I found this website to be a great resource for your glogster projects:

National Geographic’s Environment Page

To help you find your way there and to see an example of a glogster page, you can follow the link to a small project that I already started.

Project is found here:  click me

I won’t be in our first period class today.  I have an early doctor’s appointment but should be back before the end of the day.  I know, you miss me already.  Anyway, we’ve managed to read our way into a good chunk of the book “Bad” and it’s time to really get a feel for the characters we’re being introduced to so far.  I have sent along a worksheet that you are to work on today.  This worksheet is called an attribute web.  What it does is to map out the different attributes (or qualities) of the character’s you are reading about.  This should prove helpful in the future if we ever have a test or quiz with questions that ask you to describe how a character feels, acts, or looks (and to be able to give specific examples).  The worksheet is pretty easy to fill out.  On it, you’ll find four boxes for each character with a space for the character’s name in the middle.  You’ll then look through the chapters we’ve read so far looking for examples that would fit each box:  acts, feels, looks, and says.

I’d like you to work on four characters this morning:  Dallas, Dallas’ father, Dahlia, and Shatisia.

Remember, you are quoting specific examples from the book…so you’re not writing it in your own words.  Write down the exact details from the book.  Try not to get overwhelmed, just start slowly and work your way through chapter 1 and then move on.  Extra copies of these worksheets have been made in case you really start to find lots of information and want to go into detail about a specific character.

We’ve been reading “Bad” now for a week and you all seem to have a pretty good feel for Dallas and the situation that she has put herself into.  Today, we’re going to do something to help us to visualize some of those situations.  Pixton is an online comic book creator.  You don’t need to know how to draw in order to use it which makes it great for everyone.  We’re going to learn how to use Pixton today to recreate a scene from “Bad”.  You could choose quite a few moments from the story so far but a few ideas might be:

Dallas meeting her friends at the cafe when they first tell her about the robbery and give her the gun.

Dallas holding up the convenience store and getting tackled by the security guard.

Dallas being sent to juvie for the first time.

Dallas’ court date and her thoughts about her father.

Dallas arriving at the GRC residential program.

Dallas and her father’s confrontation at the GRC.

These are just a few ideas.  In your comic, the characters should say the actual things they say in the book.  So, you’ll need a copy of the book so that you can copy out the dialog.

Here is the link to Pixton.

Hey everyone!  Sorry I couldn’t be there today.  I’ve got a bit of a stomach bug.  So, seeing as how I’m not there, I’ve put together this little web-based science lesson.  I want you to come away understanding that forensics is used for more than just solving crimes.  You should have been given some worksheets and the beginning of class and now you can go to the link below to see how scientists are using modern forensics to answer some ancient mysteries about King Tutankhamun, a mummified pharoah from Egypt.

Here is the link:   King Tut and Forensics

Welcome to our Literacy classroom’s website.  I heard that you have been working on tsunami and found a few links for you:

National Public Radio has an entire page with stories you can listen to and links to lots of pictures, videos, and maps to help explain what happened in the Indian Ocean during the tsunami of December 26, 2004.  You can check it out here:  NPR Tsunami Page

National Geographic also has a webpage about tsunami.  This page has photos and videos of the December 26, 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  You can check it out here:  National Geographic Tsunami Page

Another great site is one from the Discovery Channel.  It contains a lot of interactive features.  You can check it out here:  Discovery Channel’s Interactive Tsunami 2004

Hope that helps

This morning we worked on using adjectives and adverbs to help to spice up our writing.  In that example, we were only working with one sentence at a time.  Each of you were able to make some pretty boring sentences a little more spicy with just the addition of a few words here and there.

Just as a reminder for our next assignment:

• Adjectives:  words used to describe nouns (example; the spunky, energetic, bouncing puppy)
• Adverbs:  words used to describe both verbs and adjectives (example; worked furiously or the incredibly red apple

Lets try something a little more challenging and, hopefully, a little more fun.  Instead of just a sentence, I want you to spice up the opening paragraphs to a story.  You can find the story by opening the file called “Adjective and Adverb Practice” in your network account.  I put the file into the “Stuff from Paul” folder. 

So, I’m going to be trying out something new in our Literacy class.  We live in a rapidly changing world and part of what is driving our society’s transformation is the power of technology.  It would be unfair of me to send you all out into the world without a better understanding of how technology is shaping our lives.  There has probably been no greater influence on this change than the internet.  It is an incredible transformational tool.  It has opened doors to information and ideas that for many people were inaccesible.  The internet is also a place to be very wary of.  It is both a kind advisor and dangerous predator that needs to be tamed through understanding.  It is a force of incredible energy for both good and bad.  I want to help you all to understand that the internet has given you power as well.  It is changing your lives whether you know it or not.  It is as simple as sending an email and it is as complex as giving power to your voice and opinions.  This world that the internet is creating doesn’t belong to me.  It is changing far too quickly for adults to keep up with.  You are its future.  You will be its caretaker.  Whatever direction our society travels, be that on the internet or in the streets, is yours to determine.  I’ve already had my say.  I’ve done my part to make the world what I hope it can be.  Now it’s your turn.  It’s time for your voice.  The world of technology is changing and you are changing with it.  To quote Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft:

“Today, you always know whether you are on the Internet or on your PC’s hard drive. Tomorrow, you will not care and may not even know.”

There are changes coming that will blow my mind but that you will barely blink at.  You are the new guard for our society.  Now, lets get out there and start making it look like you hope it will.