1. Welcome to 3 rd Trimester Read quietly for 20 minuets Sponge #1 You are one trimester away from High School. How do you feel about that? Are you ready? Write one page about your thoughts about leaving Middle School and starting High School. 25pts (yes I am still looking for a VW camper van)

2. Class work Your main character has invited you to lunch. Where does he/she meet you? What is ordered? What do you talk about? (This exercise helps you to learn more about your character through food preference--which can actually be useful in your story--and through casual conversation) Your protagonist and antagonist are each required to write a letter of introduction for your reader, describing themselves, their goals and motivations, and you. (This exercise gives you valuable insight into the way your characters think about and describe themselves)

3. Character Sketch real or imaginary In the middle of a blank piece of paper, write down your starting concept and circle it. Now, do a bunch of radiating lines from that center, and put concepts relating to your starting concepts. Circle each of those. From those circles, radiate even farther out and put more relating concepts. The "cluster" of connected ideas starting from a central concept is your finished product. Then write about that person.

4. Read quietly for 20 minutes Sponge #2 Find a passage from your book and copy it into your journal. Write a ½ page response or a reflection about the quote

5. Write an observation CHOOSE A TOPIC and WRITE IN THE PRESENT TENSE USE YOUR SENSES These are your primary weapons when creating an observation. USE COMPARATIVE TECHNIQUES There is a natural tendency for people to use comparison in order to better understand something. For the writer, the techniques of similes and metaphors allow for these comparisons.metaphors CHOOSE RELEVANT DETAILS writers of observations often fall into the "over-description" trap. Unfortunately, adding in details that has no relevance to your subject only serves to clutter up the writing. Make sure that every detail you choose to include is relevant to your topic. SEARCH FOR PRECISE LANGUAGE

6. “My Name” from The House on Mango Street copyright © 1984 by Sandra Cisneros. In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.

7. It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse-- which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.

8. My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.

9. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.

10. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.

11. “Hairs” from The House on Mango Street copyright © 1984 by Sandra Cisneros. Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa’s hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Carlos’ hair is thick and straight. He doesn’t need to comb it. Nenny’s hair is slippery—slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like fur. But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pin curls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that smells like bread.

12. Sponge List four good writing methods used in this short story

13. Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

14. Hola Read 20 minutes Work on “Most Dangerous Game” Project due tomorrow