Hey, I like the title of this post - I think it will become the new title of this blog!
Well, I guess winter has made itself known this week! Time for another update!
In class we have finished the first part of our Understanding Character unit after analyzing characters in small excerpts and three short stories - "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, "The Moustache" by Robert Cormier, and "The Elevator" by William Sleator. The students just took a large exam on all three stories and so far I've been quite pleased with the results. We will take a break from the character analysis to do some argumentative writing, but will pick up in January where we will be expanding the texts to a long story adapted from the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and finally to novel reading in the form of a literature circle.
In terms of the argumentative writing, the students are beginning their work with some of the very basics of argument. Our first activity involves matching dogs up with potential owners. The focus of this activity is having the students make a decision and then find evidence that backs up their decision from the description of the owners and the descriptions of the pets. We will share our decisions with evidence in a whole class discussion. It also will show how there is evidence for more than one possible combination. From there we move to examining a dispute over a bat that was left to two adult children by their recently deceased father. Students are reading the background on the each of the two adult children (Sue and Steve) and had to annotate the reading indicating evidence for Sue and Steve. I then assigned each student one of the two perspectives (Sue or Steve) and instructed them to write a letter to their Aunt - who is the person that will ultimately decide who gets the bat - to persuade her to give the bat to him/her. My goal for this activity is two-fold. First, I want to gauge how well the students can pull evidence from a text, and secondly, I want the kids to give evidence for their assigned side as well as identify the arguments on the opposing side.
Mid-quarter for quarter #2 is already next week! Yikes! That really crept up on me! Make sure to take a look at the portal to check in on your child's grades. Better yet, have your child take sit down with you and walk you through their classes on the portal!
My student teacher, Mrs. Neuville has currently taken over blocks two and three and will soon take over block one. She is doing a fantastic job - her time spent as a substitute teacher definitely shows in her ability to run a classroom.
In other news, great job on the penny war! As an 8th grade we raised almost $1000.00 to buy gifts and other essentials for the family of six we adopted through the Salvation Army.
Have a great week and as always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know!
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