9/22/08

Today we got a new spelling list. Look to the side bar to the right to find this week's words. We also got a new P.O.S.O.T.W. which you can also find in the side bar to the right.

We had 15 minutes for reading and glossaries.

I handed out progress reports today. Mid-term grades will be sent home to your parents this week. If you feel the need to raise your grade before your parents get it in the mail, now would be an excellent time to do so. Remember I don't accept work without a late-work voucher.

We started reading The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, today. We talked about how to properly care for a book. Don't drop, throw, or hit things or people with your book. Don't open them open wider than how the book naturally falls when you place it on a surface while it is open. Take good care of these books, please. I will dock your citizenship points if you are not taking good care of the books.

We talked about S.E. Hinton as an author. Her name is Susan Eloise Hinton, but she published under her initials to hide her gender. She was worried that boys wouldn't want to read a book about gangs written by a chick. She was only 17 years old when The Outsiders was published! She wrote this book while she was in high school. It was based, in part, on the social issues her own high school was facing. Hinton started a new genre with The Outsiders. Before she wrote the book, there weren't books about young adult and teen issues. These days these kinds of books can be found in the young adult or adolescent literature sections in the library.

Hinton isn't the only author who has published under a gender-neutral name in order to maintain a readership. J.K. Rowling was also concerned about the possibility that no one would want to read her Harry Potter books if they knew the author was female.

We read the first 10 pages of The Outsiders as a class. We talked about our approach to reading novels in Mrs. Cheney's language arts class. I will read, and we will frequently stop to talk about the book. We will be analyzing the plot, the writing, the literary devices, and the social issues raised in this book. This means we will be breaking it down and putting it back together again in order to understand how it all works together.

Today we talked about the basic situation of the plot (characters, setting, background information), similes, alliteration and foreshadowing.

*Bonus!!!!* Find three adjectives in this post, write them down and a piece of paper along with your name and class hour then give it to me tomorrow and I will give you five extra credit points!