This week students will dig into the classic storytelling structure of the Hero's Journey.

 

Personal Narrative Plan and Draft: Students will plan and draft a Personal Narrative. Students have chosen a time in their life, a moment that is meaningful to them and are writing a short essay. This essay will focus on detailed, descriptive writing that uses dialogue and shows what the student was experiencing. 

 

Students will also work on sentence structure and focus on lessons in noredink.com as well as using Mentor Sentences to focus on grammar.

Welcome back to Language Arts! Hoping you have had a good, fun, restful break. I'm excited to begin our next quarter as we look into the Hero's Journey story-telling Archetype.

We will be holding regular classes Monday through Thursday and will be completing important assignments, projects and assessments.

This week in Language Arts, students will do the following things:

December Advocacy Update 

• December 6^th: Marine Biologist Guest Speaker
• December 19^th: End of Cans and Coats Drive
• December 20^th: Holiday Party (9:30-11) and ½ Day ends at 11:30, Parent Teacher Conferences 12:30-8:00
• December 21^st: No School for Students, Parent teacher conferences 8:00-8:00
• December 24^th-January 14^th: Winter Break
• Advocacy Content
• During our time in Advocacy classes this month, we will focus on Optimism and Gratitude. The students will also create S.M.A.R.T goals with their MAP scores.

• We will be writing letters to K-8 school in Paradise, California that lost ½ their school in the wildfires in California. If you have any books that you are willing to donate to help them rebuild their school library, we would greatly appreciate it. Please bring them into your Advocacy teacher before break.
• Bio of Dr. Mikki Mccomb-Kobza who will be a guest speaker to our Science classes on Thursday, December 6^th. Mikki is passionate about sharing her love of the ocean. Mikki is one of the top shark experts in the world. Her work focuses on the sensory biology and ecological physiology of sharks, skates and rays. Mikki is a tireless advocate for sharks and shark habitat. She seeks to highlight their global population decline and to frame new directions for their conservation. Mikki holds a Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from Florida Atlantic University and is the author of numerous scientific publications.

This week, students will finish reading I Am Malala and complete their final book group. They will need to read pages 150-203. 

 

Students will continue comparing and contrasting I Am Malala with Persepolis and work on writing the rough drafts of their essay paragraphs. 

 

We will continue working on grammar by working on Parts of a Sentence in noredink. Students can login to noredink.com and work on these lessons at home as practice.

Hi, and welcome back! I hope you all had a good and restful break!

Special Guest Speaker:

ASSETOU XANGO IS A COLORADO NATIVE, A TEDX SPEAKER AND THE AURORA POET LAURIET. ON TUESDAY SHE WILL BE VISITING WESTGATE TO TEACH US ABOUT SLAM POETRY AND HELP US CREATE OUR OWN SLAM POEMS.

In addition to this, students will continue reading I Am Malala. This week students will be responsible for pages. On Wednesday, students will do a free-write and then finish their book group roles and discussion for pages 56-95.

Students will then start pages 96-150. Some of this reading will need to be done over Thanksgiving break. In addition to reading and discussion the book, students will work with parts of speech and identifying complete sentences and sentence fragments.

This week in Language Arts, students will continue reading and writing about and discussing the book I Am Malala. 

 

 

This week, students will begin their I Am Malala Book Unit. Students will be placed in reading groups of four and within each group, students will have daily assignments. We will be reading ten pages per day and for each day the student will be responsible for their part. In addition, students took a writing diagnostic on noredink.com. I will be assigning individual assignments based on their results. 

 

 

As we read I Am Malala you will be working in book groups. As part of these groups of four, you will be assigned a role for each day you read.

• Work Watcher
• Summarizer
• Connector
• Questioner

You will also be responsible for annotating (using different colored sticky notes placed in the book) to mark important parts of the story.

• Plot (main events)-Blue Sticky Note
• Characters (descriptions of characters)-Pink Sticky Note
• Setting (descriptions of where the story is taking place)-Yellow Sticky Note
• Theme (parts of the book that talk about social justice)-Purple Sticky Note

This week students will complete the webquest that serves as an introduction to the book Malala. Students will then get their books and begin reading I Am Malala. For this book, students will work in weekly reading groups. For each group, students will have roles they will need to fulfill for their assigned part of the book. They will then meet at the end of the week to present their work and discuss that particular section of the book. 

Hi, and welcome back! I'm excited to start Quarter 2! In this quarter, students will explore the idea of social justice by reading Malala. We will begin by exploring what social justice is and doing a webquest that gives background on Pakistani culture and the events that surround this incredible story. 

This week, students will finish their Scarlet Ibis trial simulations. Lawyers will make their opening statements, they will give their arguments and list the those of their opponent and juries will deliberate on whether or not Brother is guilty or innocent in the death of his brother, Doodle. 

This week, students will complete the body and conclusion of their Scarlet Ibis opening statements. In addition, students will enter and revise their drafts to turn their writing into final drafts. This will include editing and revising using a checklist and peer. Students will also look at the rubric to make sure they have all the required components in their writing.