1. Welcome to 8th Grade Language Arts
DO NOW:
Enter the room quietly
Find your matching color/number
(This is your seat)
At the trapezoid table take one syllabus, letter to parents and one half sheet of white and lined paper
Take out writing instrument and highlighter/marker/colored pencil
Silently begin creating a name tag on white paper
Write today's objective in your agenda

2. Introduction to Poetry By Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

3. from The Apple that Astonished Paris, University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark. Permissions information.
Copyright 1988 by Billy Collins. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.

4. What do YOU have to say about this poem?
Reader Response
What do YOU have to say about this poem?
On your half sheet of lined paper, in complete sentences, write down how the poem affects you.
Can you relate to it? What does it remind you of? The only response that is unacceptable is not responding.
(And anything that is not school appropriate)

5. Classroom Rules/ Student Rules
Be attentive
Be respectful
Be ready and willing to learn

6. Teacher Rules???
You have a say too. What would you like to see happen in this classroom? How would you like me to treat you?

7. First Assignment Write a friendly letter introducing yourself to me
Include in your letter:
Where you grew up
What you like to do for fun
How you like to learn
Your goals for Language Arts
What you would like to improve in Language Arts
What you are looking forward to in Language Arts
Your own personal mantra