Last Friday, we began reading a play adapted from a mystery story by Dashiell Hammett.  The story is set in the 1930s, a fact which I shared with the students so that they could understand certain details.  One detail is that the murder victim was killed by "blunt force", in this case being hit in the head with a typewriter.  So today we started with video material about typewriters, mainly focused on collector Tom Hanks.  We also listened to a musical composition for orchestra and typewriter by American composer Leroy Anderson.  Then we got back to the play.

1. Because of laptop problems at the end of last week, I did not have convenient access to this site again until today.

2. We went as a class to the school library.

3. Back upstairs, I shared information with the students that I had intended to share last week---but I was having laptop problems---about Pope Francis and his concern for the people of South Sudan. 

1. Because of attendance at the noon Mass for Ash Wednesday, the class periods for today were shortened.  Because of the shortened period, we went as one group to the school library so that students could get books.

2. Technical problems prevented me from sharing video material about Pope Francis's trip to South Sudan.  I filled in that gap by sharing material from UNHCR about refugees worldwide.

The students took the scheduled quiz.

The students had the opportunity to watch two video segments about a refugee camp in northern Jordan, for 80,000 refugees from Syria.  The purpose in showing this was to give a deeper understanding of Salva Dut's experience in camps in eastern Africa.

Next week the students will get to see video reports on Pope Francis's recent vist to South Sudan.

1.  We developed notes for chapter 15 of A Long Walk to Water, which we read in class yesterday.

2.  We read chapter 16 today.

3.  There will be a quiz Thursday on chapters 15 and 16.

We read together chapter 15 of A Long Walk to Water.  There were only two questions to answer for chapter 15, and they were of a nature that I considered it best to pause the reading at key moments to fill in the answers.  So...no homework tonight.

We reviewed---for future testing purposes---chapters 13 and 14 of A Long Walk to Water.

We finished reading chapter 13; we also read chapter 14 of A Long Walk to Water.

1.  The students took a short quiz on chapters 11 and 12 of A Long Walk to Water.

2.  As they finished their quizzes, the students were allowed to go to the library.

3.  We began reading chapter 13 together.

After my opening update to the students about Pope Francis's trip to South Sudan, we intensely covered chapters 11 and 12. 

There will be a quiz tomorrow on those chapters.

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