If you were around the 9/10 English class in September, you would have seen much conflict! Fortunately, it was really only in the literature stories we were studying...they found the main and secondary conflicts in stories such as Under the Lion's Paw by Hamlin Garland. Then, Treasure Island excerpts gave a clear example of character revelation ad character development. The students then each created a new character and placed him/her in a new chapter that they wrote. These students have great imaginations!

The 7,8 English class is finishing their second unit: Nature and Man. Short stories like Mahogany Fox, The Life and Death of a Western Gladiator (a snake), excerpts from The Hatchet, and poems by authors like Robert Frost have helped them evaluate man vs. nature conflicts. The reading of the delightful poem "Wild Blackberries" was capped off with a blackberries and cream treat! Many of these writings highlighted the importance of perseverance and hope in challenging circumstances. We talked about the hope Christians have in Jesus Christ.

After a chapter on verbs, the 7,8 grammar students wrote letters to the two Haitian students that KA sponsors. We first read the letters they had written to KA last spring. In return, the grammar students were excited to share about their families, school and their hobbies. They hope to receive letters back in the next few months. It was fun to know their letters would be translated into Creole for the kids to understand them!

In Creative Writing, we have studied and written fairy tales and practiced characterization. It was fun to see that the BFG movie has many elements of a typical fairy tale. We have also studied scenes in Dreamer to see how a character is revealed... specifically, how to show an emotion of a character without naming it. Tricky. We've looked at examples of various authors to see the seven ways to move a character out of the writer's mind and onto the paper. So this is what "close reading" gets us...better writing skills!

It's been a great month. Thanks for all your support!
Matthew 5:16