Outside or Inside...Or Neither?

Welcome back! It has been great to see you each today, and to dive back into English class with a Quick Write and a few more Ideal School presentations. Your presentations are engaging, thought-provoking, and insightful. What strikes me most is that in almost every single Ideal School you have created, hands-on, active learning is a theme.

Our word for the day, today, is LACONIC, which is an adjective that means using few words. It is the opposite of one of our previous vocabulary words, LOQUACIOUS, which means highly talkative. Here is an example of the word LACONIC in a sentence: The shy student seemed laconic at first, but once he got to know everyone, he became downright loquacious!

Read the following quote from the novel Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye, and then share your ideas about the question that follows it (in the response section of our blog):

"Let's believe together in a world where no one is either inside or outside, yes?" 

Even though we have not yet read Nye's novel, if you had to make a guess, what do you think this quote is suggesting? Why?

No wrong answers--share your thoughts below! Peace! Mr. R.

How Do We Find the Truth?

Welcome back from the November break! A new month greets us today, and so does a new class novel. This month, we will explore the key question: how do we find the truth? When there are multiple versions of an event, and multiple points of view, how do we discern what "really" happened?

In other words: put on your ultra-forceful, deep-sea diving suits because we are heading to the bottom of the iceberg. On the surface of of new novel, a ninth-grader named Phillip Malloy is just singing along the the National Anthem in his homeroom class in a public high school in Harrison, New Hampshire. His homeroom teacher, Miss Narwin, and the Assistant Principal, Dr. Palleni, discipline Phillip and ultimately suspend him from school.

What!? What happened!?

If you are asking those questions, then it's a great place to begin our reading of Nothing But the Truth, by Avi.

What else is going on below the surface? What motivates each of the characters? How do we find the truth?

Tonight, be sure to read through page 30 of the novel. Afterwards, share your response to this question: Do you think most people are quick to make judgments and assume they know the truth? Or do you think most people look at all sides and perspectives? Why or why not?

Our word of the day today is IRONY, which means: when expressed words do not match the real meaning of what is being said; OR when an audience (or reader) knows more than the performers (or characters); OR when a result or event is at great odds with the expected result or outcome. An example is: The fact that Fiddlesticks was floating on an ocean of water, yet was dying of thirst, was deeply ironic--and incredibly tragic. 

Our previous two words of the day were: IMPERTINENT (which means rude) and LOQUACIOUS (which means talkative).