Wednesday, May 19, 2010

General Announcements:

• Important End of Year Dates:
  • Thurs., 6/3: 8th Grade Project Presentations
  • Sat., 6/12: Hilltown's 15th Birthday Party
  • Thurs., 6/17: Summer Celebration at Overlook
  • Fri., 6/18: 8th Grade Graduation
  • Tues., 6/22: Last Day of School
• You must have an independent reading book every day. If you are getting close to the end of one, have the next one at school and ready to go.

Math:

Fri., 5/21: End of Year computation evaluation
• 7th Grade
  • No new assignment
  • Due Thurs., 5/20: Complete 2.1 on p. 16 in Filling & Wrapping, using the chart we set up in class today. You must sketch each possible arrangement, but sketches do not need to be part of the chart.
• 8th Grade:
  • None Assigned

Social Studies:

• Ongoing:
  • Continue working on newspaper assignments.
  • Continue working on political cartoons, utilizing the feedback from the group today.

Science:

• None Assigned

Language Arts:

• Due Thurs., 5/20: Complete "Seeds of a Play"
  • Complete at least 5
  • You may add a seed.

Moment of Zen:

The Hypothetical Library: Real Covers, Imaginary Books

Beyond the hexagonal chambers of Borges' total library (not to mention all of his references to books that don't exist), beyond the breeding books in the wilds of the library at Terry Pratchett's Unseen University, is the Hypothetical Library. This blog, run by advertising exectutive Charlie Orr, who also designs covers for extant books, solicits ideas and titles for nonexistant books from notable authors, and designs covers for them. Since starting things up in February of this year, Orr has put up a new cover for a hypothetical book about once a week. This week's cover, for Neil Gaiman's If You Read This Book The World Will End, features a vintage lock to prevent you from reading the book and thus ending the world. Gaiman (author of Coraline, comic series The Sandman, and American Gods) said he had trouble with the idea of presenting an idea for a book he would never write, noting, "The trouble with imagining a book I would never write is that when I think of it, I think 'but I could WRITE that...'" Click the picture above to read more about Gaiman's vision for his verboten, nonexistant book and to see other covers for books that could exist, but don't.