...By the Light of the Moon...

The full moon on Wednesday should induce great energy for students' presentations of their slide shows!  In doing this work, they have addressed the Common Core standards of analyzing and synthesizing informational text, writing in different formats and with accurate mechanics, using technology, and presentation and listening skills.  Challenged to "sell" their book to the class, they are aiming to inspire others to read the book they chose.

Just as we might anticipate the full moon and the warm light it sheds on a winter's night, so do we anticipate our upcoming Diversity Day events scheduled for Friday of this week.  Following a morning of assembly and forum activities, the team will be viewing popular films that tie in to the theme of diversity.  I am planning to extend this theme in ELA classes by listening to a TED talk about "The Danger of a Single Story".  This hopefully will shed light on some broad ideas about implicit biases in both authors and readers.  We will follow this up by reading authors and characters of color, including retellings of classic fairy tales by a Mexican author and poetry ranging from Maya Angelou to Tupac Shakur.  


Homework:

Monday:  work on slideshow

Tuesday:  finish up slideshow; submit to SCHOOLOGY; practice for presentation

Wednesday:  practice for presentation if you haven't gone yet!

Thursday:  nonfiction book cover: due Monday.

Friday:  nonfiction book cover due Monday.

Nonfiction Book Cover

A Short Week...Long on Learning

Here we are faced with yet another shortened week, but as always, we will make the most of our time!  Students are in the final stretch of reading their nonfiction books, and they have been sharing some very thoughtful insights through their responses logs.  On Thursday, they will begin to compose slide shows that touch upon the book's content, nonfiction structure/features, the author's purpose and point-of-view, new vocabulary within the text, effective and/or beautiful language, and new understandings of the book's topic.  They will present their slideshows to one another next week, and perhaps be inspired to read someone else's book!

Along with this reading and writing, students are practicing seven usages of commas, editing for capitals and punctuation, as well as using their vocabulary words.

Homework:

Monday:  VOCAB QUIZ tomorrow; Chunk #6 w/log due Thursday; Nonfiction Moments due Friday.

Tuesday/Wednesday:  Chunk #6 w/log due Thursday; Nonfiction Moments due Friday.

Thursday:  Nonfiction Moments due tomorrow; work on slide show

Friday:  work on slide show

Quizlet for Vocab list #8

Pausing, With Commas, for Nonfiction Moments

This week brings a variety of activities, but not without some pauses, literally and figuratively!  First, we will kick off the week with a new list of vocabulary words.  Students will also learn, over the next few days, seven rules for using commas.  They will view each rule in a sentence, then practice it in sentences of their own.   In addition to using commas, they will take a pause of another sort by experiencing some "nonfiction moments" in their individual reading:  wow!, ah-hah!, hmmm...interesting..., I wonder, and I can relate!

After drafting this while gazing at steely grey skies, I've decided to take another pause at the start of each class today to read a beautiful little poem, "Snow Toward Evening" by Melville Cane.  Seems apropos given the forecast! 

Homework:

Tuesday:  Reading chunk #4 w/log due Friday.  RENEW library bk by Thursday!

Wednesday:  Chunk #4/log due Friday; work on nonfiction moments; RENEW bk.

Thursday:  Chunk #4/log due tomorrow; work on nonfiction moments.

Friday:  Reading Chunk #5 w/log due Monday.


Comma Rules

Comma Practice

Nonfiction Moments

"Snow Toward Evening"

To Everything There is a Purpose

From the nitty gritty period to the stunning projects, everything we do in ELA class is designed with a purpose.   Understanding the why of what we do is important to the learning process.  Today students learned that practice, which might to some at times seem boring, is needed for the nerve cells in our brains to make the goop that helps the skill or understanding stick.  Therefore, the old adage, practice makes perfect, really does have basis in scientific fact!

This week, students are practicing punctuation use, including periods, question marks, quotation marks, and apostrophes, as well as the formation of contractions and identifying and correcting sentence fragments and run-ons.  This is the nitty gritty work!  In the more thought-provoking realm, they are practicing their reading skills with their nonfiction books, and their thinking and writing skills in their dialectical logs.  The backdrop to all of this is practice using the vocabulary words from List #7, which can be accessed on quizlet on last week's blog post.  Our practice with words is playful: drawing them, writing group stories and acting them out in skits.  Practice does indeed make them stick, and this is proved when they appear in students' writing or when, as one student did today, they point out a vocab word in something they're reading!

Homework:

Monday:  Punctuation packet pg. 58-63 due Wed.; nonfiction book chunk #2 w/log due Thursday.

Tuesday:  Finish punctuation pkt pg. 58-63; nonf. bk. chunk #2 w/log due Thurs.

Wednesday:  Vocab quiz tomorrow!  Punct. pkt (abbreviations, unit review, quotable puns and quote marks) due Friday.  Complete log sheet #1 due tomorrow.

Thursday:  Finish punct. pkt (abbreviations, unit review, quotable puns and quote marks) for tomorrow.  Chunk #3 w/log due Tuesday.

Friday:  Punctuation pkt (contractions, possessives, fragments, run-ons) + chunk #3 w/log due Tuesday.

New Year, New Learning!

The new year brings a new unit of study:  nonfiction reading.  Tomorrow we will visit the library to find nonfiction books to read (biography, autobiography, informational text, narrative nonfiction).  After comparing the elements and structure of fiction and nonfiction, students will examine the books they chose to identify specific text features and how they help the reader.  During the reading of their books, students will keep dialectical logs in which they find significant quotes and write a brief response/reaction to them.  At the conclusion of the reading, they will compose slide shows of their books to present to their class.

In addition to the choice book reading, students will engage in other nonfiction-related activities that involve articles and videos.  In particular, we will be examining how author's purpose, perspective, and use of language and visuals affect the reader's understanding of the text. Students will also work on skill practice such as punctuation, and add to their expanding vocabularies with new word lists (below is a quizlet link for our current list).

Homework:

Tuesday:  Finish up utopia poem or poster if needed; turn in tomorrow.

Wednesday:  Begin reading nonfiction book--make sure you like it!  If not, get a new one!

Thursday:  Read chunk #1 w/log (due Monday).

Friday:  Finish punctuation packet pg. 58-63 if needed; first reading chunk/log due Monday.


Vocab Quizlet

Nonfiction reading log

Wrapping Up Presents...and The Giver

In the midst of the holiday season--with presents to wrap, traditional foods to indulge in, family and friends to visit, and good cheer to spread--students are wrapping up their reading of The Giver.  They are exploring their own visions of utopia in poems they are writing, and they are creating storyboard posters focused on an element of fiction:  character, conflict, theme, or the dystopian genre.  Our schedule this week will be to work on poems at home and the storyboard in class.  The goal is to complete at least one (most likely the poem) by Thursday to turn in.  If students are not finished with the storyboard by the end of class Thursday, they may turn it in upon return in January.  We will kick off 2018 with a new unit on nonfiction during which students will read a nonfiction book of their choice.  

I wish everyone happy holidays and a fun winter break!

Homework:

Monday-Wednesday:  work on utopia poem.  If finished by Thursday, can turn it in.

Thursday/Friday (break):  Can turn in storyboard at end of class on Thursday if finished;  if more time is needed on poster, finish over break and turn in 1/2.

Giver Storyboard Activity

The Truth Will Out...Or Does It?

Toward the end of the novel, Jonas begins to realize some truths about his community.  Through his Assignment as Receiver of Memory and the power inherent in it, he comes to understand the sacrifices people have made to achieve this place in which conflicts are rooted out, strong feelings are neutralized, and everyone seems to co-exist in harmony.  However, underlying this supposed utopia are profound sacrifices:  color and music no longer exist, love and family connection is obsolete, life is about the group not the individual...and most significant, people have no freedom of choice--about anything--and thus have relinquished their individualism.  As readers, we are beginning to understand the irony that the very things they tried to eliminate to achieve utopia make this community a dystopia.  As we approach the resolution of the novel, we are reaching some conclusions about the philosophical question of whether utopia is even possible.  Lois Lowry teases readers in the end to make their own interpretation of Jonas' fate:  does he reach Elsewhere?  And where/what is it?

Students are working on a vocabulary activity using words from the novel.  Later this week, upon completion of the book, we will read and analyze some poems about utopia, and then students will begin to create their own.

Homework: (vocab activity is due on Thursday)

Monday:  Rd. ch. 20/21 w/charts

Tuesday:  Rd. ch. 22/23 w/charts (to be turned in tomorrow)

Wednesday:   Vocab activity due tomorrow

Thursday:  Work on utopia poem--due Wed. 12/20

Friday:  Utopia poem due next Wed.

Utopia Poem