Thursday, September 27

English 12A: Today we studied the importance of water in literature, including in the This I Believe essay we read today, which can be found here: https://thisibelieve.org/essay/24321/ There is an assignment on Canvas titled "How to Read Chapter 18 Analysis: 'If She Comes Up...'" which is due tonight. You should read through page 205, Chapter 71, in Life of Pi for Friday's class.

CNF: Today we experimented with facial expressions and their impact on our emotions as we read the end section of Blink.

Wednesday, September 26

English 12A: Today we read a This I Believe Essay (A Reverence for Life), worked on the Sentence of the Week project, and worked on your college application essays. The rubric can be found on Canvas. The essay is due on paper on Monday.

CNF: Today we watched a Ted Talk about body language and facial expressions to help us better understand the final sections of Blink titled "How to Spot a Liar." We then continued to read the final section of the book.

Tuesday, September 25

English 12A: Today we focused on your college application essays as well as what we noticed about this week's sentences of the week. Yesterday, our focus was on a variety of conclusion techniques to use. Your homework is to work on your essay, read through Chapter 59 (page 176) in Life of Pi, and take the Conclusions quiz on Canvas. You must take it tonight to get credit for it.

CNF: Today we continued our discussion about Chapter 5 and began Chapter 6 in Blink.

Life of Pi Visualization Extra Credit Project

Create some sort of artistic visual representation of something that's important from the novel. This is very wide open. I just want to build upon the skill of visualization that we worked on last week. The assignment would be due no later than Friday, October 12, though it can be handed in earlier. Some possibilities for this might include a painting, sculpture, collage, or drawing. You could do something like design a new book cover or a poster for the film. You could incorporate words and visuals if you would like, something like a poem with a visual. As I said, it's very wide open, and the amount of extra credit you earn will be based on how interesting your project is and how much effort it appears you put into it.

Thursday, September 20

English 12A: We read a This I Believe essay, "A Feeling of Wildness," and discussed how the ideas therein and apply to Life of Pi. We also addressed the importance of names and the naming of things in the text. Lastly, we also worked on your college application essays. Read everything through Chapter 51 (page 145) and work on your essays for half an hour or so for Monday.

CNF: Today we read from Chapter 5 in Blink.

Wednesday, September 19

English 12A: Today we focused on the skill of visualization, and read Chapters 46-49 in Life of Pi. Finish with those chapters before tomorrow's class.

CNF: Today we focused on ice cream, spaghetti sauce, peaches, chairs, and everyone's favorite techno/hip-hop/new wave musician, Kenna!

Tuesday, September 18

English 12A: Today we read this essay from This I Believe: https://thisibelieve.org/essay/16598/
We also began our study of grammar through our first Sentence of the Week activity. Lastly, we read from Life of Pi; you should be done with everything through Chapter 45 for tomorrow's class.

CNF: Today we explored why we like certain things and how the context impacts this through our Coke-Pepsi Taste Test Challenge.

Monday, September 17

English 12A: Today we focused on reading the start of Part II from Life of Pi. If you were absent, read through page 111 for tomorrow's class. We also took a grammar pretest in preparation for our Sentence of the Week program; please take this on Canvas if you were absent, found under Quizzes.

CNF: Today we finished Chapter 4 in Blink and had a short discussion on the material.

Friday, September 14

Predictions: 
Utah 24, UW 17
BHS 23, Skyline 3

English 12A: Today we took a quiz, finished Part I in Life of Pi, read this essay: https://thisibelieve.org/essay/24/ , and had a discussion about Pi and Part I. If you're not done with Part I, finish it. We will resume Part II on Monday and resume working on your essays on Tuesday.

CNF: Today we focused on reading Chapter 4 in Blink and will continue it on Monday.

Thursday, September 13

English 12A: Today we read this essay https://thisibelieve.org/essay/31/ and worked on the body of your college application essay. Over the next few days, spend about a half hour working on that essay. You should be done with Chapter 36 (page 86) in Life of Pi for Friday's class. We will take a quiz and have a discussion on Part I that day.

CNF: Today we focused on the relationship between spontaneous decision making and structure as we studied Battlestar Galactica, basketball, improv comedy, and chess.

Monday, September 10

English 12A: Today we began a study of different introduction techniques; your job was to pick one of the first three we studied and write an introduction for your college application essay. We also read from Life of Pi; you should be done with Chapter 13 (page 44) for Tuesday's class.

CNF: Today we took more implicit association tests and will read Blink, Chapter 3 in class tomorrow.

Friday, September 7

First the important stuff. The Bengals are going to roll at Homecoming 24-9, and the Utes will steamroll Northern Illinois 35-10.

English 12A: Today we read some from Life of Pi, and your homework is to read through Chapter 7 (through page 28). We also started looking at potential college application essay topics, and you should come with an idea in mind based on one of the prompts we looked at.

CNF: Today we took the race IAT and will continue with various other IATs on Monday.

Thursday, September 7

English 12A: Today we began reading Life of Pi. Please go to http://bairdenglish.blogspot.com/2018/09/life-of-pi-reading-schedule-2018.html for the complete reading schedule. We read the Author's Note, discussed it's implications, and then began the first couple of chapters. You are to read the first three chapters tonight for homework (through page 12).

CNF: Today we finished reading Chapter 2 from Blink and discussed the notion of rapid cognition, the unconscious, and priming.

Life of Pi Reading Schedule 2018

Life of Pi Reading Schedule 2018

9/6: Read author’s note and pages 1-12

9/7: Read pages 12-28

9/10: Read pages 29-44

9/11: Read pages 44-58

9/12: Read pages 58-71

9/13: Read pages 71-86

**9/14: Read pages 86-93 in class and discuss Part I

9/17: Read pages 97-111

9/18: Read pages 111-123

9/19: Read pages 123-137

9/20: Read pages 137-145

9/24: Read pages 145-159

9/25: Read pages 159-176

9/26: Read pages 177-192

9/27: Read pages 192-205

9/28: Read pages 205-217

10/1: Read pages 217-229

10/2: Read pages 229-240

10/3: Read pages 240-256

10/4: Read pages 256-270

10/5: Read pages 270-286 in class and discuss Part II

10/8: Read Part III in class

10/9: Final discussion on book

Tuesday, September 4 and Wednesday, September 5

English 12A: Tuesday we discussed the story of Emmett Till and the book Mississippi Trial: 1955. Wednesday we took an essay exam on the summer reading.

CNF: Tuesday we thin sliced people's personalities based on their bedrooms, and Wednesday we learned about unconscious priming and began reading Chapter 2 of Blink.