Another week has gone by and students continue to be hard at work developing their skills as writers and readers. Here's what you should be looking for at home:


For Sophomores, we are just breaking ground with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. We've spent a few days working on some background information for Shakespeare himself as well as the history of Rome and all the key events leading up to Caesar's death. In fact, the past week has felt more like a history class than a Language Arts class. Students are clearly ready to jump into the play and this week we will dive in. At home, expect students to be working on questions for each act, vocab (your student should now be studying about 80+ words a week), and the occasional assignment pertaining to the play. For the most part, the majority of the play itself will be read in class.




In Creative Writing, things are about to change course as we shift the emphasis away from setting and into character development. This section of the course is always where students really get the opportunity to start creating and inventing original works. For some, it's a bit intimidating...for others, it's what they've been waiting for since the beginning of the year. Expect to see some original pieces being finalized at home and meticulously being tweaked.

In other Creative Writing news, the quarter is nearly up (just about 2 weeks away) and that means another edition of the class anthology, Floodplain, is about to get put together. Each student is required to submit one perfected piece for publication. Be sure to ask your student what they are planning on sharing with the world.



Finally, I am expecting the parents and guardians of many Freshmen to be looking at this newsletter for the first time. That's because your student just brought home a formal practice WASL report that requires your signature and I just happened to plug the website in my letter home. Thanks so much for going over your student's scores and logging on to the site. If this is your first chance checking on penguinsandtoast, welcome. There's quite a bit to peruse and everything has been designed as a resource for parents and students to be able to stay up-to-date on what's going on in class, from home.

This week, Freshmen remain focused on writing. Currently we are in the midst of finishing up a quick run at some short stories and perfecting the process of writing well-developed and sophisticated literary paragraphs. In the next few days, expect your student to be at home typing and agonizing over how to make 1 paragraph absolutely perfect. By the end of the week they will be assigned a paragraph that truly tests their ability to meet all of the expectations we've been discussing in class. It will be their chance to prove that they are ready to jump into big, formal essays (which we will be tackling in the next few weeks).

In addition to all of this work with writing and short stories, Freshmen have also officially begun working on vocab. The way it works is like this: if an unknown, interesting, or pertinent word comes up in class, we discuss its meaning, usage, and relevance. Students add this word, its definition, and its part of speech to their vocab lists. Once we get 10-15 words, we take a quiz. The only trick is that the vocab list is cumulative. That means students need to be responsible for every word we cover this semester. Right now we've got about 15, by the end of the semester, there may be upwards of 80-100+. Each time their is a quiz, there is a chance that any word from that cumulative list may show up. So...flashcards are definitely a good idea.

Thanks for staying involved,


Eric Goldhammer
Language Arts Teacher
Mount Si High School

Well, it looks like Mount Si and the Snoqualmie Valley School District just can't get enough media attention these days. With students at home today because of the bus incident, I figured I'd take advantage of an empty classroom and cover some updates the local news has surely missed.

For LA 9, the next few weeks continue to be heavily focused on writing. Having just finished up Of Mice and Men (where we really worked closely on some high school writing essentials), we have now moved into some short stories and are expanding our written work to fully-developed paragraphs and, eventually, essays. One thing to keep in mind is that the writing we are working on this year is truly a large progression from where students were in middle school. Our focus now goes beyond organization and the basics and encourages sophisticated thought and and well-developed insight. So far, students are stepping up to the challenge. In fact, a few weeks ago, your student took a practice Writing WASL in class. The results are in, students did fairly well, and you should be getting a printed report (that requires a parent/guardian signature) in the days to come.

Students in Creative Writing just spent the last week working in peer groups, sharing their writing and offering guidance and commentary on their fellow classmate's drafts and original works. Believe it or not, your student is reading their creative pieces out-loud in front of their friends and colleagues. Although many were hesitant to jump into the process, all have participated and seem to be getting some solid constructive feedback on their writing.

Also, and in case you are getting a bit concerned with the moldy bag of nastiness your student is claiming to be a project for creative writing...don't worry! The Fruit Journal is going strong and nearing it's end stages. 2-3 weeks and you will finally be able to get rid of the toxic waste that you keep trying to throw out.

LA 10 Honors is gradually making the transition from one book about war to another book about war. In the next few days, expect your student to be in full Shakespearian mode as we jump into Julius Caesar, complete with betrayals, assassinations, and full-fledge battles. We should be able to make some good and sophisticated connections between the reasons for fighting in All Quiet on the Western Front and the reasons laid out in Caesar.

In addition to getting ready for Shakespeare, LA 10 students also just finished up a practice Writing WASL. They took two of these last year and the idea is simply to get them as familiar with the test as possible before the dive into the real thing later this Spring. Expect results from last week's assessment to make their way home in the weeks to come.

'Till next time,


Eric Goldhammer
Language Arts Teacher
Mount Si High School

Thanks for all the great feedback regarding the Hey Parents! newsletter. It's nice to see so many people using the website and staying involved! Here's a quick little update on what you should be looking for with your student:

For LA 9, there's a couple things to focus on. The first is the practice writing WASL your student just finished last week. Mount Si's Language Arts department is now in it's 4th (maybe 5th) year of giving students the unique opportunity to go through a practice WASL experience. The idea is simple: the more practice they get with the test, the better they will most likely do when they get to the real thing. To make it work, a formal test environment is created for about 3 days (the WASL writing test takes about 3 hours), students are given an actual WASL prompt from a past year's test, and students are required to go through the entire process exactly as they would for the real thing (brainstorming, drafting, editing, etc). When it's all over, the LA department scores the essays, computes the results, and distributes to each student an extremely useful breakdown of their scores, how they did in each graded category, and an estimate on whether or not their essay is up to WASL standards. Before they actually take the test in the Spring of their Sophomore year, they will have gone through 3 of these practice WASLs. Since the department has begun this practice, our writing WASL scores have continued to rise (last year we hit about a 92% pass rate on the actual test). Be on the lookout for your student's printed report...we should have them out (w/ a required parent signature) in a few weeks.

The other big freshman news also has to do with writing. All freshmen are just about to turn in a big ol' packet of work. It's called the Of Mice and Men Final Chunks Portfolio and can be considered the culminating project for everything we've been doing since the start of school. The assignment is to pick 10 (out of a possible 15) thought-provoking questions from Of Mice and Men and respond to them in the formal 'chunk' format we've been working on the past few weeks. The portfolio consists of 10 completed organizers (which guide students through the process of forming a solid chunk) and a final-draft, typed version of their completed work. It's pretty large assignment, hopefully you've seen them hard at work. After a day of editing in class, the finals will be due on Tuesday. If your student has not explained to you what chunks are all about, you should get them to...they work great for formal writing and will be a part of their writing experience for the next 4 years of high school.


In Creative Writing, things continue to move steadily forward. After spending a few weeks focusing on detailed writing and how authors often use vivid details to get readers to read between the lines, we've jumped into a few assignments. Already, your student has turned in an Open Letter (an ongoing, monthly assignment) and have started two others: The Fruit Journal and The Place Assignment. From what I've seen so far, the Fruit Journals are off to an impressive start. A good chunk of the class had entirely way too much fun picking out their fruits and the writing they have shown me is impressive and detailed. And yes, in case you were wondering, the picture on the left is one of our student's chosen subjects. I think it's called a Buddha's Hand...and yes, I agree that it's pretty disturbing.

As for The Place Assignment, it should be interesting to see how these end up. The assignment is relatively simple (click here to see the actual guidelines): students are supposed to pick a place (any place they know intimately will do) and capture the essence of it in 2-3 pages. We've been reading a number of examples of authors essentially doing this same thing and from the work I've seen so far, students are definitely on the right track to pulling this off in their own writing. Be sure to ask them where they are headed with it. If anyone is interested in digging into some of these descriptive works, I highly recommend Tim Egan's The Good Rain or Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire--both are great books and we've been looking at excerpts from both for inspiration.

And finally, there's the Sophomores. I'll keep the notes for them relatively short. All LA 10ers are in the middle of their first official, formal essay. It's on All Quiet on the Western Front and the goal of it is to allow them the opportunity to demonstrate their sophisticated understanding of the novel in a written form. I'll be honest, the prompt is a tough one that deals with symbolism and theme and the author uses one to help the reader better understand the other (click here for the actual prompt). Students are just about to the rough draft stage and should be typing these up and printing them off at the beginning of this upcoming week. Feel free to ask them if you can take a look at it...as long as the ideas and writing remain theirs (that means parents/guardians/older siblings/etc. can't write it for them!), I'm all for them having as many editors as possible. Even better, have them read it out loud to you...I always tell them it's the best way to edit a paper. Their final draft will be due on Thursday 10/11.

I think that does it for now...

Til next time,

Eric Goldhammer
Language Arts Teacher
Mount Si High School

Welcome to the first official Hey Parents! newsletter and the latest update to the penguinsandtoast.com experience. I'm sure this newsletter will continue to evolve as the year progresses, but for now, I've mainly included some simple updates as to what's being covered in each class (LA 10 Honors, Creative Writing, and LA 9) and some ideas to help get your student talking about what he/she is learning. Be sure to let me know if there's anything you'd like to see included or any simple additions I may have overlooked. Here's to round one...

First off, a big 'thanks!' to everyone for coming out last Tuesday and making open house such a big success. Out of my 5 classes, over 65 parents and guardians were able to attend and find out a bit more about what their students experience every day. All the studies show that the more students have adults involved and invested in their education, the better they do. Coming to open house, reading this letter, showing interest in your student's education are all simple steps with a huge pay off--your student's success!

As promised, the Hey Parents! newsletter has been designed for you to get even more involved. Try diving into some of these conversation starters at the dinner table and see what happens:



For LA 10 Honors, students have just finished their first novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, and are just about ready to dive into their first official essay of the year. The novel is both beautiful and horrific in its description of the 1st world war and its impact on the soldiers involved. Students have spent a lot of time thinking about war, why nations fight, and the human bonds that truly bring people together. Since the novel is told from the German perspective, a lot of thought has been given to "the other side" of things. Yet, and since our focus has mainly been on the text itself, the class has yet to dive into the current political scene or climate that define the age we are living through. It'd be interesting to see if students are finding any of the book's messages applicable to today's issues. There's a discussion in there somewhere...see where you end up.

In addition to reading, LA 10 students have already been doing quite a bit of writing--mainly short answer--in a format they began working with last year. All of the written work they've done thus far is prep for their upcoming essay on the novel which they should get assigned later in the week. Be on the lookout for students hard at work drafting thesis statements and convincing arguments as the week wears on.

I thought I'd also mention that students have vocab every week. The vocab program we use is cumulative--that is, the words from last week will continue to show up on the next week's quiz. By the end of the semester your student will have mastered and absorbed around 300 new SAT/college-prep words into their working vocabulary. If you haven't seen any yet, flashcards are definitely a good thing.



Creative Writing is about as far away from war and violence as we can get. Our past few days have been spent contemplating the role of 'Setting' in written works and spending a lot of time closely observing the world around us. Students are about to jump into an assignment that's dedicated solely to looking closely at an object and going for the small details--its name is "The Fruit Journal" and hopefully they've warned you about what's coming. If not, talk to them...it'd definitely be good for you to be keyed into what it involves. Don't worry, the only thing that may get hurt is some tupperware and the general aroma of your home.

Also, students are coming up with all sorts of original thoughts and pieces of writing every day. For some, it's the first time they've really had the opportunity to write creatively since elementary school. It'd be great if you could get them to open up and share something they've written with you.



Freshmen students have officially dived headfirst into the high school Language Arts experience. We are about 3/4 of the way through our first novel, Of Mice and Men, and are steadily trudging along at learning a completely new approach to writing. The book brings up tons of great topics for conversation (friendship, sacrifice, how society treats those individuals who are disabled or 'different', isolation/loneliness, etc.). So far, it's hard to pick out a student who isn't liking the novel. It's a great, short book that's perfect for the start of a high school career. It works extremely well to help remind students exactly what we are looking for while we read. Already, we've had some great discussions about symbolism, theme, and the deliberate choices the author makes. I highly recommend picking up a copy and reading along with your student. In fact, a number of students have already told me that they are having to wrestle their books away from their parents just so they can get their homework done. It's that good.

As for the LA9ers and writing, the program we are using (officially referred to as the Jane Schaffer Writing Program) is both structured and free enough for students to really make some significant progress with their writing skills. This year marks Mount Si’s 4th year of an all-school effort to focus on writing throughout the building and the results from this program have been incredible. Our WASL writing scores are up past 90% for the second year, and teachers in every department are using a common language when discussing writing in their classrooms. And, that’s exactly what we have been focusing on these past few weeks—the language and terminology students will be using with their writing for the next 4 years…in every class. Ask your students what concrete details, commentary, and chunks are. If they say they don’t know, they are lying. Every student has jumped on board and is already showing great progress communicating their thoughts in writing.

Speaking of writing...later this week, every freshman in the building will undergo a practice WASL writing test for 3 days in their LA classes. The goal is to create an environment that is as close to the real test as possible. Their essays will be professionally scored (at a scoring conference attended by all of the LA teachers in the building) and their results will come back to them in a printed report which highlights their essay’s strengths as well as areas that may need a bit more focus. Stay tuned for those results in the next few weeks.


And that, I think, will do it for this week's update. Be in touch!

Til next time,

Eric Goldhammer
Language Arts Teacher
Mount Si High School