Diary of Anne Frank

This month's literature project "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl"

We're going to read this book. I want to give you a little information prior to reading. We're taking a field trip to the Anne Frank exhibit in Salt Lake City this April.

Born on June 12, 1929, Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust. She and her family, along with four others, spent 25 months during World War II in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After being betrayed to the Nazis, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps. In March of 1945, nine months after she was arrested, Anne Frank died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was fifteen years old. Her diary, saved during the war by one of the family’s helpers, Miep Gies, was first published in 1947. Today, her diary has been translated into 67 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world.

Please visit www.annefrank.org to view photographs and descriptions of the annex.

The Arbitrary Nature of Race

Is race about what color a person is or about how a person perceives and conforms to what society tells him he should be?

This week we'll discuss The Civil Rights Movement. Why did the Blacks allow the Whites to rule over them without fighting back?

The absurdity is that a person can be enslaved because he has the slightest infusion of black blood, and ancestry becomes a basis for nobility. A person can also be enslaved simply because he believes that he does not belong to any culture or country. At some point in the life of a black person they must make a choice of who they want to be regardless of a past history or the absence of one. Do blacks despise history because they feel that they do not really have one? Or, do they embrace their African American heritage. And what about the mulatto? As a mixed-race people they have a legitimate claim to belonging on both sides of the color line, unless we apply the “one drop rule.” There is often a discrepancy between appearance and reality: a person may look “white” while being “black.”

Visit: I Have A Dream Speech

This School Year So Far

Our school lost its director last month. We had so much trouble the first year with finances, and just the general struggles with opening a new school. In December we were old there would be duts in staff and benefits. The teachers became distrustful of each other and administration. Discord set in. A few weeks ago the Board hired a management company to try and save our school. We have a guy a couple of days a week, come in and reorganize. He fired four people last week, The whole counseling department and the Librarian. He said he did this in order to save teacher's jobs. So, we have stayed open and the goal is to increase enrollment so that we can stay open next year.

Introduction

This is my first attempt at blogging. I am in my second year of teaching at Rockwell Charter High School. Last year I taught Health, Creative Writing, and Literature through Film. I was also the part-time librarian. After school I assisted the drama department. We put on three plays last year and took home awards from the Shakespeare Festival. We have very talented students for such a new school. This year I teach 8th Grade English. Since I have a degree in English Literature they felt I could teach English even without a credential. It has been very difficult since I really had no idea how to teach the subject. Lesson planning has been the most tricky. Putting the standards into the lessons and allocating what to teach and when, has been the most challenging.

Fiction Book Project

The book project is your response to the book that you read in English class. It is an alternative to a book report.

The Outside:

Choose any container for your book project. You may do a folder as you did for the first contract, or you may choose any other container that suits your needs. (ie. manilla envelope, paper bag, plastic bag, can with a cover, box, or any other container that you can imagine. Be creative!) Decorate the container with details appropriate to the book or container's contents.(25 pts.)

The Inside:

The inside of the container should include the following materials and activities pertaining to the book.

Questions - Write 10 questions that could be answered by reading the book that you have chosen to read for this contract. Five of the questions should be easier questions with answers that are obvious simply by reading the book. Five of the questions should be harder questions with answers that require more thinking, interpretation, and or combining of information from the book. (25 pts.) Vocabulary - A ten word glossary of unfamiliar words from the book and a short definition for each word. (25 pts.) Other - (Choose one) (25 pts.) Five items that depict the story in some way. These items may be actual items or student created facsimiles, an original game using facts or information from your book, or some other creative option that you would like to do. CLEAR THIS CHOICE WITH ME.

Visit: www.englishjournal.colostate.edu/
Best Books for Middle School Students