"Writing Captured" for DEC. 4th

Post your "found" paragraphs here by midnight.
Be sure you quote it correctly, cite it using MLA or APA (you can find links on my website), and you write a brief response that explains WHY you chose it and how you might USE it.
PLEASE remember to write correctly, okay?

Yea! New Posting for New Class! :)

Here is your very first academic year posting... (I know you did one this summer. I didn't forget!) It's two-fold, so make sure you answer both bits, okay?
(1) What book are you doing your abstract on? How did you pick your book?
(2) What do you think your writing strength is or what would you like it to be? What are you working toward improving? What are your writing goals for this year?
These two questions need to be answered by midnight on Friday, September 19th. My only request is that you watch your spelling & grammar. This is on the web for the whole world to see, so put your best face forward! This can be casual/informal, but it should be correct, okay? Good! I look forward to hearing from you!

Welcome RISING 8th graders!

This is where you guys can post a comment/question based on the summer reading "chat" I gave you all in Mrs. Spradlin's class. Make sure you tell me WHO YOU ARE! I don't know you yet, so be specific - 1st & last names.

Also, feel free to check out some of the other comments from this year's 8th graders, especially the part about WHAT THEY WISH THEY HAD KNOWN. Their hints, tips, advice & warnings might be very useful to you! :)

I look forward to hearing from you!

Advice for Future McNeeley Students

So my little 8th grade darlings - soon to be high school punks :)- this is where I would L-O-V-E for you to post any tips, hints, advice or warnings to next year's 8th graders for surviving the coming academic year with me. You can comment on anything specific (i.e. summer reading, Holocaust unit, Elizabethan fair, abstracts, reading logs, etc.) or everything in general. What do you wish you had known BEFORE you came to my class?

New Discoveries

So, this post is all about all the new things that I've "discovered" lately...

This is not necessarily a new revelation, but I have been reminded lately just HOW MUCH I really love to read. I'm reading one book after another at an almost manic pace because there is so much out there to read! Can you believe that I did not read (for fun) for the first five years I was teaching? I was so overwhelmed with lessons and grading and all that stuff that I didn't allow time to enjoy books. I only started reading again in grad school and that was only because I took a class where I HAD to read! Not having TV helps, though. This blog and all your posts help, too. All those factors help get me excited about the NEXT new book, which right now is Ann Rinaldi's The Staircase. I really like Ann Rinaldi because she writes great historical fiction (FAVE: A Break with Charity), but after reading The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, this book feels a little "dry." (I'm only 27 pages in, so I haven't really gotten into it yet...)

Speaking of Sarah Dessen... She is my other latest discovery. Yang told me that she was an awesome writer and she was right! I admit that I didn't want to read The Truth About Forever at first b/c it sounded a little cheesey. The cover was a little cheesey, too. Once I opened it though, I couldn't stop reading! It's a modern story - meaning it takes place NOW - so going back to the 1860s with Ann Rinaldi is a little abrupt. NOW I'm dying to read more by Dessen, though, so I'm going to search for more titles from her later... (Guys, beware. Sarah Dessen seems to be a "girly writer." I'll try and get some more "guy stuff" soon!)

I'm looking up Dessen titles later, but to answer Emma (& probably others) I did look up Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak, and found other titles by her. I have no idea if they are good or not (their covers looked good!) but here goes:

Prom
Catalyst
Chains
Twisted

BTW, did you notice my LATEST NEW DISCOVERY???? Nina taught me how to do BOLD and ITALICS! I LOVE IT! Anyone know any other tricks? Polly, you still have to help me make my blog look "cooler!"

I am SOOO excited!

I absolutely love this blog thing! It's so much fun reading all your posts! You guys remind me of books that I had forgotten about and get me excited about reading new books. I CANNOT WAIT for Breaking Dawn to be released. I'll probably pre-order it, so I can get it right away! :) Of course, if you're in 2B, you SAW how excited I was and you HEARD how excited Miss Tuggle is, too!

Speaking of teachers, Mrs. Bailey read Life As We Knew It (sorry, still can't do italics) & LOVED it! I'm trying to get her to post her reaction here...

Now, Johnny reminded me of books that I haven't thought of in quite some time... He mentioned Grapes of Wrath in his post. I tried Grapes of Wrath a number of years ago & had a REALLY hard time b/c the first dozen pages or so (at least it seemed that long) was about a turtle in the dirt and I could NOT get past that! I LOVE John Steinbeck! He's a great writer and I have LOVED his other books - East of Eden (Eli read that), The Pearl (Adam read that) & Of Mice and Men. Mice & Men was one of my favorite books in high school! Thank you, Mrs. Gibbs, for making me read that! I'm actually really glad that I had teachers that forced me to read the other classics in high school because I probably wouldn't have read them otherwise. Maybe that's why I push you guys to read books from that College Bound List so hard...

So in high school I wasn't forced to read as much as I would've liked (in hindsight), but these are the ones I did read & I LOVED them:
- Lord of the Flies
- The Great Gatsby
- The Awakening
- Huckleberry Finn
But my ALL TIME FAVORITE, the book that I loved the most, I read in 9th grade English and it was A TALE OF TWO CITIES. You know, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Such a great book by Charles Dickens. I don't know if they still read it in high school, but it's something that you should all check out sometime. Don't let the fact that Dickens wrote it scare you. It's about a great romance, a love rejected, and the French Revolution. Love & war! What more could you ask for?!?

Now you all have me on this serious reading bug... I cannot stop reading! Right now I'm into EAT, PRAY, LOVE but there are at least a dozen or so books that I'm hoping to get to ASAP: The Wizard of Earthsea, two novels by Ann Rinaldi, Breaking Dawn (thanks, Yang!), the sequel to Life As We Knew It (I forget the title), A Thousand Splendid Suns, etc. There are also a TON of books that I want to re-read AFTER I finish all the new ones, two of them are The Grapes of Wrath & The Heart of Darkness. I figured after all these years I should probably give them another shot. Maybe I'll like them/finish them this time. :)

What books are you planning to read this summer???? (19 school days left, I think.)

My FAVORITE thing

Have you guys seen The Sound of Music? If you have then you know the song where Julie Andrews belts out "These are a few of my favorite things..." In it, she goes on and on describing the little things in life that make her happy - "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" is one. I have to admit IN PRINT that I love that movie and that song. It IS the little things in life that make me happy. The perfect pen; bubble gum with a fountain Coke; a clean house; the smell of freshly cut grass; a new magazine in the mail; an unexpected note from a friend... I could go on & on like Julie Andrews, but don't worry, I won't sing about them. EVER. (Sorry, Ruba!)

My MOST favorite thing though is finding that book. You know, the one that you absolutely, positively cannot put down. It's been quite sometime since I found one of those books. The last one was Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, but that was nearly a year ago! I've read a ton since then - mostly young adult stuff - but I FINALLY found one yesterday that I could not tear myself away from: Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. YOU HAVE GOT TO READ IT!

I started it at school. While y'all were watching A Midsummer Night's Dream, I read a bit. And then I picked the book up at lunch and read at the table with my homeroom. When I got home it was the first thing I did - after I let Cooper do his thing! I didn't put the book down until 9:45 and only then did I put it down because I FINISHED IT! It was that good!

Now Mrs. Bailey wants to read it because it's go the science stuff - the moon & gravity. Ms. Tuggle wants to read it because she & I like the same stuff (Lonesome Dove and Twilight). There's only one copy in the media center though, so you might have to fight over this one! If you're still looking to hit your 25 books, this one MUST be one you use to get there!