Rosoff Unit

so far, i've been having a blast thinking up things for my unit plan. i love how i live now by meg rosoff. right now i have a prep period at washington jr. high. i'm subbing for an 8th grade engilsh teacher... how flipping cool is that?! today we read "Identity" by Julio Polanco.... pretty great stuff... all about non-conformity... i wish that some kids would just take the time to realize that a poem isn't just about the flowers... but i always have to keep "maybe the woods are just woods" in the back of my mind.

ok. so. rosoff unit. i love the book. it's brimming with vocabulary, hyperbole, simile, and metaphor. the last two have been recently added to my list of literary devices, so i haven't taken the time to underline them in the book.... sides... most of them overlap with hyperbole anyways... heh but my vocab list, which are words taken from the book, is as follows:

Set #1:
Intrepid, skewing, fishmongyer, exigencies, grimace, limbo, illcit, dire straits.

#2:
Gaped, sequestered, gleaned, riveting, marauding, wheedled, coincide, and berth.

#3:
Convoluted, wistful, waylaid, deprivations, droning, glowering, paddocks, and retching.

#4:
Adamant, meandering, nostalgia, portents, relinquish, unequivocally, insatiable, and gaunt.

I've been underlining them and noting the pages... but i haven't been able to rediscover "riveting" or "relinquish" so i might exchange them for other words like "clandestine" and "desolate" or something.

i found about 150 awesome vocab words in the book... but i figured that i only want to do at most 10 per week... so i chose the words that 1) i didn't know, or 2) i knew the kids wouldn't know. i decided to trim it down to 8 per week... because i'm going to have the kids make those "fortune tellers" to help them study their vocab.... and only 8 words will fit on there.

Ok. some examples of hyperbole so far:

"Hair that looked like he cut it himslef with a hatchet in the dead of night" (3)

"He's about half a mile shorter than me and has arms about as thick as a dog's leg" (3)

"a huge vine with a stem so thick it must hav ebeen growing there for hundreds of years" (7)

"They all stared at me like i was something interesting they'd orderd from a zoo" (8)

"i felt like i'd belonged to this house for centuries" (9)

"got herself knocked up with the devil's spawn" (11)

"I was strolling around as usual in my unpleasantly populated subconscious" (17)

"It's a shame, starting out your first day on the planet as a murderer, but there you go" (19)

"Now this was clearly one of the greatest inventions on the education system since time began" (21)

"That kid would hav ebeen stuck in a straightjacket practically from birth and dangled over a tank full of Educational Consultants and Remedial Experts all snapping at his ankels for the next twenty years arguing" (22)

"everyone just sat glued to the television" (24)

"since we were about four million miles from the epicenter" (25)

"Then in came Osbert again with a face like a dead pigeon" (33)

"supposedly the hospitals were filled to bursting with all the people" (40)

"I was drowning in fertility" (52)

"the vegetables grow about six inches per day" (52)

"It was getting to be like Walt Disney on ecstacy outside the house" (53)



i don't want to list all of them, but i think that i have some great examples for my handouts... i just really want to get this done... but i want to make it excellent and fun and engaging and all that nerdy teacher stuff. i'm glad i'm not procrastinating. yay! back to the grind now.