What's going on in English 9?

From one our freshman...

So far in our English class with Mrs. Strittmatter we have examined and reviewed the different types of sentences, read thought-provoking and sometimes even creepy short stories, and written editorials about a topic of our choice. The climax of the year was most definitely the start of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, a.k.a T-KAM. After winter break, the Leadership freshman dived into this intriguing book, analyzing the character’s behaviors, annotating important passages and locations, and using journal entries to tie the different moral elements and arguments of the story full-circle. As we continue to read this book, we are able to connect more ethical and moral dilemmas to real life, such as racism and sexism. We commonly work in small groups, and recently did a Q-Focus activity with these groups. This consisted of jotting down questions we had about the guiding topic: Are biases always harmful? We asked questions concerning the plot and the modern community. After time was up, we labeled the questions as closed or open-ended, and chose three inquiries that we thought were easiest to discuss within a large group. The last part of this activity was coming together as two bigger groups and conferring about our selected questions. This activity helped us learn how to ask “good” questions, and set us up to be more curious about To Kill a Mockingbird and the compelling themes found within the novel. I think I can speak for all of the freshmen when I say that I am so excited to dig deeper into what this year holds for us.