1. Some of you have not received essays back. I have them. I would like to use them as examples next school year. I have not forgotten the promise that I made to you at the beginning of the year. I told you that I would not share your essays with anyone so that you would feel comfortable in your writing. I have scratched your names out! Your secret is safe!
2. The writing competition that I talked about with you guys has been canceled for this year. I apologize for not being able to enter your writings, but you’re all winners in my book!!!

Now, many of you had suggestions for essay topics this year. When I gave you the option to free-write many of you struggled to find an effective topic. What I would like for you to do is to tell me your ideas of great topics!!! You may reflect on great essay topics from this year as well. Please refer to the essay topics tab if you need a refresher on this year’s topics. I would love to be able to use your ideas next year!!!

•  We will read the novel The Giver and complete activities for the novel until the last day of school, Friday, May 23, 2008. Although it is the end of the year, the school year is not over!!!

• You will not need to bring backpacks to school, you no longer have books. You will only need your binders to place in your lockers.

• This has been a very pleasurable year getting to know each of you! I am glad that I had the opportunity to get to both know you and teach you! Have a great summer!!!

Tuesday, April 8th

Friday, April 11th

Monday, April 21st

Thursday, April 24th

Tuesday, April 29th

***If you are absent, you have only two days to make up your missed assignment. Mrs. Harris-Davis WILL NOT call you up to give you missed work, but you are responsible for getting your assignments from me on your own.

***If you miss your assignment due to lack of…(fill in the blank with the reason excuse you have for not turning in your work) then you MUST come to Harris Hall in order to make up that grade.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore and then run…

On Monday, February 25, 2008, watch A Raisin in the Sun on ABC at 7 p.m. After watching this wonderful screen play, that originated as a play, write a one page summary on what you thought about the movie. Tell about the ending and if you thought is should have ended differently and tell how the movie made you feel.

Here is the plot:

The story is based upon a family’s own experiences growing up in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The title comes from the opening lines of “Harlem”, a poem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?

The play concerns the working-class Younger family, who dream of leaving behind the dilapidated tenement apartment where they have lived for decades. The son Walter, a chauffeur, dreams of making a fortune by investing in a liquor store but foolishly gives his money to a con artist. His sister Beneatha, a somewhat flighty college student, tries to find her identity and embraces the “back to Africa” philosophy of a Nigerian friend. Their mother, the matriarch, dreams of buying a home, and does so with her late husband’s insurance money, but the house is in an all-white neighborhood. Their racist future neighbors hire a man named Karl Lindner as a “Welcoming Committee” to try to buy them out to prevent the neighborhood’s integration. However, Walter takes a stand and refuses to be intimidated or bought out; in this, he stops deferring his family’s dreams and helps them advance. The central idea of the play is concerned with combating the myth of black contentment. The stress of poverty is vividly portrayed through the tight quarters as five people are squeezed together onstage into a one room apartment.

This assignment will be due Wednesday, February 27, 2008

February dates:

Thursday 2/7 Monday 2/11 Tuesday 2/19 Monday 2/25