Summer beckons! With only 9 weeks to go, I'd like to take this opportunity to touch bases with you about what we're doing in Language Arts 3-4H and some of the resources available to you and your children for language and literature.

Our current unit covers Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. We are enjoying reading the play in class and we will be joined by Arizona Theatre Company for a week at the end of April to help us act out our own scene interpretations. Students will be choosing performance groups soon.

The following webpages will help you and your children to understand Macbeth and its context:

http://www.rsc.org.uk/exploringshakespeare/mlanguageandthemes/historicalcontext.htm, The Royal Shakespeare Company's page on Macbeth

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html, the play online

Following Macbeth, we will have a brief unit on drafting the personal narrative essay. This is will double as our DVWA (Deer Valley Writing Assessment), and we will be discussing audience, thematic approaches/narrative point, imagery, controlling metaphor, detail and dialog.

The following is a very accessible narrative written by acclaimed author Sandra Cisneros: http://bhhs.beverlyhills.k12.ca.us/ourpages/auto/2008/9/2/1220398696240/Eleven.doc

I have truly enjoyed working with your kids (some of them for two years!) and am always ready to help. Students can make appointments to see me during Academic Prep period or before school for one-on-one writing assistance or literary analysis help. Please feel free to contact me if there is anything I can do to help your son or daughter better succeed in my class as we wind down the semester.

Thank you, Mrs. Merry Gordon