On Wednesday November 15, class began with my quality writing blog, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Once I had finished, Ivan read his review of the previous class period. After the blog business, we spoke a little of the upcoming future fair. Somewhere within that discussion Mrs. H mentioned handing back the “graded” CTBC test, which brought anxiety and dead silence in the classroom. Then once Mrs.H was done handing back the test, she scared the class by saying that the reading expectations for the second quarter would change, partly because she noticed some of us weren’t doing our reading at home, and partly because we are to read much more. The tension ended when Ms.H handed back our quarter goal evaluations. We then discussed our evaluations with a partner and made new ones, which we are to turn in today. (Note: they must be FINISHED when we arrive to class- no printing or writing them during class.)
We knew class was to actually begin when Ms.H told us to get into our little happy circle. While in the happy circle, we discussed The Grapes of Wrath. We mentioned the inter-chapters that Steinbeck has in The Grapes of Wrath, and their comparison to the inter-chapters found in CTBC. (Aline likes Paton's inter-chapters better… ;) Then we discussed the turtle- classes’ new favorite word- and how not even Mrs. understood the significance of the turtle her first time reading The Grapes of Wrath. She even told us that she skipped the chapter, because it seemed to have nothing to do with the Joads. Next we talked about the “smart murder” and how after reading chapter two, we kind of liked him, because he seemed “cool/clever” or simply “a good guy”. Then we went on speaking about the men breaking, the problems with the land, how it really is to live in dust, Casey being a hypocrite and how preachers are humans and enjoy drinking at times, cussing, and hearing jokes, not to mention having sex with young willing girls, who have supposedly just been “saved” or “brought to the light” . We stayed a long time on the subject of the preacher having sex with the young girls, and why having sex is considered bad. Last Mrs. assigned for us to research something...literally, anything somewhat regarding the book.