Mid Quarter

Quick posting today...mid-quarter for the second marking period was on Friday, December 14th.  All teachers had to post mid-quarter grades by noon on Monday, December 17th. 

Please remember that this is a quick snapshot of your child's learning over a nine-week period.  In my class we have had one quiz/test this quarter which has either really helped your child's grades or hurt your child's grade depending on his/her score.  If the score was low, your child can always retake the quiz after meeting with me and completing some additional practice on the skills that were assessed.  Before the end of the second quarter there will be several more grades in that category that will be worth significantly more points.

On Tuesday of this week I am asking that all students bring in their page logs for me to do a quick check to see where each student is at.  I will post in the portal the page totals for each student so that you can see where your child is at the mid-point of the quarter.  A previous post has the grade breakdown for the end-of-quarter page totals if you are interested.

Thanks for your continued support and have a great week!

Understanding Character Unit Update

Wow!  December 14th already.  Time is flying  - as it usually does this time of year.  Everyone is so full of energy leading up to the winter break.  The trick for me is harnessing and focusing that energy in a productive way!

In class we are in the thick of our Understanding Character unit.  We started out with a little sociology about how we interact and interpret one another.  More specifically, what our brain does when we encounter new people.  As a part of this we also took a personality assessment - one that helps to show which personality traits are strongest in each one of us.  The point of that is to show how all of our interpretations of one another are unique and "clouded" by our own personality traits.

After several days of this type of work I could sense that the kids were beginning to question how this tied into reading...so we moved on to small bits of text that asked the kids to read and gather information about some characters and then rank them.  This generated great discussion, and by focusing on the differences between rankings I made the connection back to our sociology activities.  We interpret and analyze characters exactly the same way we do with people; the trick is being consciously aware of it when we read.

We then switched focus and looked at character from an author's perspective.  Author's rely on six techniques to develop their characters:

1. Characters' Actions
2. Characters' Body Language
3. Characters' Language/Speech
4. How others relate to characters
5. Characters' Physical Description
6. Characters' Thoughts

Students had practice activities using very short excerpts of text which focused on one of the six techniques.  Students identified examples and then made impressions based on the evidence of each technique.  At this point we are moving into looking at examples of the techniques in other works.  We read the poem "We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks and created impressions of the characters based on evidence from the characterization techniques.  Today we started reading a short story called "The Elevator," by William Sleator where we will analyze the main character, Martin.  From there we will move on to longer works of literature with less guidance from me on identifying the examples of characterization techniques. 

This Understanding Character unit is a lengthy one and has a lot of material to it, but understanding and interpreting characters is probably one of the single most important skills when it comes to reading and comprehending literature at a high level.  This also follows my personal educational philosophy of going into great depth on fewer concepts.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season - the hustle and bustle is reaching its peak!

Questions and/or concerns?  Drop me an email or give me a call.

What kinds of writing will my child do?

I hope everyone enjoyed their break over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  I think I've finally eaten through all of the leftovers!  This week I thought I would post some information that I had handed out to parents who were able to see me at conferences.   One of the major changes to the Enlish/language arts curriculum this year involved the amount and types of writing done in the traditional "reading" class. There are five types of writing that your child will complete in his/her reading/writing literature class.

Classwork:  This type of writing is informal and will contain all the notes and entries made during mini-lessons. These will be organized chronologically in your child’s notebook and can serve as resources for other activities.

Sneeze:  This type of writing demonstrates strong initial thinking on a prompt/question. While this is an informal type of writing, it should follow all non-negotiables. Sneezes can occur based on a read aloud, a whole-class novel, a literature circle, a choice novel, etc.

Response to Literature:  This type of writing is a more in-depth, thought out formal type of writing. A Response to Literature should contain evidence of planning, be well-organized, demonstrate deep thinking, and follow all non-negotiables. Some Responses to Literature will be graded individually right after being assigned, while others will only be assessed at the midpoint or end of a quarter.

Literary Analysis:  This type of writing will introduce the basics of literary analysis in the areas of character and theme. Students will write two formal papers that will be taken through the writing process. The primary goal of these papers is to lay the ground work for the types of literary analysis they may be asked to complete in high school and beyond.

Reflection:  For this type of writing, students will be given a menu of possible reflections to select from. Some reflections will be assigned by me, while other reflections students will have the opportunity to select from the menu. Reflections should be well-written, organized, and should demonstrate your child’s best reflective thinking while following all non-negotiables. Reflections include the following topics: agree with/challenge the author, diction of the author, literary devices, questioning the author, theme analysis, mood analysis, and vocabulary development.

As you can see, your child will be doing a lot of writing in my class over the course of the year. Almost all of this work will be kept in your child's notebook which is usually housed in my classroom.  If you'd like to take a look at what your child has been up to, ask to see his/her notebook!

Again, as always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know and keep encouraging your child to keep reading!