Marley was dead: to begin with.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you ate well today. Despite all the good food, I have one word for you... pie. Mmmm... pie.

Have you done anything constructive this week? I finished reading The Maze Runner, and then I read its sequel: The Scorch Trials. The dystopian novels (The Giver, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc) are all the rage lately, and the Maze Runner series is that same genre, but I am really enjoying the story. It hasn't turned into a "love story" just yet. I'll start book 3 (The Death Cure) tomorrow. I need to finish it before Monday. I don't like juggling two books at once.

I also went to see the Maze Runner movie yesterday. It was good - just not as good as the book (of course). The girl taking tickets was a former student of mine. It's always fun to run into old students. Most of the time, it's hard for me to remember names - after all, this is my 30th year to teach - but I didn't have that problem with this particular student. Some of you are hard to forget. lol. A word of advice, though: when you run into your old teachers years later, offer your hand in greeting while reminding the teacher of your name. Don't put them on the spot by saying things like, "Do you remember me?"

Bad day on the gridiron with both the Cowboys and Aggies getting whupped. Oh well, I'm not going to let that bother me. At least the Aggies made it close. And the Cowboys have been bad at home all year. Maybe the next couple of weeks on the road will help (but I won't be holding my breath).

We start the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol on Monday. Have your books! You'll be learning about one of the most iconic characters in literature: Ebenezer Scrooge. I love Dickens. He's one of my favorite writers. Did you know he used to do public readings of A Christmas Carol? People would show up to listen to him read the book aloud. That would have been an amazing event.

By the way, the title of this post is the first line of A Christmas Carol. What standard sentence structure rule did Dickens ignore when constructing this opening line?

We're also going to revise and re-write our expository essays. In addition, we will continue examining the parts of the sentence. We're almost through with Step 4: Complements, but having all the DOs/IOs (w/ action verbs) and PNs/PAs (w/ linking verbs) mixed together will be challenging. The more you understand how a sentence works, the better your own writing will be.

Next up after that will be Step 5: Modifiers (adjectives and adverbs). In the not too distant future, we will be learning all about the AAAWWUBBIS and complex sentences.

So gear up and get ready for a fun three weeks leading into the Winter Break.

More soon. Continue to enjoy your break. Read something!