If you’re looking for one-on-one help, you guys are lucky, because I have fourth period planning.  That means I am available during three of the four lunches at our school.  Here’s how to find me:

Fourth Period: I am usually in the library for the entire period.  Just ask someone on staff.

Fifth Period:  My advisement group switches lunches a couple of times a week to do some intensive peer tutoring with another advisement group.  This makes things trickier, but I am still available.  Just ask me in advance, and I can let you know exactly where I will be.

Of course, I am still available by appointment before and after school on any day except Monday, when I go to school.

You have plenty of opportunities to seek help!  Take advantage of them!

The MacArthur Fellowships (lovingly called “genius grants”) have been announced.  Check out the winners.  They include scientists, writers, artists, and even a blues musician.  Each fellow gets $500,000 paid in installments over five years.

abstruse

affable

audacity

contrite

credulous

depravity

deprecate

didactic

dormant

enigmatic

erudite

exotic

fastidious

furtive

gregarious

hypocrite

innate

lethargic

melancholy

opaque

prolific

reprove

symmetry

tranquil

If you’re stumped about how to cite a source (or if you have any other questions about MLA style), go to owl.english.purdue.edu for all the rules you’re going to need.  Scroll down to the right and you’ll see links to their MLA formatting and style guide, as well as a nice introduction to plagiarism.

As I have told some of you already, here is another translation of Beowulf available online.  This translation is roughly the same level of difficulty; however, it includes a list of characters, a glossary of words not commonly used in modern English, and sidenotes explaining the action.  Enjoy.

Welcome to my online classroom!  I’ll be doing a few things here:

• Posting make-up assignments.  If you are absent for one or more days, check here for your make-up work.  The last thing you should do while you’re sick is watch more TV–that would just make you sicker.  Keep up with your vocabulary and reading instead!
• Assigning new work.  On occasion, I will post a question here, and I will expect all of the students in a given course to respond and dialogue with each other.  I may also post links to websites, have you check them out for yourself, and have you post your reactions here.  Isn’t Web 2.0 the best?
• Miscellaneous.  Sometimes I just find something interesting, and I want the whole world to know about it.  Usually this will concern books or some other aspect of our culture.  For example, the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize (Britain’s highest award for fiction) was announced recently, so I’m pretty excited about that.

So that’s the agenda for this site.  Enjoy yourselves, and here’s a disclaimer: any opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.  Links to outside websites are for informational purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect the views of this website.  If you comment, please do so politely, and IF YOU ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN, DO NOT COMMENT WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF A PARENT OR GUARDIAN.