The First Days...

Welcome to the 2014-2015 school year!  This blog is meant to help keep parents "in the loop" with what is going on in your child's ELA classroom.  Hopefully it will also help to spark some conversation instead of the usual "nothing" response to the "what did you do at school today question".

Here is a brief run-down of events thus far!

The first day is always one of the toughest days because of all the sitting and listening.  I must have apologized a hundred times for talking so much.  We went through the basics of what students can expect in ELA class as well as some get-to-know-you activities.  In addition there were some PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports) videos reminding students of the Redbird Way in a variety of situations.

In addition, we went to the LMC to check out books and went over the class syllabus as well as the independent reading requirement for the year.  I have linked each of those documents here and there will be a subsequent posting on the independent reading requirement.  We also did a book pass activity - I called it "speed dating" but with books.  This gives the kids an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of titles and genres that they may want to pick up the next time they go to the library.

In grammar we have already begun taking a look at sentence types.  The sentence is really the foundation of good writing.  I want all my students to have a variety of different sentence structures at their fingertips when writing.  We have reviewed simple and compound sentences and have started looking at complex sentences.

We are in the midst of our first whole-class novel - Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson.  This story is about the the lives of three brothers whose parents have both passed away.  The oldest brother is doing his best to keep them together - giving up his spot at MIT - to stay and raise his two brothers.  The novel is beautifully written and gives the ELA teachers a common text that we can refer to in the future, as well as use to teach our expectations for responses to literature.

This is just a fraction of what we've been doing in ELA over the last ten days.  In future posts I will be presenting various components of our day as well as some of the general curriculum that we teach in 8th grade ELA.