8th+Grade+Literature

=8th Grade Literature Book=

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Changes Needed:
Page 21 -- The TE says the picture on the left is from "Ransom of Red Chief," when it's really from "The Great Rat Hunt." -- Janelle Page 600 -- "The Lesson of the Moth" has the wrong definition of "patent." It should be "obvious, plain, apparent." -- Janelle Janelle-do you still have the non-Illinois copy of the TE? Let me know, it signals an older copy.-Piper -- It was the IL version... --Joy Thanks for the notes, I'm just emailing them to the reps at ML.-Piper (Piper -many of these notes are ones I'm typing, but they've been told to me by Janelle, so... I'll ask her about the non-IL copy... --Joy)

Changes Wanted:
Movies? We'd like the movies again for the stories. "Ransom of Red Chief" had one we like to use. -- Janelle & Karen The SMS teachers commented on this change as well. I've contacted the company and we are obtaining new copies. Thanks, Piper

Vocabulary - The text wants us to teach vocabulary to the students before we read the story, but for one of the stories, the strategy is predicting. One or two of the vocabulary sentences they'd like us to use to pre-teach it gives away part of the story, so there goes the whole predicting aspect of it... -- Janelle

Janelle's Journal Pages (typed in by Joy):
-- FROM JOY: I like the fact that we can put in what we think onto this wikispace, and adminstration will see it... Maybe McDougal can see it as well? I'd like to see more teachers taking the time to evaluate their own "created" curriculum in the same way as our teachers have started evaluating the textbook. It makes me take an even better look at what I'm doing in my 26-day hexter classes as well. All of our teaching should be evaluated in this way every day. I digress...

FROM JANELLE: -- Too much review - not in logical order; should assess and reteach as necessary. -- Feels like too many worksheets (one student even commented). -- Raymond's Run - has a lot of inferencing but no handouts to go with it? -- Hard for me to see the "big picture." I can only look at 40 min/day and that changes EVERY day - period 9 is VERY different from period 2! -- I truly miss what I used to do. It is hard (near impossible at this point) to "make it my own." I feel I'm walking in someone else's shoes - and they don't fit well. -- I'm doing what I was told to do. -- Quiz on ONE short story (about 5 pgs) 120 points!!! 10 m.c., 2 short ans., 2 ext. Homework ~20 total! -- Compound word - vocab - not asessed -- I like how conflict is woven through all story plot pages. -- Audio CD doesn't work in the car or CD player -- only through iTunes -- Elevator -- Why have a story to illustrate p;ot stages that doesn't have all of them? It ends with the climax. -- Vocab Study pg. 31 -- Why give students sentences with vocab & contextual definitions and then a chart to rank them with a category "new" and "seen before" - they just saw it! -- Without the flip schedule, period 2 is always the guinea pig -- Pacing is a HUGE challenge as everything is new. -- Power Presentations - "Raymond's Run" reading check sqwaky should be squeaky. -- CD for Raymond's Run -- Intro Name "Cah-day" story intro "C-long a-de." Which is it? -- With no longer units of study (i.e. novels) hard to work on flash card/vocab strategies when you have about 8 new words every 2-3 days. -- "Ransom of Red Chief" - vocab on page 57 of resource manager sheet asks students to make word map -- words given are appropriate for task assigned. -- The short story quizzes should come back to the big question. -- Dumb that vocab strat. isn't tied into story. Ransom's is better than vocab study. -- "Raymond's Run" should focus on character development & change. -- "Raymond's Run" more thumbs up -- pg. 41 resource mgr - #3 is a bad question. We discussed this before I read the quiz. There's a line in the book that shows her toughest competition. -- First three stories mention fat people - "Elevator" -old, fat lady; "Raymond's Run" - Squeaky called Gretchen "fatso;" "Ransom of Red Chief" - sad to see a grown desparate fat man -- "Tell-Tale Heart" pg. 77 vocab in context - They define "acute" as "intense." Wrong definition - should be "keen." Then on quiz "vehemently" is defined as "intense." -- Ugh!! Quiz questions 2 & 3 -- too difficult/random/ambiguous for "Tell-Tale Heart." -- Pg. 67 of resource mgr - #2 bad qustion, and throw out #3 -- pg. 117 of resource mgr -- Threw out # 2 & 3 -- 9/26 - Student made a comment that it's quiz after quiz after quiz. -- "The Hitchhiker" Way too difficult to use foreshadowing about - not natural. Even the answer key was illogical. -- Student -- "Are we just going to read stories out of the book every day, do worksheets, and take quizzes." "It's not as much fun as reading a book." -- Hitchhiker quizzes -- Question asks about Adam's mood at beginning and ending of story - answer key talks about events from middle of story. Quiz B/C question 1 not significant. -- Resource manager answer key pg. 19 Hoot - "cues" should be "clues" -- When you print the "BC" version of "The Hitchhiker" quiz from ExamPro it has "ID A" not "BC." -- "The Hitchhiker" BC quiz question #2 - 15 students marked "a," correct answer was "c." I gave credit to both as both are correct. -- Student - "Can we not take the book quizzes anymore? They're too hard." -- "The Hitchhikder" question 2 - how can you know? -- pg. 133 of resource mgr. -- # 4 "nondescript" is not on the chart! -- pg. 143 of resource mgr. -- Left column - why is there all this space -- confused some kids. -- Student -- "Are we going to be doing this all year? It's kind of generic and boring.  I'd rather read a novel." -- Are all stories intended to be read aloud? -- pg. 193 resource mgr. -- Cloze practice - it just has sentences, box, guess -- "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" - demo - "Oh, great, a chick movie" - student -- Lesson 2 DVD asks questions, but pauses are too brief to have discussion - would need to pause - questions are quickly answered if given longer pause. + DVD automatically pauses & I'm forced to press play. -- Student -- "They are not really the important questions, they're just all random questions. You don't pay attention to the questions in the book." -- Music choices -- ALL were spine-tingling. Many kids were confused about the question. -- Many handouts are simplistic based on 8th graders ability. -- DVD doesn't even use the word "blocking." -- Parent phone call - usually strong student - poor quiz grades. Student said quizzes were hard. (He may be suffering from some 8thgradeitis, too...) -- Email from a mom - concern about grades - especially quizzes. Student is a hard-worker. -- DVD doesn't always play smoothly. -- pg. 109 textbook - student models last frame - "squeaky" (should be "Squeaky") -- Student -- "Are we doing anything fun in class?" -- Eyes rolling -- Student -- "I want to change back to the novels, because the book is too hard, has too many short stories, and the quizzes are really hard. The wording of the questions is very confusing." -- Student -- "Two-sentence questions are confusing - one sentence doesn't relate to the other one." -- "My First Free Summer" Question 3 has awkward wording. Question 5 - the problem is it could be rationalized that all (answers) could be correct -- Hoot interviews + had fun asking questions and hearing answers from teachers -- Maybe I'm more sensitive...    I have a student who lost her father, tragically, last year. Many stories could be problematic. "The Great Rat Hunt" - son disappointing father -wants his approval. "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" -- Carmen excited to spend whole summer with dad; big, loving hug. "Clean Sweep" (not read) -- father dead, daughter working job w/mom. "Tell-Tale Heart" - murder. "Hitchhiker" - death by car accident. -- End of "The Great Rat Hunt" -- last sentence on CD is cut off and story restarts -- pg. 130 -- Vocabulary practice - students didn't know "strut," "ad-libbed," and "keen." "Finite." -- Student - "Last year I did really well. Reading has always been my favorite subject.  I like the stories, but the quizzes are so hard and the questions are so random.  I like reading books more." -- Student -- "Since he quizzes are so hard, everyone should receive extra credit." -- Because of the shortness of the lessons and the pacing, you easily lose students that either are absent or do not do their homework. -- Why would you give an ISAT practice test right after a unit test? -- Read to them - Ivy Hill 7th grade ISAT -- Fire drill day before 3-day weekend, more homework for 1st class, kids seemed upset, let down.

On the selection test B/C for "Basic Blues" (after "Treasure of Lemon Brown"), #3 quotes "weird," when in the book, they never say "weird." They do say "odd" at one point, so the quoted word "weird" in the question should be "odd." -- Karen