2/13/2012
As soon as class started, Ms. Lahaise told us she was going to show us a TED on decisions. Before she showed us the TED(http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html), she told us to pass up our Literature circle homework assignments. While we were passing them up, she told us to that after she grades them and passes them back, we must give them back to her because she needs to record them in her rulebook. After turning in our homework we watched the TED which was about a blind woman talking about the four most important things she believed are designed to help us make better decisions. The four words were: cut, concretize, categorize, and condition. Once the TED was finished, we wrote about it and then did silent reading until 9:15 a.m. After silent reading, we discussed the TED. Many people said that too many choices makes it harder to make a decision. Taylor on the other hand had an interesting example which was relating with drug dealers. Ms. Lahaise said that Taylor’s example reminded her of a TED(http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_analyzes_crack_economics.html) that she said she would show us soon because it was really interesting. Then, we started talking about “Dante’s Inferno”. Ms. Lahaise asked us if we read the instructions posted online before doing our Literature circles because most people got half credit on our homework. SHE IS GRADING THEM HARDER THIS SEMESTER! She told us to read the instructions(http://lahaiseslair.com/information/documents/) before doing our next homework assignment which is due Thursday( Read Canto III and Canto IV plus Literature circles). Later, we got into our Literature circles and discussed about Canto II. Once we finished talking amongst our groups and changing roles, we got back to our desks and discussed as a class about the book. Garrett’s group connected Canto II with the pilgrimage while my group connected Dante’s and Beatrice’s affections to Haydee and The Count’s affections in “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Later, Ms. Lahaise asked if anyone was confused. Once nobody raised their hand, she said that she cannot help us if we do not ask her questions. She said that is we read the Italics and then the poem; it will make the poem much more understandable. She also explained that the book was considered a comedy in the time period it was written but was actually a tragedy with a happy ending. Then Ms. Lahaise explained to us that during that time period,” CHURCH RULED ALL” This means that we must use that concept while reading the book. One example she gave was how we are trained to believe that we should not kill people but what if we need to “kill” in a certain circumstance. She also said, “Give it a couple more Cantos and we will be down in hell.” ; this will make the poem less confusing. She then collected our literature circle assignment and we had free time the last fifteen minutes. REMEMBER TO STUDY FOR THE VOCABULARY QUIZ TOMORROW!!!
Next scribe post will be Nischay Kumar.
Katherine Richards
Right when we walked into class Ms. Lahaise gave us a quote
to write in our journal “Self-confidence is the first requisite to great under
taking- Samuel Jackson” However, nobody in the class liked this quote so Ms
Lahaise said she would give us another option to choose from. While she was
searching Logan said “how about “Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within
a dream- E.A. Poe”” Ms. Lahaise loved that quote and asked why he knew it off
the top of his head. Logan responded confidently with “I know a bunch of random
things”.
After we finished the journal we were to read silently. Ms
Lahaise sarcastically asked Bryan what he was reading and he said he wants to
change his book. Ms Lahaise then said if we do no like our boon then we need to
change it. If you are at least 20 pages into the book and you still don’t like
it then forget it and move on to another one. Christine mentioned how she was
reading The Count of Monte Cristo in French and how it is really difficult.
Lahaise then gave us notes on Dante’s Inferno. She said that
we MUST understand that in that time period the church was corrupt. We are only
reading on book out of the trilogy and it is the hell version.
Ms. Lahaise said that we are going to get into Lit. Circles again.
As everyone were thinking who they wanted to be with she said that the group
members will be chosen randomly. So she cut everybody’s names and put them in a
bowl. Anthony Chavez was the one who picked out four names out of the bowl at a
time. The groups are:
Group 1: Joel, Janet, Belem, Bryan
Group 2: Nischay, Christine, Emma, Garrett
Group 3: Anthony, Sonali, Harry, Jimmy
Group 4: Nezah, Daniel, Leslie, Logan
Group 5: Kimberly, Taylor, Michelle H., Katherine (me)
Group 6: Jackie, Michelle D., Joe, Diana, Korina
The Lit. circle roles are; Discussion Director, Illustrator,
Connector, and Footnoter. However if you are in Group 6, because there are 5 of
you, your group must also have an Illuminator.
The books were distributed and we read the first Canto. Ms.
Lahaise mentioned that at the end of the book there will be an assignment and a
visual representation project that we will do in pairs so we should start
thinking about who we would want to be with.
Ms Lahaise also said DO NOT skip to the end of the book.
At the end of class we got into our Lit circles to discuss
our roles for Monday.The scribe for Monday will be Janet!
Katherine Richards
Class 2/09/12
Right when we walked into class Ms. Lahaise gave us a quote
to write in our journal “Self-confidence is the first requisite to great under
taking- Samuel Jackson” However, nobody in the class liked this quote so Ms
Lahaise said she would give us another option to choose from. While she was
searching Logan
said “how about “Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream- E.A.
Poe”” Ms. Lahaise loved that quote and asked why he knew it off the top of his
head. Logan
responded confidently with “I know a bunch of random things”.
After we finished the journal we were to read silently. Ms
Lahaise sarcastically asked Bryan
what he was reading and he said he wants to change his book. Ms Lahaise then
said if we do no like our boon then we need to change it. If you are at least
20 pages into the book and you still don’t like it then forget it and move on
to another one. Christine mentioned how she was reading The Count of Monte
Cristo in French and how it is really difficult.
Lahaise then gave us notes on Dante’s Inferno. She said that
we MUST understand that in that time period the church was corrupt. We are only
reading on book out of the trilogy and it is the hell version.
Ms. Lahaise said that we are going to get into Lit. Circles again.
As everyone were thinking who they wanted to be with she said that the group
members will be chosen randomly. So she cut everybody’s names and put them in a
bowl. Anthony Chavez was the one who picked out four names out of the bowl at a
time. The groups are:
Group 1: Joel, Janet, Belem, Bryan
Group 2: Nischay, Christine, Emma, Garrett
Group 3: Anthony, Sonali, Harry, Jimmy
Group 4: Nezah, Daniel, Leslie, Logan
Group 5: Kimberly, Taylor, Michelle H., Katherine (me)
Group 6: Jackie, Michelle D., Joe, Diana, Corina
The Lit. circle roles are; Discussion Director, Illustrator,
Connector, and Footnoter. However if you are in Group 6, because there are 5 of
you, your group must also have an Illuminator.
The books were distributed and we read the first Canto. Ms.
Lahaise mentioned that at the end of the book there will be an assignment and a
visual representation project that we will do in pairs so we should start
thinking about who we would want to be with.
Ms Lahaise also said DO NOT skip to the end of the book.
At the end of class we got into our Lit circles to discuss
our roles for Monday.
The Scribe for Monday will be Janet <3
Anonymous
2/7/12
So today we walked into class and we took our postponed vocabulary test from yesterday because Ms. Lahaise finally finished everyone’s grade. She asks that from now on, we write the lesson and book that the words came from so incase we miss a vocal test that we know which one. After the test she we read for a lithe until Ms. Lahaise started to talk to us about the new semester. She warns us that she has failed students in the past and will do so this year if we don’t do our work. She said our class did well on the fat paragraphs, but we need to read books that are our age appropriate. After she finished her speech we watched a TED on a woman named Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a brain scientist who had a stroke. Ms. Taylor told us minute by minute of what happened and how she felt during it. If you weren’t in class here is the link http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html. For our journal we had to write it in six words that described the TED. Some people talked about how crazy she was, but some had six words that actually described what her talk was actually about. After the journal she gave us new words. After she finished giving the definitions we had the last seven minutes of class to just relax.
The next scribe will be Katherine.
Anonymous
2/6/11
No scribe was needed today as Ms. Lahaise was dealing with grade snafus.
anthony
2/2/12
So
today we walked into class and breathed a sigh of relief that Ms.
Lahaise was back and feeling better from her food poisoning. As
usual we complained about our sub, but we soon went onto taking our
postponed vocabulary test. After the test we had a journal on the
board which was, “Wise men are not always silent, but they know
when to be.” After a few minutes of journal and silent reading, we
got our new words for next weeks vocabulary test. We then had a
conversation with Ms. Lahaise about the possibility of students
joining our class for second semester, and she told us that if we
knew anyone joining that we should give the vocab words to them so
they could take next weeks test, “that should be a warm welcoming”
said ominous voice in the room. We then celebrated the last day of
the semester by watching the Count of Monte Cristo Movie.
The
next scribe will be … .Elliot Bluvband
anthony
1/31/12
Hey
guys, today everyone came in with their notebooks at hand as we do
every Tuesday in preparation for our weekly vocab test. But as we
walked into class we were surprised to see that Ms. Lahaise wasn’t
here. Instead we saw Mrs. Gold, which I will say the class has mixed
feelings about. So as usual when Mrs. Gold is here she gave us a
lecture about our futures and how college tuition is skyrocketing.
She then brought up the possibility of her doing our final grades
which struck fear into all of our hearts. After the lecture Mrs.
Gold said, “Okay you guys know I hate wasting time, so lets get to
work.” The whole class got a good laugh out of this. Mr. Nomachi
then walked in and was talking to Mrs. Gold and then he asked for
some students to get some textbooks from his room for our class to
use. Mrs. Gold told us to either read “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,”
or “The Pardoner’s Tale from the textbooks. She told us that we
would finish is Ms. Lahaise was not back on Thursday.
Sorry! The scribe for tomorrows class period (1/31/12) will be Anthony Chavez
Garrett
1/30/12
Today’s class period revolved mostly around the presenting of our celebrity tales. We started the class period out with a TED presented by Sebastian Wernicke. Ms. Lahaise said we did not have to write a journal on the TED but stated that it will apply to tomorrows journal topic. In the TED, Wernicke discusses how TED talks in general should be limited to just six words. Afterwards, Ms. lahaise collected the worksheets on the Canterbury Tales and went over the new words for the week. (Vocabulary Quiz tomorrow). Then we went straight into the presentations. The presentations lasted the remainder of the period.
Garrett
1/26/12
Thursday’s class period was rather uneventful. Ms. Lahaise started the period off by saying that she had almost finished grading everyones blogs and that many students did not follow the instructions she had given. She stated that the blogs are not supposed to be summaries of news articles, but an expansion of your thoughts about the topics discussed. Ms. Lahaise then started a class discussion on the Canterbury Tales and the reading we had from the previous class period (lines 280-340). We reviewed the characters (Merchant, Oxford Cleric, and the Sergeant at the Law) of the reading set and filled in our character charts. Ms. Lahaise then gave us the rest of the period to work with our partners on the celebrity tales assignment which we will be presenting next class period.
http://profile.yahoo.com/56R2KBULRSYU4QGVLS3LKQP3PQ Joel
1/24/12
Today we started the day thinking that we were gonna work on our celebrity tales project but actually ended up taking a vocabulary quiz followed by some time for silent reading. once we had finished silent reading we had about 15 minutes or so to work on our projects so we did that for the remainder of the period. Ms lahaise said that we would get new words thursday because we didnt have enough time today to get them. remember everyone we have two fat paragraphs due on friday so make sure to get those done. the scribe for thursday will be Garrett
http://profile.yahoo.com/56R2KBULRSYU4QGVLS3LKQP3PQ Joel
1/24/12
Today we started the day thinking that we were gonna work on our celebrity tales project but actually ended up taking a vocabulary quiz followed by some time for silent reading. once we had finished silent reading we had about 15 minutes or so to work on our projects so we did that for the remainder of the period. Ms lahaise said that we would get new words thursday because we didnt have enough time today to get them. remember everyone we have two fat paragraphs due on friday so make sure to get those done. the scribe for thursday will be Garrett
Taylor A.
Class Date: 1/23/12
Today in class we did a “Literature Question” assignment for the whole period because Ms. Lahaise was absent today. Our sub was Ms. Gold. Not much else happened today. We did not take the scheduled vocab test. In addition, since we have not been told differently, the BiWeekly Reader is still due today. The next scribe will be Joel.
Taylor A.
Class Date: 1/23/12
Today in class we did a “Literature Question” assignment for the whole period because Ms. Lahaise was absent today. Our sub was Ms. Gold. Not much else happened today. We did not take the scheduled vocab test. In addition, since we have not been told differently, the BiWeekly Reader is still due today. The next scribe will be Joel.
Joe B.
January 19, 2012
Today we started off with a journal. The journal was on the quote “Human Behavior flows from 3 main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge” by Plato. Afterwards Ms. Lahaise gave us about thirty minutes of silent reading. When we were done, we talked about the journal. Everyone agreed that the quote was pretty obvious and didn’t have much to say about it. We also discussed the TED we saw on Tuesday. Logan ranted about how the first girl made chicken seem terrible to eat and that she seemed to focus on chicken and how he disliked her. The rest of the class seemed to dislike the first girl as well but still found her accomplishments intriguing especially at a young age. During our discussion, Ms. Lahaise brought up the idea that our generation is the dumbest. This resulted in her showing us a video created by her former students called the “Dumbest Generation”.
After the video we jumped back into the “Canterbury Tales”. We picked up where we left off last time which was the Monk. After reading the part about the Monk, we discussed Chaucer’s attitude toward him. We all agreed that it was negative due to the fact that the Monk was a bad monk and was a complete hypocrite. Despite being a Monk, he would still hunt and wear fancy clothes and jewelry. After the Monk was the Friar who was somewhat similar to the Monk. Most of the class had trouble when we were discussing what he was similar to. I whispered to Taylor and Anthony and jokingly told them that he seemed like a total pimp. To our surprise, Ms. Lahaise confirmed it and said that he was like a pimp. We agreed that Chaucer’s attitude to the Friar was also negative due to his shady business he does with people. He seems to be greedy and does not seem to care for those who are lowly and sick.
We ended our “Canterbury Tales” discussion with the Friar. We realized that no one has been scribe since before winter break and Ms. Lahaise asked if anyone wanted to volunteer. After about 30 seconds of silence, I happily took it upon myself to be the first scribe of the new year. She reminded us that if we do not choose someone to be the next scribe, then 50% will be deducted from the scribe post. She then told us to pair up and then choose 7 celebrities to write a poem about. Each person has to have a 10 line description and it has rhyme. We should use indirect characterization and somehow connect each character together.
The next scribe shall be……TAYLOR
Joe B.
January 19, 2012
Today we started off with a journal. The journal was on the quote “Human Behavior flows from 3 main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge” by Plato. Afterwards Ms. Lahaise gave us about thirty minutes of silent reading. When we were done, we talked about the journal. Everyone agreed that the quote was pretty obvious and didn’t have much to say about it. We also discussed the TED we saw on Tuesday. Logan ranted about how the first girl made chicken seem terrible to eat and that she seemed to focus on chicken and how he disliked her. The rest of the class seemed to dislike the first girl as well but still found her accomplishments intriguing especially at a young age. During our discussion, Ms. Lahaise brought up the idea that our generation is the dumbest. This resulted in her showing us a video created by her former students called the “Dumbest Generation”.
After the video we jumped back into the “Canterbury Tales”. We picked up where we left off last time which was the Monk. After reading the part about the Monk, we discussed Chaucer’s attitude toward him. We all agreed that it was negative due to the fact that the Monk was a bad monk and was a complete hypocrite. Despite being a Monk, he would still hunt and wear fancy clothes and jewelry. After the Monk was the Friar who was somewhat similar to the Monk. Most of the class had trouble when we were discussing what he was similar to. I whispered to Taylor and Anthony and jokingly told them that he seemed like a total pimp. To our surprise, Ms. Lahaise confirmed it and said that he was like a pimp. We agreed that Chaucer’s attitude to the Friar was also negative due to his shady business he does with people. He seems to be greedy and does not seem to care for those who are lowly and sick.
We ended our “Canterbury Tales” discussion with the Friar. We realized that no one has been scribe since before winter break and Ms. Lahaise asked if anyone wanted to volunteer. After about 30 seconds of silence, I happily took it upon myself to be the first scribe of the new year. She reminded us that if we do not choose someone to be the next scribe, then 50% will be deducted from the scribe post. She then told us to pair up and then choose 7 celebrities to write a poem about. Each person has to have a 10 line description and it has rhyme. We should use indirect characterization and somehow connect each character together.
The next scribe shall be……TAYLOR
harry
Scribe 12-8-11
The bulk of what we did today was work on autobiographies in class. Ms. Lahaise checked to make sure everybody finished their 5 autobiography assignments that were due today, and then she explained various things, beginning about an hour through the class period.
Talked about resumes – if you are an arts person, your resume should include all the arts stuff that you do, including eduction, productions, etc. However, for everyone else, your resume should only be one page long, and should only include work experience and references. Managers of retail stores and other stores like that don’t care about all of the fluff; they just want to see the real detail that makes you qualified for the job you’re applying for.
Talked about Table of Contents – To make a Table of Contents, highlight the title of a section of your autobiography and click the square on the top toolbar that says heading 1. Repeat this process for each title of each section, then right click on a new page and click create table of contents. It creates a table of contents and updates it for you if the lengths of the sections change. When you add sections, highlight them and click on heading 1, then right click on your table of contents and click update to update the table of contents. It will then add the new sections and page numbers.
Lastly, Ms. Lahaise announced that she’ll be posting a Wild Card assignment in the Docs section of the website, so check there to find directions for an assignment that you can do to replace any one of the assignments in the autobiography, except for the special assignment, title page, table of contents, and epilogue.
We continued working on autobiographies until the bell rang while Michelle played some hella good tunes, ranging from Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers all the way to MF Doom.
anthonyc
So today was an odd tuesday we still got out of school at 2 o’clock but it was a 1,3,5 day. We came into class this morning and most of us had out notebooks out studying for out vocab test and Ms. Lahaise remembered that we had a test schedule for today. Some people tried to convince her that there was no test but she didn’t believe it for a second. So after a few minutes of reviewing we took the test and then went on to our journal which was, What do you do when someone tells you something then says, “but please don’t tell anyone.”? We then got our new vocab words which if you were absent you have to get from someone in class. Ms. Lahaise told use that if we are not going to be at school at the end of next week that we have to make sure that we send our autobiography assignments due that day to the hw drop. Ms. Lahaise then told us that the due date for the final draft of The Count of Monte Cristo essay is pending and might be due after winter break. We then began working on our autobiographies and Ms. Lahaise was checking the 5 assignments that were due. There was a misunderstanding whether or not the title page was an assignment, well it’s not. That’s about it for today the next scribe will be my buddy Harry.
garrettm
Ms. Lahaise started the period off with a couple of reminders. The first reminder addressed a problem she had been having with other classes. Ms. Lahaise clarified that students must notify her a week in advance when expecting to be absent for a field trip or other school related activities. If you do not notify her a week in advance, Ms. Lahaise said she will not sign the approval letter that will allow you to go. The second reminder of the day was to finish the first five assignments of the autobiography by the beginning of class tomorrow and turn them in the homework drop located on her website. Do not email your assignments to Ms. Lahaise! The third and final reminder was to make sure to get an autobiography / biography book to read for the autobiography assignment.
After Ms. Lahaise was finished with her reminders she had us watch a TED. The TED was presented by Brian Skerry, who devoted his life to photographing the ocean above and below the waves. Skerry’s overall goal was to capture, “both the horrors and magic of the ocean.” Skerry feels that these powerful images can help make a difference in the environment by bringing the major ocean issues to the forefront. After the TED was finished, we were given ten minutes for our journals. We later discussed the TED. The discussion lacked enthusiasm, but many students disliked Skerry’s presentation for he did not provide a possible solution for the problems he had addressed. Once our discussion was over, so was the period.
The scribe for tomorrow will be Anthony (Brown Bear) Chavez.
Joe
For the most part, today was just like any other Tuesday. Ms. Lahaise was about to start us off with our weekly Vocab Quiz but we argued that it wasn’t on the calendar and we didn’t have to take it. However, she still wanted us to take it and we managed to get her to make it an open note Vocab Quiz. After we finished the quiz we did our journal which was a quote. The quote was “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, its time to pause and reflect.” Ms. Lahaise said that she would fix our calendar and put up the due dates for our autobiography. She said that she’ll have us work on it every Monday but for this week, we’ll work on it on Thursday. Afterwards we had a seat change and received our next set of words. The next scribe shall be……… Anthony Chavez.
tayloralexander
Sorry quick correction: I meant to make the next scribe JOE BALADAD. HAVE FUN.
tayloralexander
Ms. Lahaise started class by showing us how to start the “peer review.” She instructed us to answer the questions given on the right side of the screen. The essay should be on the left side. Ms. Lahaise also warned us, that she knows who’s essay is whoever’s, and she also knows who is doing the “peer review” so if we do anything dumb, she’ll know, and we’ll get in trouble. She said that after 3pm today we will be able to go to turnitin.com and check our essays and look at the comments and make the changes if we personally think the change is needed. After 15 minutes of class we went to the computer lab. After returning from doing the “peer review”, Ms . Lahaise showed us a T.E.D. and made us write a journal on it. The T.E.D. speaker was Michael Shermer. He spoke about how people like to see supernatural events or appearances in ordinary situations. I liked the example of how people thought they saw “Mother Teresa” on a window of a building, when really it was being cause by a palm tree and sprinkler and that this “phenomenon” could be found on any single window with a sprinkler and palm tree. After writing the journal, we had silent reading time, then we talked about the T.E.D. Logan talked about how the T.E.D. speaker was a person that cannot ever see the beauty in art. Harry said that the speaker simply showed flawed logic in human thought. (I completely agree with harry) Michelle then said that the speaker must be an atheist. Ms. Lahaise then offered Logan extra credit to go interview Michael Shermer. Before the bell rang Ms. Lahaise said she was going to postpone the vocab quiz until next week. The next scribe will be Jackie Tijerina. Have fun.
joela
Today when class started everyone was happy because the calendar said that we had nothing to do except our lit circle roles and the vocab quiz want on there. Ms lahaise said that she has no idea why it wasnt on the calendar but we did have a vocab test today. After we had our vocab test we were to write a journal on Marco Tempest a man who created a amazing iphone application where u can synchronize multiple screens together and also had a little magic in in. The main message was that everyone lies wether it be a small lie like im stuck in traffic or something large. After we wrote our journal we had to silent reading for a bit and after we got our new vocabulary words. Once we got all of that out of the way Ms lahaise continued her talk about essay writting and we had to write alot of notes. If you need any of these notes you can ask me or anyone in the class for them. Before we finished talking she told us all that most of us are probably gonna write it sunday night which she said not to do. She recommended that we write it on saturday and just leave it then to come back to it on sunday. The reason for this is because when u read your paper out loud the next day you think to yourself oh why did i write this or why is that there. She also highly emphasized not o plagiarize because she will find out. Once we finished our talk about essay writing we went on and discussed The Count Of Monte Cristo. She really liked what i called Vampa is my connections and even wrote on my paper “LOL”. Also Kristine, Janet, and Katherine didnt like how Dantes went of with Haydee because they wanted him to be with Mercedes. The rest of the class we had to ourselfs. Remember to do your essays which are due before class on monday and also remember not to write your name on it because we will be doing peer review. Also she gave us the Turnitin.com pass word and class Id and if you need that just someone in the class.
The scribe for monday will be Taylor.. =)
8thWonderOfTheWorld
We started of class talking about the grades and how lit circle homework is going to be 30% of your grade, so its a good idea to get them done. We have also reached chapter 113 on “The count of Monte Cristo” which has the extra part that was removed. So Mrs. Lahaise reminded us to check our email for chapter 113, since she sent it this morning..
We also had a brief explanation on how to write a proper introduction paragraph since our first draft is due in about a week. Mrs. Lahaise suggested that you start the first part of your paragraph with something interesting such as a question,a quote, an anecdote/short story etc. This will help grab the interest of your audience. Of course you should never forget your thesis in your introduction paragraph, this would just lower your grade. If your having trouble figuring out your thesis remember this: take your topic, ask a question relating to the topic and the answer to this question is your thesis, very easy right ?
Mrs. Lahaise also explained what romanticism is. no, its not anything having to do with love or affairs, its more about being one with the Earth. its thinking beyond what people think is normal. An example of romanticism in the book would be the Chateau d’if, because of its mysteriousness and its different from what we may think. She also sent a better definition to our emails, so check.
p.s i am sure that i was the last person to post a scribe once ..?
the next scribe will be Joel..
janetp
As we walked into room 503, Ms. Lahaise told us to get ready to take a vocabulary quiz. She said that our class was a week behind all the other classes. Then after explaining to her that we took the quiz on Monday, she said that she was going to give us a free day but since the WONDERFUL grading period has been extended for another four days, we had to work. When Ms. Lahaise asked us to pass up our homework, Harry asked, “If everybody did their homework can we have a “free day”?” Ms. Lahaise said “Yes, If EVERYBODY did their homework.” Daniel said, “No, no I didn’t do it. Then all of us who have Mr. Nomachi for homeroom told the class how he “flipped-out” after discovered the grading period was extended for another four. Taylor then “silently” came in late to class. Then Ms. Lahaise told us she has not put up our journal yet and cannot decide on a quote. We all told her that we did not due a TED this week, even though she did not believes in the beginning. We watched a TED by Eve Ensler about embracing our inner girl. BEST TED EVER!!!!!!!! (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html) After watching the TED, we wrote our journal and did a little bit of silent reading. Kristine started the journal discussion and said that girls are emotional. She told us how she watched an Egyptian movie showing how girls are mistreat in Egypt. Ms. Lahaise said that she was on the right track but there was more to the TED. Hollis said that everybody’s emotions are distributed equally. Logan agree with Hollis and said that when we get angry we must vent out and not keep it inside of us and then end up “exploding”.The discussion ended with Logan saying that girls don’t need to wear a ton of makeup like Kim Kardashian to impress a guy because beauty comes from inside.
Then Ms. Lahaise passed back out Homework and we got into our Lit. circles. After the end of our discussions in our Lit. circles, we started to talk about Chapters 99-103 as a class. Taylor decide to share first . His group foreshadowed that Maximilian will kill himself after discovering Valentine “dead”. Then Logan compared the book to The Great Gatsby. Ms. Lahaise really liked how Corina connected the book(The Count of Monte Cristo) to the book Child Called “It”. After closing the discussion with Corina’s connection, we started watching the rest of The Count of Monte Cristo movie. That’s all we did today.
The next scribe will be Taylor Alexander.
Katherine R
AAHH!! Mondays…okay well when we got to class Ms Lahaise asked us if we were all ready for our vocabulary test and the whole class responded with “NO” The she asked who the scribe was and Harry sung “Katherine Richards” I think he was in a good mood today I don’t know…Then Harry collected out homework so she could grade them while we were taking our test.
After we were done we were to write in our journals: “Love is constant, hate is random”(proverb) if you do or didn’t like this quote then you had to just do a free write. After we were done with the journal we did silent reading ( nothing new)
After we were done reading Ms Lahaise informed us that some people are going to be disappointed with our grades on our 10 week report cards ☹. However, when we get back to school after thanksgiving we start on our auto-biographies that could save some of us ☺. She doesn’t want anyone to blow it out senior year.
We did new vocabulary words so if you weren’t here make sure you get them from a friend.
Then we got into our groups and Harry passed back our homework. Ms Lahaise then told us that she has been giving out a lot of ½ credits mainly to the illustrators because they aren’t writing enough!
IMPORTANTE: IF YOU DID NOT TURN IN YOUR TWO BLOGS YOU CAN DO IT TONIGHT!!
Back to the Count: Taylors group talked about Noirtier had been giving Valentine poison to build up immunity. And Taylor connected that to the movie “The Human Centipede” Nobody liked his connection sorry ☹. But Janet liked mine! I connected Valentine being poisoned to Snow White. Joel then called Danglars and ass hole because he doesn’t care about his daughters happiness he only cares about money. Ms Lahaise then explained that women were considered property then and even today that is why when women get married they take their husbands last name. Garrett then predicted that The Count will bankrupt Danglars twice. Joe was happy because he finally had proof that Eugenie is a lesbian. We talked about how The Count thinks of himself as god because he isnt doing anything his hands are clean and Harry compared him to the Joker. Ms Lahaise asked us if we noticed a change in The Counts behavior recently and the class said yes because he is starting to shift into being the old caring Edmond Dantes<3
After that we were done for the day!!!
The next scribe will be Janet Petrosyan ☺
kristinek
So Happy Its Thursday!!
As you guys already know, today was pretty cold and as everyone walked into class, 1/4 of the students had a cup of coffee with them. Ms. Lahaise, you have inspired us to drink coffee early in the morning. Speaking of Ms. Lahaise, she wasn’t feeling well at all today . She was losing her voice and has either an eye/ear infection. Sorry for creeping on your personal life. Anyhow, since she wasn’t feeling well, she wanted to show us half of the Count of Monte Cristo. Of course, everyone got so excited! But our excitement died when we had to take our vocabulary quiz because, after we heard “we’re going to watch a movie”, i’m sure everyone was hopeing she forgot about the quiz.” Before she passed out our quizes she had to change our journal because the one we had before was not interesting at all.
Harry wanted the jouran to be “Better than adequate” But Lahaise wants that from her students and she never gets it. Damn, what a burn.
As she was done insulting us, she told us to pass up our homework so she can look it over.
**Remeber, if you are absent, email her your homework so you can get full credit rather than half credit.**
So we finally started our quiz and i honestly thought that was the most confusing quiz i’ve ever taken. Never underestimate vocabulary quizes. I mean, according to Logan the quiz was “hard as hell”. So if you were absent, make sure you know those words by heart, maybe even try looking up sentences with those words, because that quiz will blow you away.
So after she changed that “inadequate quote” our quote for today was
” My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me” – Henry Ford.
Basically after our quiz we did our daily routine. Jounral and silent reading. She also gave us new words so make sure you get them from someone! So we we’re all so anxious to see the movie because we didn’t have to do work, but that ended when Lahaise wanted us to get into our Lit circles. She had to recollect our homework because she forgot her sheet where she puts our grades. :\ But if we forget our homework, Oh my god are you dead. So, its okay Ms. Lahaise…we forgive you.
As we got into our Lit circles we had some pretty interesting discussions. Janet thinks that Albert and Haydee are going to be together and Edmond will get back together with Mercedes. Then i asked her if her view on Albert changed because of the dueling scene, and of course, she still loves Albert. However, Janet also said that the Count still loves Mercedes and is stupid because he needs to realize that she is like 17 and he’s 40, and he loves her like a daughter. Then Katherine said, and i quote, “If he loves her like a daughter, thats just werid… he should be put back in jail”. Oh Katherine you made my day <3. Then Janet started to cry because she thinks Mercedes never really had a chance to love Edmond. As Jackie said, "Mercedes lost Edmond twice". Which is so true. Poor hopeless Romantic.
Anyways, Janet later connected Edmonds unfair trail to Rosa Parks. How both of them where accused of nothing. THEN Ms. Lahaise told us how the Rosa Parks incident was all planned out, and everyones face was like this " " pretty much in shock and confusion. At that moment, English class turned into history class.
" You just ruined everything i have completely ever learned"- said Michelle.
Then Corina added how she doens't learn anything in History class because she was a terrible teacher, whose name shall remain a mystery. To get even more off topic Lahaise started to talk about how we discover new planets and we recently discovered one last week.
As we got back on topic, Diana's group thought that Fernand got off easy and that his family is suffering more than being happy.
Then Lahaise brought up the military term "collateral damage" and asked if anyone knew what it meant. Byran said he knows what it means but he just doesnt know how to explain… Okay Byran that totally made me believe you actually knew what it meant. On the other hand, Taylor said it was "unintended damage". So Lahaise gave us a brillant analogy. Just picture Lahaise saying this, it's priceless. "So Lets say Bin Ladin was in this school and they bombed the school so thats collateral damage. They kill us to kill the main person." And then some other student, probably Daniel said "Shit happens". Back to our discussion, Logan thought Fernand deserved to shoot himself because he was an asshole".
Lahaise later asked us if The Count was taking this "God" image to seriously. Daniel said, "People give him the power to feel like he's god."
At the end, Lahaise gave up, we werent talking and she was losing her voice so she showed us the Count of monte Cristo. IN FRENCH with Gerald Depardieu however, he is just soooo ugly omg, and that nose of his, just wow. Anyways, if you were absent together, all i can say is "tant pis" which is french for Too bad. Oh well… you guys get the point today was a pretty chill day.
NEXT SCRIBE IS KATHERINE RICHARDS <3
nezahloise
Today in class..
We watched a TED by Aimee Mullins (http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.html)
Before we started the journal, Ms. Lahaise gave us background information about her.
Aimee Mullins was born with missing fibula legs and as a result she had to have her legs amputated.
She is a graduate of Georgetown University
She competed in the NCAA
She is an athlete, actress, and a fashion SUPERmodel
After the little information giving, we were given a couple minutes to do our journal.
It’s monday morning so we all were pretty much dead which meant not a lot of people shared.
While talking about the TED, we got into the subject of normalcy and we all agreed that being normal wasn’t worth it and that no one is ever normal.
After the journal sharing, we got into our Literature Circle groups and had a couple of minutes to share about the reading and afterwards we had a class discussion about the chapters.
Then the remaining class period, Ms. Lahaise gave us an assignment.
The assignment was to write a letter to who YOU think is the most important character in the book and explain why you think He/She is the most important.
It must be in the format of a letter and your name should be signed at the end of the letter
~That’s pretty much what happened today. (:
aaand so the next scribe will be….. Kristine Kousherian. YAAAAY! Muahahaaa. (:
Diana
We started off Thursday morning in Ms. Lahaise’s class with the dreaded vocabulary test. Not surprising at all since we did not take it on Tuesday. As people finished their tests, they began to work on the Journal.
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” – Virginia Woolf
As we normally do, when we finished writing down our thoughts about the Journal topic, we began silent reading.
Once Ms. Lahaise felt that is was enough time for silent reading, she told us to put our books away so we could discuss the quote. As we got into the discussion we soon realized that the quote was not so inspirational. The class agreed to this and Ms. Lahaise considered removing Quotes from our Journals.
Logan volunteered and idea; that we (individually) could bring in a quote and the class can analysis it. “Like the senior quotes.” Not many agreed on this idea, but Ms. Lahaise thought it to be a good one. Not to analysis the senior quotes, but to bring in a quote to be analyzed.
After this thought, Ms. Lahaise confessed to us that she completely forgot what she had planned for us. She was going to play for us a MOTH. So a MOTH is a basically a 10 minute audio clip. There is a location where people go and tell their life story and that’s what a MOTH is. She compared it to a TED, both inspiring and moving, but only difference is that it’s only audio. So it’s probably going to be a new segment in our Journals. So it would be a TED, a MOTH and then maybe the WHEEL.
We then got into our Literature circles do discuss “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Many had good discussions going on and were engaged with their conversations.
We then went back to our desks to wright down our new words. A new list of 15 magnificent words! We got the definitions and then we began our group discussion about the book.
It wasn’t a very lively discussion. Again, the topic of coffee for the entire class arose. I personally think that it is a great idea; a cup of coffee to brighten the gloomy day.
We talked about the time lapse of the book. We don’t have any solid dates in the book. The only certain time lapse that we have is Edmond jail time. Ms. Lahaise asked it that was bothering anybody. And the reaction of the class, which was none, made me assume that nobody is bothered by the lack of the time frame.
We also talked about likeable/dis-likeable characters. Who is the most likeable character? Of course, we get a variety of answers. Is there more likeable then dislike able characters? In my opinion, I think every character is likeable for their different qualities, but some thought that there were more dis-likable that likable, partly due to the fact that there are so many more characters in this book.
We then transition to the text, and we read, as a class chapter 84. In the middle of reading, Ms. Lahaise has a capital idea to tell us some ‘vital’ information about reading. So, she interrupts Harry’s reading and told us “what good readers do.” She tells us that good readers skip things, like redundancy. If there is something really redundant like “Get me a doctor! Get me a doctor! Get me a doctor” well, you’ll skip that. She said that the part of the reason why she is able to read the book in about a week is because she skips. Since most of us are not ‘strong’ readers, she advices not to skip, but to practice.
“It helps immensely in college” – Ms. Lahaise
Probably one of the best lines in the book is “One.” Which is what Monte Cristo says to himself after Caderousse dies and after he revealed himself to Caderousse.
Connections: She is seeing a couple of people struggling with connecting the reading. You can relate it to anything; anything at all.
The essay: She “wants us to think outside the book.” She doesn’t want a huge recital of the book.
Again the topic about a movie version arose. It is as if every time we talk about the book, this topic is bound to come up. And like all the other times, we complain how there is no accurate version of the book and that they should make one even though it may be like 3 movies long due to detail. But hey, they did that for harry potter, so it’s a shame that they don’t do it for The Count.
Plans for Monday! Bring your BOOK, You are going to need it, so she says. Also we changed our Literature circle roles.
And with that, that concluded the class as it will conclude this crappy scribe post!
Next scribe: Nezah
elliotbl
I would’ve done this yesterday, but I was feeling really under the weather. However, I did hear that we had Ms. Gold as a substitute and the only assignment required was to do a free write. There really isn’t much else I can say. The next scribe shall be Diana P.
Corina
As we walked into the room, we found out that Mrs. Lahaise has a lot of TED videos in her computer. As everyone was settling down Logan stated that the room feels different, that it felt open. Everyone agreed and Mrs. Lahaise said that she moved the small table. Logan decided that, that was probably why the room felt “open.” Mrs. Lahaise asked who the scribe was and since Daniel decided not to post the scribe on Thursday, he decided that I’m the scribe for today. [Sorry that this is posted late but I had to go to class and could not post until now]. We watched a TED by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, it is about the Taliban. (http://www.ted.com/talks/sharmeen_obaid_chinoy_inside_a_school_for_suicide_bombers.html) After watching the TED, as always, we wrote our journal and then continued on to do silent reading. During the silent reading Elliot walked in late and everyone went on the continued their silent reading. Our silent reading was later interrupted by someone attempting to close their locker and Logan decided to go help the person but she left. Mrs. Lahaise decided that since everyone had already stopped reading because of the disruption, the class should put their reading away and start to discuss our journals.
• Logan decided to start the discussion and said that the Taliban is basically making other Muslims look bad because of their actions of blowing up people and that is sad.
*Mrs. Lahaise agreed with Logan because she sees his point.
• Katherine agreed with the speaker about how if we were in the country and the same situation, we could choose to kill people also.
*Mrs. Lahaise agreed with this statement also.
• Anthony said that the teachers are using the kids to do their dirty work instead of them doing it.
*Mrs. Lahaise agreed
• Kristine agreed with Logan and said that it is unfortunate that they misinterpret the book because it is really a peaceful book made into a book of destruction.
*Mrs. Lahaise wished Mohammad was here since no one was Muslim in the class and he has a lot of good things to say about this TED.
• Logan called the teachers brilliant because of their system to use the kids to bomb others.
*Mrs. Lahaise agreed
• Harry said that he wished the kids were exposed to the knowledge about this unfortunate event caused by the Taliban.
*Mrs. Lahaise sort of agreed (she saw his point) but explained that the families were in a bad situation that is most likely why they get the children.
• Kristine said that Pakistan probably has something to do with it.
• Garrett said the kids are stripped of their individuality especially compared to us.
*Mrs. Lahaise once again agreed.
• Hollis said that this is not the first time this has been done like the cartels, who get kids to sell drugs. He also said that this has been happening everywhere in the world, so it is not new.
*Mrs. Lahaise agreed and commented that our minds as children are malleable.
• Elliot related this to the Vietnam War and how they strapped bombs on children and had them go to the American soldiers, knowing the soldiers would not shoot them.
*Mrs. Lahaise once again agreed
This was the end of our journal discussion and therefore we went into our discussion groups. Mrs. Lahaise warned everyone that if they got a half on their paper, they were warned of what she wanted to see with our homework. At the end of our discussion groups, Mrs. Lahaise made sure that we read Haydée’s chapter for homework. After confirming that we did in fact read this chapter we started to discuss what we discussed with our groups to the class.
• Kristine said that since Janet was their discussion director and she was absent, the group made Kristine the director. She told how she and her group discussed Katherine’s connections to the reading.
• Joel said that his group made good connections as well and they discussed how Madame Villefort will end up poisoning Valentine on her wedding day but either the Count or Maximilian will switch the cops and Madame Villefort will end up poisoning herself.
• Garrett and Jimmy said that they see Haydée is important and they no longer see her as a slave.
Everyone established that Haydée doesn’t know that Albert is Fernand’s son. Mrs. Lahaise tried to remember what she wanted to mention to the class but could not remember what it was but a couple of minutes later she remembered.
• Joe guessed that Eugénie is a lesbian and Mrs. Lahaise told the class that no one has realized that she is a lesbian so soon. So kudos to Joe…and Leslie for guessing this also.
• Joel connected Maximilian and Valentine to Mario and Peach because they are always separated.
*Mrs. Lahaise liked this connection and revealed that she is more of a Pacman person.
Also kudos to this period because as Mrs. Lahaise said, we are making predictions before anyone else in her other classes.
We discussed that Danglers and Albert dislike each other and it has to do with money because Danglers considers himself richer and better then Albert and his family. We also established that Andrea is Benedetto and if Eugénie marries then she would be marrying her own brother. Mrs. Lahaise said that we still have to have Caderousse, Danglers, Villefort and Fernand all still have to be dealt with.
• Elliot does not see Caderousse as guilty of what happened to the Count
The class disagreed and said that Caderousse is just as guilty as the others because he did not stop the arrest of Edmond Dantés.
• Harry said that Caerousse’s actions of killing the jeweler and his wife really show Caderousse’s character.
Mrs. Lahaise wanted to know if the class thought Mercédès was just as guilty as everyone else, everyone in the class agreed with this statement. The class together made predictions that Danglers would be bankrupted by the Count, Villefort would be poisoned by his wife or go to jail, Albert would turn against his father and Mercédès would marry the Count. Other also predicted that the Count influenced Madame Villefort to poison Villefort. It was also predicted that the Count would reveal himself to everyone before they die or go to prison. Mrs. Lahaise had us go back to the beginning of the book, where Abbé Faria is talking to Edmond. He told Dantés that revenge would consume him and end up destroy him.
• Taylor said that the Count would have to do this because to revenge himself.
“Who is the most important character? —Mrs. Lahaise
• Logan said Villefort because he imprisoned Dantés.
• Daniel said Mercédès because if she and Edmond was not in love then Fernand wouldn’t have been jealous.
• Garrett said Abbé Faria because Dantés would of killed himself if the Abbé had not intervened and he taught the Count everything that he knows now.
• Kristine agreed with this.
• Elliot said Fernand, Danlgers, Caderousse because Dantés would not of been arrested without their involvement.
• Anthony said Noirtier because of the note that Edmond was given by his Captain to give to Noirtier.
Logan interrupted the discussion to go to the bathroom and Mrs. Lahaise agreed that Abbé Faria was the most important character. She then asked us if we wanted to watch the movie, to which everyone said they would like to watch it. Mrs. Lahaise informed us that none of his classes have gotten any further than an hour into the movie because they could not stand how incorrect the movie was. Mrs. Lahaise told us that if we had not read the book then the movie would have been good but since we did, that is why we can’t stand watching it. She checked that if we did the vocabulary and body paragraph ergo she let us have free time. (She most likely forgot about her wanting us to do a character list.)
The next scribe is….Elliot Bluvband
Belem
Today we started off the class with a TED as usual. It was by Joachim De Posada. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_yet.html
Right when we finished watching the TED we took our vocabulary test that was supposed to be taken last Thursday. Once we were done with our test we got our new set of words. This vocabulary test will be this Thursday, so make sure to get the words if you haven’t already done so. After that we discussed the journal.
Logan stated that we learn more self discipline while you get older, and how in college they “test” your ability.
Self discipline is a factor of success.
When we were finally done discussing the journal we had to finish up our Body Biographies. Mrs. Lahaise said that on Thursday we are going to be:
- taking the vocabulary quiz
- journal
- silent reading
- present Body Biographies
- Lit Circles
She also stated that we should check our Calender so that we can see whats due and to start looking at the essay prompts for The Count of Monte Cristo. That’s pretty much all we did today.
So, this morning in homeroom Michelle kindly told me that I was the scribe today…fun times -_-! Anyway, then I was informed that there was a fire drill in first period so I thought it would be an easy scribe day, but of course it wasn’t.
Today when we got to class we barely had anytime for dilly-dallying. Ms. Lahaise quickly told us to get into our body biography groups because she was giving us 15 minutes to work on it. Then she said those of you who are going to the CSUN meeting were going to miss the Count of Monte Cristo quiz. We continued working on our projects, when we heard the voice of an angel…JUST KIDDING it was only Mr. Maza. He awkwardly said over the PA system, “Could you please all drop and cover.” Hollis was the only person who did this because he didn’t want to die…. obviously! So we all had oodles of fun on the P.E. field. We were just standing in the sun for like 30 minutes while they looked for fake people, no big deal.
After that nonsense was over we all went back to class and Ms. Lahaise scared the bejesus out of us when she told us we were going to have a vocab quiz in 8 minutes, because we didn’t have one on Thursday. So we all started to study like crazy. It seemed that nobody was prepared; what a surprise! Thankfully Ms. Lahaise seemed to change her mind about having the vocab quiz today so we will be having one tomorrow (Tuesday) and getting new words for the next vocab quiz that will be on THIS Thursday! We still had to take the Count quiz and that was going to take the rest of the period. It turned out to be a simple short answer quiz.
We had a few minutes at the end of the period which Ms. Lahaise took up by explaining new work on the calendar. The calendar is pretty much set now, we will finish reading The Count Of Monte Cristo by November 17th, but we will have to turn in the first draft of the Count essay to turnitin.com on November 21st. Ms. Lahaise is going to give us 5 or 6 different prompts to choose from for our essay topic, which again is due Nov. 21st, the Monday before Thanksgiving. After we get the first draft in, as a class we will be going to either the computer lab or the library so we can go onto turnitin.com and edit an essay randomly chosen for us. Because we will be editing each other’s essays DO NOT put your name on the essay when you turn it in, Ms. Lahaise will know which essay belongs to who by our account information. Don’t wait until the night before it is due to chose a topic for your essay, you may have questions or need help! We didn’t really get into our lit. circles, but we still switched roles, so if you weren’t here make sure you find out what your new role is. By Thursday we are to read through chapter 74 and have your work for your role done. Ms. Lahaise quickly said that there was going to be a fat paragraph due the Friday before winter break. Wooohhoooooooo done with the scribe post !
Hmmmmm….the next scribe will be Belem!
http://dubtwostep.tumblr.com Michelle
Just saw that I forgot to put who the next scribe is, it is Jackie!!! WOOOHOOOO GO JACKIE
http://dubtwostep.tumblr.com Michelle
I AM TYPING THIS POST FROM THE WORLD’S SMALLEST LAPTOP. So we started the class off with a Journal based off a TED talk. The TED featured the autistic Temple Grandin(http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all_kinds_of_minds.html ). After we wrote, we had a discussion about autism. The homework was collected, and Ms. Lahaise told us how if your blog has the theme that Joel’s blog has, that you need to change it because it makes the font way too big and it doesn’t show the date and time that your posts were published. Then everyone got into their groups and worked on the character posters for the “Count”. The only group that presented was J.P.’s group, since they were the only ready group. After everyone got into groups again and discussed Chapters 64-68 of the “Count”, and then everyone changed roles. Then the recently- read chapters were discussed with Ms. Lahaise. The next reading material is to read the next 5 chapters. She said you need to get caught up by monday because shes going to ask specific questions.
Katherine R
This is for Nischay…….It was a wonderful tuesday moring (early day out 2:00).We started off the class with some new vocab words that Ms. Lahaise dictated to us (If we didnt get them, get it from a friend). Ms Lahaise then mentioned she had the most amazing headache right then while drinking her swell looking coffee in her nice see through mug. Seconds later she told the definitions of the words. After the words, *chirp chirp* Cricket noises… why? Logan Soll wasnt in class. After giving us the definitions to the new words Ms. Lahaise explained how to the links in our Bi-weekly readers from looking ugly to nice. You have to click the link button on top, then copy and paste the link and you also have to put a title of the link. After explaining all of this Ms Lahaise explained the grading program on her site. Minutes later she asked why is everyone so dead and that we ened to drink coffee or ahve energy shots before coming to class. Right after she dismissed us into our group, then the period ended not to longa after due to a short tuesday.p.s i love katherine
p.p.s. The next scribe post will be Michelle Halac
michelled
As I walked into Ms. Lahaise’s room, I was not surprise that she would be there because I had a feeling that she would be feeling well. As the bell rang, we all settled down into our seats, and soon we talked about what the class did on Thursday. The class responded we did nothing beside discussing the chapters in our Literature Circle groups. Ms. Lahaise was getting iffy because she made a plan for Period 1 during 6:00, Thursday morning.
Ms. Lahaise stopped the video at approximately 8:53 (time on the video) because there was a flickering light that was projected from her iPad. She then loaded the video on her computer, and the projection from the computer was fine. The TED Talk lasted around 25 minutes.
After the TED Talk, we wrote in our journals for 20 minutes. After the journal, we read silently for about another 20 minutes. After silent reading, we had a class discussion about the TED Talk Journal, and a lot of the students participated.
Kristina liked how Tony Robbins interacted with the audience, unlike the other speakers. After Kristina shared her thoughts, Ms. Lahaise said that Tony Robbins is a gazillionaire. Logan said that Tony Robbins inspired him to be a better person. Taylor spotted in the beginning of the TED Talk video that Tony Robbins said that he was not a motivated speaker but he actually was. Ms. Lahaise then said that his series of documents in QBC, a shopping channel, would cost around $300-$400. Joel admired Tony Robbins when he said to live your life. Harry liked what Tony Robbins said when he was explaining how your focus revolves around you and your life. Michelle liked how Tony Robbins talked about strangers. She said we shouldn’t be scared of strangers because the strangers are the people who make up the charities. Anthony liked how Tony Robbins talked about his Thanksgiving when he was eleven years old, and how there are two perspectives. Negative – Tony Robbins’s dad left his family because when the people gave his family food, he thought of himself as a useless person. Positive – Tony Robbins took the food, and admired it. He took that moment and learned from it and added on to it in his life. Jimmy liked how something small can change your life. Finally, Elliot liked how Tony Robbins was talking about emotions, and he connected that with his personal life.
Ms. Lahaise then asked the students who had her last year, if they learned anything new or got anything new out of the video and most of them said no besides seeing Al Gore.
After discussing the TED Talk Journal, Bryan collected everyone’s journals. Ms. Lahaise then talked about Jupiter Grades (the site where you check your grade), and asked if anyone had problems. A few of the students did have problems logging in. When you log in, you should put the school as soces (all lowercase) and the city as Reseda/Tarzana (either works).
Ms. Lahaise then had a class discussion about the Count of Monte Cristo. Logan predicted that Benedetto would drop his character, and the Count would be upset. Anthony said that the Count knows what is happening and that he had planned everything out. Jimmy said that he read Chapters 61-63 three through four times because it was very interesting to him. Logan said that he loves Edmond, and that he is a genius. He also said that if he were to take revenge, he would go to Edmond. Logan then said that revenge is a waste of time. Joel agree with Logan that revenge is a waste of time. At some point, Taylor brought up that he bought the Count of Monte Cristo novel with missing chapters from Amazon. Kristina disagrees with Logan that revenge is not a waste of time because Danglars and Fernand planned a scheme for Edmond to suffer for ten plus years. Therefore, Edmond would want Danglars and Fernand to suffer as much as Edmond did. Logan, Kristina, and Ms. Lahaise then had an argument about revenge.
Elliot agrees and disagrees with Logan and Kristina because killing as revenge would lead to another situation. Joel said it depend on the situation for revenge. Logan then gave Kristina a scenario how he worked for Kristina in a factory, and how he could ruin the factory, but that would waste his time. Janet said that love is not easy, and revenge would be necessary. Katherine questioned Logan that if he was in love, and someone took his lover away from him, what would he do. Logan replied saying things happen, and we should move on. Harry said that it’s the nature of time to decide when to take revenge. Logan then said that he used to be a frustrated person, but he then learned that he shouldn’t be frustrated anymore. He said why should he let the other person win by becoming furious all the time.
After this discussion, Ms. Lahaise brought up Chapter 60, The Will. Jimmy said that Valentine doesn’t want to marry Franz. Elliot said that Villefort wanted Valentine to marry Franz because Villefort might want to restore their family friendship with the D’Epinays. Anthony predicted that Noirtier might have killed Franz’s father. Logan then brought up that he changed his view on revenge. He said that revenge is good depending on the situation.
Ms. Lahaise said that Chapter 62, The Telegraph is one of her favorite chapters. She then asked, “What’s going to happen?” Corina replied, “It’s very awesome.”
Ms. Lahaise then told everyone to get into their Character Map group with the same people as before. In the back of the Character Map poster, we are going to work on an assignment called, the Body Biography. The Body Biography is when you choose a character from the novel, and you do a visual and written portrait illustrating several aspects of the character’s life in the novel.
After Ms. Lahaise was done explaining the assignment, she then collected our Literature Circle homework, the one that was due last Thursday.
She told the class that she will give us the definitions for our new vocabulary words tomorrow. She will also give us more time to finish the Body Biography assignment tomorrow.
We went into our Literature Circle group last minute, and switched roles.
The next scribe will be Nischay Kumar.
lesliep
10/6/11 scribe post!
Alrighty, I know a good handful of you were absent today but there’s no need to worry because you really didn’t miss much.
This week’s rainy weather wasn’t very kind to Ms. Lahaise, so we had a substitute teacher today (in case you were wondering, it was the same one we had on Monday). He started off the class by taking roll, but after that it seemed like he wasn’t sure what to do. He simply said “well, you know what you’re supposed to do, so go on ahead.” So we all got into our lit circles to discuss the assigned chapters.
About halfway through the period, our substitute went to the white board and began to write today’s date, his name (Mr. Cristo. How ironic is that?), and a simple agenda for the day:
“Agenda
1) keep readin’
+ writin’
+ discussin’ the topic!
(in groups or solo)”
Each group then proceeded to discuss the chapters, or read ahead in the book.
Groups also should have switched roles once again. If your group didn’t, your job for the next set of chapters should just be the one job you haven’t been assigned yet.
Check the calendar for any homework and make sure to turn in your bi-weekly blog tonight!
Next scribe will be Michelle Do.
PLahaise
Today was uneventful…vocab test and journal. No time for new words. That will be Thur. Be sure to check calendar for homework.
emmak
Today we walked into Ms. Lahaise’s class and were surprised to see that we had a substitute teacher.
He gave us the agenda for the day, which was-
1. Journal – Free Write.
2. Silent Reading – for 30 minutes.
3. Discuss the reading in your lit. circles and change rolls.
Many people wrote about taking the SAT test last Saturday. After writing in our journals and finishing our silent reading, we got into our lit. circles. We conversed between ourselves, and the discussion directors took notes. At the end of class the substitute collected our homework.
Remember that there will be a vocabulary test tomorrow and a journal collection. Hopefully everyone got the email but if you did not, this week’s biweekly reader is due on Thursday. Ms. Lahaise said that she would post the homework sometime tonight, so make sure to check the calendar.
The scribe for Tuesday will be Leslie.
Bryan M
Today we all had a senior meeting during homeroom and the beginning of first so we were all a little late to class. As we walked into Ms. Lahaise’s class and she had forgot that we got out early today and said that it screwed everything up. Once everyone got into we all forgot that there was a vocabulary test and all started to study the few minutes we had before the test. Before we began to take the test Ms. Lahaise had to explain to us how to do the journal. Joel’s favorite thing in the world, The Wheel. It picks three words or phrases and you have to use them together in a story. They were, Healing Journey, dystopian, and generator. Ms. Lahaise told us to do the journal after we finished talking our test. During the test Ms. Lahaise asked everyone if we had our passwords for the grades website and everyone finally go there passwords. Remember our usernames are our ID card numbers. After everyone finished the journal Ms. Lahaise gave us our new words. I’m pretty sure everyone was here today but if you weren’t then get the words from someone in the class tomorrow. After we got the words we got into our literature groups to discuss the chapters we read the night before. As we were talking Ms. Lahaise walked around the class to check to see if everyone did their homework. Only 9 people didn’t do their homework. After each group shared there opinions on what they discussed we all changed jobs for the next section of reading. We are supposed to be through chapter 60 by next Monday with our work done by the time class starts.
The next scribe will be Emma.
garrettm
Scribe Post by Garrett on 9/26/11
Today’s class period was a busy one, for we had to take care of numerous chores or as Ms. Lahaise put it, “Housekeeping stuff”. We started the day out with a TED given by John Francis, an environmentalist who remained silent for 17 years of his life and walked the earth in respect for our planet. Francis began the TED by playing the banjo. He then went on to describe the journey of his life, which began in 1971 when he witnessed the collision of two oil tankers below the Golden Gate Bridge. From that moment he decided to stop riding and driving in motorized vehicles. However, people argued that John wasn’t “walking for the environment” as he had put it, but instead walking in order to make everyone else look bad. Francis argued so much on the subject, that he then decided to not speak for one day. During that day, he began listening more thoroughly for the first time and came to realize that up until that point he had not been learning. That day was such a moving experience for Francis, he made a vow to not talk for a year and learn as much as he could during his silence. The one year eventually turned into 17 years of silence. In the TED, Francis described his travels and the education he obtained during those 17 years. He eventually made it to the East Coast, where on Earth Day 1990, he spoke his first words; “Thank you for being here”. Francis spoke about his writings and the regulations he passed while working for the Coast Guard as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador. He also discussed how he was the only man in the United States to be writing about oil spills when the Exxon Valdize incident occurred. Francis‘ experiences helped him realize that we as humans, are the environment and how we treat each other is how we treat the environment.
After the TED, the class wrote down their thoughts about John Francis’ journey in their journals and then went into ten minutes of silent reading. Afterwards, the class held an extensive discussion on their feelings for the TED. Some found the TED inspiring, while others others found the TED boring and too preachy. Ms. Lahaise said that not only did John Francis’ TED leave an impression on her, but it changed her life. During the discussion, Ms. Lahaise explained to the class what the Exxon Valdize incident was and how it brought environmental changes to the forefront. When the discussion was over, Ms. Lahaise surprised the class with a “pop quiz”. After finishing the quiz and going over the answers, the class was divided up into six groups of four people for “Literature Circles”. She then handed out slips of paper which were divided amongst the members of the group. The slips of paper explained the four roles each group member possessed (Discussion Director, Summarizer, Connector, and Illustrator) as well as questions for them to answer. She then explained, from now on, for each reading assignment the members of their group will discuss their portion of the reading with their partners, instead of having a class discussion. She also stated during each assignment, the members of the group will exchange roles so that every student has a chance to participate in all 4 roles. The last thing we did was get our passwords for the new grading program established by Ms. Lahaise. She stated that the username for your account in the program is the ID# found on your ID Cards.
The next scribe will be Bryan Meyer.
logansoll
Scribe post by Logan N. Soll on 9/22/11
Today was a busy day for our class as well as Ms. Lahaise. At first, Ms. Lahaise mentioned how everybody but one person did the parent consent form. She then mentioned how some students weren’t blogging on her website and were blogging on other sites. She told us if we are ever having technical difficulties, the solution might be to use Firefox.
After this brief discussion, we watched a TED that still is leaving me puzzled and in shock. A nine year old girl named Adora Svitak, or as I like to call her “the freak”, spoke of how adults need to acknowledge children more because most of the time, children are right and adults are wrong. A few of the things she said seemed correct, though she made it seem as if kids know everything when they truly don’t. Harry personally pointed this out to the class and everyone agreed. Adora Svitak is published and she is only nine years old. I’m published as well, but being published at nine years old is almost unrealistic. Everyone liked her, and agreed that she is extremely bright, but Kristina, Joel, Jackie and I feel that she is going to have no childhood. I then stated that this girl in the future is going to be so desperate to relive her childhood, that she will party in college and begin her childhood at eighteen rather than beginning it sooner. The freak is very bright and I wish her well in the future, but instead of me quoting “she needs to grow up”, I will ironically quote “she needs to become a child”.
Once the class was done sharing their comments about the TED, we all split up in our groups and we prepared for our discussion. We then all took turns in completing a character chart which soon looked like a chemical bonding diagram. Kristina towards the end mentioned minor characters and we decided to add them.
The discussion then transitioned over, to how Mercedes recognized Edmond. I suggested the movement between his fingers and his hair, but everybody said I was wrong and that that was from the movie. Truth is, it probably was. Then Ms. Lahaise asked if it was wrong for Mercedes to get married only eighteen months after Edmond’s arrest. Three people thought it was right, everyone else thought it was wrong. Then, a few students including I, felt that Mercedes was a **** and that this was wrong on her part. The class concluded that Caderouse was wrong for what he did to Edmond, yet Jimmy disagreed; stating that because he was drunk, he probably wasn’t thinking. The final discussion on Monte Cristo was about who is the worst character and why. I remember Garret stating how Villefort is the worst and I would say that I have to agree! One final note: Two weeks from Monday, students should’ve read up to ch. 55. The next scribe is Garrett. Sorry buddy! You know I love you!
Joe
Todays class began with Ms. Lahaise giving us about five minutes to prepare for our vocab quiz. As soon as the five minutes passed, she began passing out the quizzes. Before everyone started the quiz, Ms. Lahaise informed us that rather than doing a normal journal, we would be doing something different. Rather than watching a TED or responding to a quote, we played “Mad Libs”. Mad Libs is a fun little game where people are asked to think of either a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb in a specific order, which is then placed into a story which hopefully results in a funny story. We were to each write down words corresponding to the parts of speech listed on the smart board.
After the test, we proceeded with the journal and then continued on to silent reading. When we were all finished, Ms. Lahaise began calling on us and asking what word we used for one of the parts and began compiling them and putting them into the story. When she asked one of us what body part we chose, most of us made silly remarks and laughed. She however anticipated this from the guys and asked a girl, who kept it appropriate. After she finished filling in all the words, she began to read the story. The story was called “The Last Dance Craze” which was a crazy new dance which swept the floor of Garret’s car called the “Logan”. It talked about the new dance craze and gave a detailed description as to how to do it. After laughing at the ridiculous story we created, Ms. Lahaise gave us the words for next week and the defitions.
Once we finished with the words, Ms. Lahaise gave us time until the end of the period to finish our Character Maps. She expects us to have completed our maps by Thursday so that we can present our maps to each other.
The next scribe shall be Logan Soll.
joela
We started the day by waling into Ms Lahaises class and she said that she had a Important announcement there will no longer be forum because of website issues so from now on instead of going to the forum for the scribe post go to the section where it says period 1 and underneath click Period 1 scribe post and post the scribe there as a reply to the comment above. After she explained the new way to post scribes she said that she was going to do the wheel for our journal instead of a quote. Personally the wheel is my favorite topic to write journals on. For those who don’t know what the Wheel is it chooses three random words and we have to put those words into a story of some sort. While Ms Lahaise was trying to put it up she said that he was having a problem because she thought the website had been taking down and it was so instead she had to download a app for her ipad to access the wheel and it was giving her a hard time so instead of the wheel she just decided to give us a quote for our journal. The quote was “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again then quit. Theres no use in being a damn fool about it”- W.C. Fields. When we were doing writing the journal logan was the first to share and said it was weird how hes always the first to share. His opinion went both ways he said he agrees then he disagrees, by this he means he agrees when it comes to common sense and used a example that if your going to try to jump off a cliff why try again your just going to wind up dead. And he disagrees because all of life your taught that no matter what you never give up and you try and try until you succeed. After Logan had finished sharing Janet P. said she aggress with Logan and disagrees, she said that if you put your mind into it you can do the impossible. Once everyone was done sharing Ms Lahaise then chose 5 team leaders which were. Kristine, Karina, Emma, Anthony, and Garret. The team leaders were for a group project for the Count of Monte Cristo we were suppose to make a character tree kind of like a family tree and relate the characters to one and another for example at the top write dantes father and underneath link him and write Edmond Dantes. For the remainder of the period until 9:45 we worked on that and afterwards we went to an assembly that had to do with the elections. Remember to study everyone for out Vocabulary quiz next week. The Scribe for Monday will be Joe B.
PLahaise
Scribe post by Taylor on 9/13/11:
yeah I know this is posted late. I really have no excuse, I just forgot to post it by 7:30pm, however it was a tuesday and I believe everyone was there, so I doubt this will cause anyone an inconvenience. None the less, I will accept my punishment.
Today in class we started off by talking about wether we needed a scribe on Tuesdays and it was established that we did in fact need a scribe for Tuesdays even if they are short. Afterwards, we took the vocab test (It was easy).
The journal for the day was, “An old friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a dead body.”-Jim Hayes
We then got new vocab words, which I am not allowed to post here.
After this, we did not have enough time to do anything else. The bell rang shortly after we got vocab and we ended class at that.
The next scribe will be Joel. Sorry.
PLahaise
Scribe post by Anthony on 9/12/11:
So today we walked into class after a fire drill and Ms. Lahaise said that we were going to watch a TED, and then explained to her new students that a TED was an insightful speech given by someone who is an expert in their field. The TED was given by Ken Robinson a retired college professor who sees the current public education system as incredibly flawed. Ken says that children are talented and have great potential, but that we educate them out of being creative. Children are so great, because they are not scared of being wrong, if they don’t know something, they will still give it a shot, and this lack of fear is what makes a childs creativity limitless. The education system discourages being wrong as if it were a crime, and if children are scared of being wrong, they will never create anything original. Creativity is held to a lesser standard than knowledge in school while it is just as important, for example right now we are in a recession and the first things that were cut in schools were the classes that promote creativity, such as art, drama, dance, etc. This system even effects people at home you always hear parents saying that their children should be doctors or lawyers, rarely do you hear someone say that you should try to be an artist or a dancer. Ken ends his speech by saying “we must educate our children as whole beings (both academics and creativity)”, because if creativity dies, so will the advancement of our society.
After finishing the TED we did a journal saying what we thought about it. When finished with our journals we did some silent reading. When finished with silent reading, we shared our journals and everyone who shared agreed with what Ken was saying, and enjoyed thae TED, becuse he took a serious subject and added humor to it. We then shared our sentences, I personally liked Taylors which was, “he is kind to everybody,” (yea right). After sharing out sentences, Ms. Lahaise said that she wanted us to use them as a springboard for our blogs. Ms. Lahaise went on to show us “how to grow a blog” sayiong that we should use self-motivation to make our blogs great, and that this will help us in the future and in college (remember to cite sources on blog or else 50% off your score). She then told us the second question that goes along with, “What is your sentence?,” which is, “Am I better today than I was yesterday?,” which we should ask ourselves every night. Ok thats it for now remember that we have a vocab test tomorrow and our first blog is due next monday.
The next Scribe will be the nice guy, Taylor
PLahaise
Scribe post by Harry on 9/8/11:
As we commenced the second class, everyone began to settle into the environment of the Lair of Lahaise. We first had some technical difficulties concerning the iPad, then watched a short video on the subject of something that congresswoman Clare Booth Luce said. She said to JFK in the early 60’s, “A great man is a sentence.” This video asked us what our sentence was, and said that looking at yourself from this perspective could change your business, your life, or anything else you wanted to change. We were then given the following assignment: create your sentence, a sentence that describes you, and bring it in on monday.
As for this website…
Calendar—> –All important events and assignments will be posted on the calendar.
–If you click on the event in the calendar, a “more details” button pops up, and clicking this allows you to see the location, time, and description of any calendar event.
–7:30 pm on the date assigned is the latest time an assignment will be posted.
Blogs—> -For new students of Lahaise, create a blog, using the username of your first name and the first letter of your last name. For example, my name is harry terrell, so my username would be harryt.
We talked of internet safety, and the importance of excluding your personal information from things you post onto the internet. Once you create such a monster, there is no telling where it can end up nor is there a way to stop it. We took the Count of Monte Cristo test, which basically checked if you did the reading or not, and the Ms. Lahaise has come to the conclusion that we will continue from Chapter 40, so be at chapter 40 by Thursday, 9/15. We also received useless textbooks, so if you don’t have one of those, get one. On a final note, Ms. Lahaise explained to us that we all have folders that our work goes in, and that her tolerance for poor student behavior is very low, due to multiple incidents involving cheating, stealing, and a teacher who quit.
Important Dates – complete the class syllabus, student survey, and website permission form online by friday, 9/16. Set up your blogs, new Lahaisers, by 9/17, and the first blog post will be due on 9/19. If you don’t know how to or what to post, look under the Bi-Weekly Reader section of Lahaise’s Lair. Vocab test on 9/13, on which there will be words that SHOULD NEVER BE POSTED IN THE SCRIBE. You will receive a 0 for your scribe post if you put the vocab words up.
Next scribe will be Anthony Chavez (chavo) ]brownbear[
Pingback: Drop-Down Menu Issues | Lahaise's Lair
Pingback: phungtastic » We’re all boring.