Thursday 9-29-11

by Brittany Davidson

WOW!!!!!!!! This week is homecoming week and you know what the means? That’s right dress up days and to day is Thursday and today is Cowboy and Cowgirl day! So get you darn tooting  Cowboy and Cowgirl stuff on and get your school spirit on! This week will be amazing lets start this rodeo show and have fun!!!  Today in our 8^th grade English class we studied for our vocabulary test and wrote on note cards for the parent teacher conferences. After that Mrs. Morrow was reading some of the fractured fairy tales to us.  Have a great Cowboy day!  

  Filmed and edited by Tyson Hostert

Tuesday, 9-27-11

By Olivia Fonseca

Today in Mrs. Troester's class she talked about writing process. She went though the steps and what they mean. She asked us if we did revising before. We all answered yes. Then she talked about author’s notes and what they are about. She also asked us if we had written an author’s note before a week ago. We answered no. Then she started to talk about feedback and how past classes had given great feedback in the Writing Exchange. She wants us to carry that on.  Then she told us that our homework is to give feedback on the "I am From" poems in our writing exchange group, and it was not due until Friday. Also today's homecoming theme day was Neon Day. Tomorrow is class color day.

 

Monday, 9-26-11

by Andrew Burival

            Today at pub was just the usual. In English class we went over our new vocabulary words and until we actually fully learn the words, they're enigmas for us all. We revised our fairy tales that we all wrote rough drafts for which were written completely in first person. And in math was just as typical, a worksheet assignment on multiplying fractions. Also science we learned a very helpful formula to convert units into different units of time. In geography we had our states quiz where we had to spell the states name correctly and indentify where the state was on the map. Study hall is pretty self-explanatory. Lunch I wouldn’t know much about considering I refuse to eat school food… In reading class we read Flowers for Algernon, which was a pretty interesting story, really. I would recommend it to someone. In Business trends we finished the worksheet packet we had started which was over uniform codes for businesses and why we felt they needed to be a dress code or a uniform. And in PE, my favorite class of the day, we played soccer, which was pretty intense. But, the out of ordinary thing was that today for homecoming we could dress up like animals and show some school spirit. I found it interesting that quite a few people wore stuff to resemble zebras. That was pretty much the unordinary thing at pub.

 Also, in the world in Afghan there president was assassinated and there is a group trying to get rid of the extremists in Afghanistan the large group trying to attempt to get rid of the extremists are from Pakistan. The extremists did what they did because they didn’t agree with the former president of there country, obviously.  One has to wonder how many people are going to get involved in what’s going to happen. One also has to wonder why the people just up and assassinated the president. The world can be a very cruel place and we live in it.

Another interesting news story is that a bacterium called listeria has infected some cantaloupes and even watermelon. I researched this bacterium and on average 2,500 people in America get it. Of those 2,500 500 die… You wouldn’t know you had it even if you did. The symptoms are very similar to the flu. Except deadlier. Also, a different symptom that isn’t really related to the flu is the muscle weakness, which I suppose could be similar but still. So avoid cantaloupes and watermelon for a while… The best advice I could give you at this point.

Friday, 9-23-11

by Grace Bunner

      Hooray it’s Friday!  Today in English Mrs. Troester came back.  She has been gone because she just had a baby, so congrats to her.  For the first part of class we took Lesson Four - Vocabulary test on Angel.  Then, for the rest of class we worked on whatever we needed to, such as our fractured fairy tale, our authors note for our “Where I’m From” poems and our “Hello” for the writing exchange then we posted them.

            The school is getting excited and prepared for Homecoming, which is next week. The theme is “Safari” and we have some pretty killer dress up days planned.

         In the news, Florida had a straw vote and Mr. Paine the Godfathers Pizza person won and Michelle Bockman who had previously done well in Iowa’s straw vote did not do well in Florida’s.

 In sports Nebraska will play Wyoming at 6:30 on Saturday.  The Eagles will play Battle Creek tonight.  We hope Nebraska and the Eagles do well.  Aksarben is hosting the largest 4-H livestock show in Omaha.

The Louisiana school system has tremendously improved since the hurricane.  They have built several charter schools and the students are learning better then they did before the hurricane.  Stay tuned for Monday’s daily blog.

Tuesday, 9-20-11

Welcome to the Writing Exchange!  Today's English class was all focused on getting started with this awesome opportunity.  Mrs. Troester has been doing the Writing Exchange for several years with her students and this is our first chance to be a part of it.  Also named "SPUR," (Suburban, Preservice Teachers, Urban, and Rural) this project connects four classes of different aged students in online writing forums to exchange ideas and feedback to help develop better writers. The three other schools we get to work with include University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln East High School, and Omaha Burke High School.  In the forums our teams of students are already set up and we can meet our group for the semester.  So, our first task is write an "Author's Bio."  We need to include interesting information that someone who has never met us should know about us.  We are composing these short bios and saving them on our computers to our "Writing Exchange" folder and we will post to the forums on Thursday.

We also learned about the purpose of an "Author's Note."  Added to the beginning of every piece of writing we publish to the Writing Exchange, this paragraph should include the following information:

1. Where you are at in the process of writing/How this piece of writing came to be.
2. Your assessment of your writing so far (What you think about it).
3. What feedback you are looking to receive from others who read it.

Before class on Thursday we each need to compose an Author's Note for our "Where I'm From" poems that we already wrote in English class.  We should save the Authors Note on the top of the poem in our Writing Exchange folder and we will post this as our first piece of writing on Thursday.

In the writing exchange we will use a two-week cycle.  One week we will each post a piece of writing; the next week we will all respond to our group members with feedback.  If money can be found, we may get to meet the others in the Writing Exchange in person before Christmas.  Regardless, we will culminate with a "Virtual Coffeehouse" where we share our best writing of the semester with all the students involved in this project.

This should be an exciting journey in 8th Grade English class... one of which there surely is more to tell as time goes on!  Stay tuned!

Monday, 9-19-11

A world full of challenges, a small group of committed individuals making a difference. 

On this day in the world, all kinds of problems exist.  We used headlines in the news to help jumpstart our long-term writing project.

We started a new week of English class taking a look at the problems in our global society and brainstorming a list of issues we see around us.  Watching the music video "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback showed us some real life examples of how a small group of committed people can indeed change the world.  Mrs. Morrow is challenging us to "Write to Change the World," so with our brainstormed list of problems we will be forming teams to use our writing to make a difference as the semester continues.

We learned the new vocabulary words for the week (Lesson 4) and, as always, the Vocab workbook is due by Thursday (on Angel).  Did you know that the word chalant is a proposed addition to the English dictionary based on the opposite of 'nonchalant'?  Jon guessed it!  Happy Monday everyone... looking forward to a great week!

"Grammar Goofs"

Be on the look out for "Grammar Goof-ups" in published places.  Bring them into class or post them to our blog here.  Be an active proofreader in the world around you!

Welcome to our Class Blog!

Follow our adventures in learning and writing as we travel through 8th Grade English at OHS!