Reviewing, Reviewing, Reviewing!

Since January, all 10th grade teachers as well as 11th and 12th grade core teachers have been reviewing out the wazoo! The funny thing is--we all love it, and want to see our kids pass the grad exam the first time! This week in particular, we are all stressed and ready to move forward.

In my 9th grade English class, we are writing expository essays with my students fighting tooth and nail to weed out slang, numbers for letters, symbols, and what else, text messaging lingo! We peer edited in class today, and they are doing a wonderful job critiquing their peers. We will write our final drafts tomorrow. Next week, I am introducing the research process. Anyone have any ideas on how to incorporate technology with controversial topics? We use Alabama Virtual Library articles, but I haven't used any other technology tool with research before. You know us English teachers, we love our PAPER sources.

I would love to incorporate some kind of class project for 9th or 10th grade where my students make a YouTube video, but I haven't decided what material I want them to present. We still have Shakespeare to cover, with 9th grade doing Romeo and Juliet, and 10th grade doing Julius Caesar, as well as research for both grades. Tenth grade will do an I-Search paper, and the 9th graders will do controversial topics ranging from religion to abortion. Any ideas??

My students are calling..until next time.