Tolsto(r)y Followup - Explorers Essay - Ch. 5 Summary

Students returned from Thanksgiving and:

• Discussed several followup questions over Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?"
• Began writing an Essay Ranking the Spanish Explorers - See instructions here.
• They will be able to work on it in Grammar class with Mrs. Horner.
• The essay will be due Thursday.
• Began reading and discussing the Chapter 5 Summary: Missions and Settlements
• Students will take a Quiz over the Ch. 5 Summary on Wednesday.
• We finished the first paragraph, pausing to relate key terminology from the reading to things depicted in the maps and pictures to the right.
• We color-coded key terminology and then inserted arrows stretching from the words to the picture. Click here to get an idea of how this was done.
• We distinguished between missions & presidios.
• Did a sort of anticipatory discussion of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which we will read and discuss over the next week. One question raised and discussed was "Why does Dickens call his chapters "Staves"? Click here to see various formats available.

Assignments

For Wednesday - Quiz over Ch. 5 Summary: Missions and Settlements
For Thursday - Essay Ranking the Explorers

Sell Myself Presentations - Discussion of Tolsto(r)y - Wishes for Happy Thanksgiving

Today students:

• Sold Themselves to Queen Jill and the Royal Court of Grade the Fourth
• Discussed Tolstoy's short story, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" - 
• See students' discussion questions here, here, and here.
• See our riff on this here.
• Gave and received wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Assignments: (See wishes above.)

Sell Myself Project - Tolsto(r)y - La Salle's La Belle Documentary

Today students:

• Got back their graded Quizzes over Chapter 4: Early Explorers - The celebration almost got out of hand! (j/k)
• Had the choice of working on their Sell Myself Project or reading the Tolstoy short story (or doing some of each); both are due tomorrow
• Shared their lists of "Wants" and "Needs" at their blogs. Click here, here, and here to view.
• Watched some of a documentary of the La Salle Shipwreck Project, embedded above:

Assignments: See instructions in yesterday's class blog post.

Flag Raising - Chapel - Fire Drill - Quiz over Ch. 4 Summary - Tolstoy

Fire drill cartoon here

Today students:

• Raised the flags and went to chapel
• Participated in a fire drill
• Did last-minute study for the Quiz
• Took the Quiz over the Ch. 4 Summary: Early Explorers
• Were emailed a link to a Tolstoy short story (See Assignments below.)

Assignments

For Thursday:

1. Continue working on your "Sell Myself" Project.
2. Make a table (chart) listing every thing you can think of that you WANT and everything you can think of that you NEED. Do this before beginning the Tolstoy story.
3. Optional: Begin reading Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?". If you'd rather begin tomorrow, that's fine, so long as you read the story and complete the assignment by Friday.

For Friday

1. Your "Sell Myself" Project will be presented to Queen Jill and Her Royal Order of Grade the Fourthers sometime between 8-8:30 A.M.
2. Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?
1. Have it read in full.
2. Write lots of discussion questions.
3. Post them to your blog, along with pictures & a link to something interesting relating to Tolstoy and/or the story.