocabulary tests, and two blogs, so if you have missed a blog or role
please turn it in late for half credit. Something is better than
nothing. We will be getting letter grades and she will fail us if we
deserve it.

Keep the same roles for the next two cantos, homework is due Monday and be ready to discuss everything on Monday.

 Have a great weekend everybody and the next scribe will be Nischay!
 

2/16/12
 
Hey guys!!!! Well to begin with, our class was relatively small compared to usually but nonetheless that didn’t excuse us from taking our vocabulary quiz. She gave us 5mins to review our words and while we were studying she was collecting our lit circle assignments. Then we took our vocabulary quiz, remember if you were absent you retake them on Tuesdays! then we got new words!
Since we’ve already watched a TED this week, we had a journey today, which was by Andrew Carnegie.
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do”. – Andrew Carnegie.
We had time to do our journey as well as silent reading. Ms. Lahaise redid the reading log chart. She gave us extra room so we can add on books whether it’s changing a book or because you finished reading that book.
Oh, and Nischay was suppose to be the scribe today >.< of course, he was absent so I became the scribe. Anyways, we weren’t going to really discuss the journal until Logan wanted to. He seemed really excited. Basically his view on the quote was that he agreed with everything Carnegie said. He brought out an excellent point that we will run across many people who act really tough and can talk the talk but can’t walk the walk and we’re all hypocritical. I agreed and I looked at it from a different view point. I saw a picture on facebook that basically showed a boyfriend sending 5 of his girlfriends the same exact message saying he loves only them etc. However, Sonali disagreed. She thought as we grow older, we become more vulnerable and we pay attention to words, whereas when we were younger we usually believed in action.
Overall, this quote really depends on the person, and we should all follow this concept. Harry brought out a point that he “exclusively believes what people say… everything we know we learn from animals, but don’t talk to them”. Taylor who was acting “weird” today or not in his normal taylor mood, was called on by Lahaise to share. He basically just said how actions stand louder than words and we are all liars. Jackie on the other hand said, “when we grow up we say stuff just to impress someone else but we have to pay attention to their actions not words”.
Then Joel recommended Lahaise to watch “lie to me” which was kind of like CSI and lahaise  got super excited. Then Ms. Lahaise made Taylor move.
MOVING ON TO THE IMPORTANT PART:
Changes she made: Our Lit Roles have changed a little.
Discussion director: For each Canto, you must come up with 5 questions and answer them as well. She doesn’t want a summary before you begin asking questions.
Illuminator: 5 things to illuminate for each Canto
Connector: make 5 connections for each Canto
Illustrator: Draw what you think is most important from the text you read. When you write your passage at the back, don’t just summarize it. She wants to know why you picked this drawing and how it relates to the Canto.
As you can see, Lahaise expects a lot from us! We’ve done the basics, now she wants to see us her honors level work. Just a little reminder, she is grader harder…
SECOND CHANGE:  Since she doesn’t require us to take notes, now she thinks is the appropriate time to begin. She’s still contemplating on whether or not we will need a scribe. As of now we need a scribe, but if she changed her mind. The person who is assigned to be the scribe will email the scribe post to lahaise instead of posting it, therefore those who are absent will have to email Ms. Lahaise to get the post.
Oh and, we’re going to have random note checks, so she’s very serious about it, and it’s for a grade!
Note Taking:
1)      Write the date. It may sound obvious but people forget
2)      When you take notes consider these following points
-          What do you not understand?
-          What didn’t you know before?
-          Key concepts you might forget
3)      Pull put the important concepts that you didn’t know already
4)      When we have a discussion about any book, its fair gain for the final essay we will take!
5)      Ways to take notes, based on your preference: Cornell notes, mind mapping, bullet points.
**** Its meaningless if you don’t look at your notes. Go home and take your notes and either type them and add things or review them. At the end she expects a summary that summarizes what we did and learned overall. Don’t wait a few days later to do so, do it while it’s still fresh in your head ****
Ms. Lahaise also said that doing this, she guarantees that it will raise you a whole letter grade, regardless of what subject it is. Note taking is important.
After that we discussed the test that determines what level of hell you are in. If you didn’t know this, under period 1, she added a tab just for the Inferno, its called “dante extras”
After that we finally discussed the Cantos. We talked about the important things that happened in Canto 3 and 4.
-          Virgil is a good mentor who takes care of Dante
-          Charon is the guy who takes people to the different levels of hell.
·         Turns out Lucifer was the most beautiful angel in heaven. He was God’s son, and he thought he could be stronger and more powerful than god. So gave sent him to hell and he became Satan.
-          Daniel later pointed out how he thought that was Ironic because God basically gave him everything Lucifer wanted in the first place, power.
Our discussion wasn’t very long it was only 10 mins. So because it was short. We will continue our discussion on Tuesday. Ms. Lahaise said we do not have any homework; she isn’t going to assign us 2 Cantos. We are also going to read Canto 5 in class on Tuesday.
Have a good weekend guys!
 The next scibe is NEZAH Q.