Welcome to the 8th Grade!!

I am very excited to be your 8th grade English teacher!! It is my job to guide you through your final year in middle school and get ready for high school and what lies ahead!  We'll be using many different resources in our English class to start discussions, analyze, write, respond, and research.  You'll find some great resources here on our class blog.  I hope that by having these resources here at your fingertips, you'll feel like you have your own Miss Enos at home to help when you need it!  If you have trouble finding something here on the blog, just let me know and I will help you find it!  If you ever have suggestions for a great resource/topic to add to the class blog, just let me know!!

Here is a video tour that I created to show you around the blog. 

In fact, let me know if you have any questions at all (any time at all!).  You can ask during class, before/after school, through an e-mail.  I don't care how you ask but ask!!!  I want to help you.  You are my number one priority!

One thing you will hear me mention about a million times is my hope for you to have a Spirit of Excellence! I recently heard a quote "Keep working until you are proud!"  Make that your motto for your final year at DMS and many more after!


My goal is to help you strengthen your reading and writing skills this year, but I also want to teach you skills to help you be successful as you grow into the amazing adult you are meant to be.  I want to see you get better at collaborating, creating, and communicating.  I also want to see you become champions! Just like these boys! Check out their story and think about what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it!

Are you up for the challenge?  Because I know I am!


Let's enjoy the year!!

Go, White Team!!!

Sample Genius Hour Presentations

Hi Everyone,

Here is something Mrs. Roberti made in Powtoon (her new favorite tool!)

The presentation will introduce this document.  We wanted to show you that a Powtoon is an entertaining way to present material and is pretty simple to use (it took her about 20 minutes to make this).  I bet some of you would enjoy using it for your Genius Hour presentations.

I hope it helps,

Take care,
Miss Enos

Technology: A Vehicle For Amazing Creation

Today's TED talk actually features two different talks.  These talks both use technology in a powerful way to impact an audience and tell a story.

The first, is an extraordinary performance by a dance troupe... a small, metallic dance troupe.  You guessed it, robots.  Bruno Maisonnier or Aldebaran Robotics choreographs a group of tiny humanoid Nao robots.  It's amazing!  Their performance brings us on a journey, soaring past just "Wow!" to a incredible realization at the complexity and depth of their surprisingly emotional piece.  The power of technology to evoke emotion rings loudly in this talk.  Let it be an inspiration, not just to those I know who are interested in robotics or dance, but anyone who is looking to create art that moves people.  See Dance, Tiny Robots here.

The second talk involves an aspect of technology that I am quite new to: emoticons.  Even though most of you, I would bet, are very fluent in the "developing language" of emoticons, I, myself, basically rely solely on the smily face to punctuate my emotions :).  If you had asked me before, I would say the need for elements of punctuation to represent emotions only shows that our writing lack power and strong description; however, after seeing this talk, I think I'm jumping on board!

Performance artist and storyteller Rives has been called "the first 2.0 poet," using images, video and technology to bring his words to life. Full bio

A Junior Varsity Cheerleader!

His Ted Talk A Story of Mixed Emoticons is creative and engaging.  It is a typographical fairytale that is "both short and bittersweet."   It's a whole new type of storytelling!  

I encourage all of you out there to let these two unique, but creative, TED talks plant seeds of creativity in your imagination as you consider how you can take storytelling and art to the next level.  Let the technology in your hands be the vehicle to create something amazing!

Enjoy!

Hello EasyBib!

I remember in college spending days on  a research paper, pouring my heart and soul into it, only to get it back from my professor with a big red slash through it.  She may have loved my introduction.  Adored how I analyzed and presented evidence.  Gone crazy for the way my sentences lept rhythmically from the page.  So, why the big red slash???  Why the rejection?  Why the big FIX THIS written across the page?

Because I had used a comma instead of a period on the stupid Works Cited Page.

Ugh!!!

Don't worry, writers and researchers!  Today, there is a better way!!!

Let EasyBib help you format your Works Cited Page.

EasyBib is an incredibly useful app and extension that helps collect sources and magically turns them into the correct format for your Works Cited Page.

No longer will your writing dreams be foiled by a silly, teeny, tiny mistake with a space, a period, a comma.

Be a good researcher!  Use Easybib!

Check out my Intro to Easybib screencast.

Be happy that you never have to go through what we had to when we had to painstakingly type up our own works cited page, on a typewriter, uphill, in the snow, without any shoes, on an empty stomach.

TED TAlk #6- What Does It Take to Become a Master

Everyone wants the easy route.
The quickest way to get somewhere.  Why waste time?
They enter an address into the GPS just to find a way to get to a destination a little bit quicker.
No, don't go this way.  Go that way!  It will shave 3.457 minutes off your driving time.
3.457 minutes.... Phew, that was a close one.  What a waste it could have been. That's time you can never get back.
We are always rushing.
Fastest is better.
Quicker.
Shortcuts.

Well, that may work when we are driving around town, but that's not how it is in the real life.

Usually when someone focuses on the fastest way, they ignore the best way. How many times have you sped through a project, just to get it done.  Sure, it's a little messy.  The details are not quite developed.  Some parts may be missing.  You may have finished quickly, but show no spirit of excellence.

This is a problem.

If we truly want to be excellent at something, we need time: time to create, time to think, time to practice, time to bounce ideas around, time to play, time to explore, time to master.

You want to be a master.... a master of something :)  I challenge you to find your passion, like our TED talk speaker today, whatever it may be.  Find that passion and then throw yourself into it.  Don't just take the easy way out.  Don't just throw things together and call it a day.  Take the time.  Use the energy.  Dive deep.  Have a spirit of excellence.  After, weeks, months, years, decades... you may be able to call yourself a master one day.

It took a long time for our speaker today to find his passion.  He failed at so many other things.  He was told he was dumb.  Told he wouldn't amount to anything.  Told he was a disappointment. Then, one day,  he found it.  What he was most passionate about: the yo-yo!

Today, check out  Japanese yo-yo world champion BLACK as he tells his inspiring story of finding his life's passion, and gives an awesome performance that will make you want to pull  your yo-yo out of the closet.

Let his talk inprise you to find or jump into your own dreams!

You deserve a chance to be excellent.

You owe it to yourself to become a master.