Thursday, August 26, 2010

Week Three

Hello Parents and students. We are almost at the end of another fabulous week! This week we worked on Simple and Complete Predicates. We also read the short story Seventh Grade by Gary Soto. We have been reading our class novel Rumble Fish for almost two weeks and took our first comprehension quiz on Tuesday. On Thursday we tested our knowledge and comprehension of Seventh Grade. On tomorrow we will learn about Conflict and read Langston Hughes's, Thank You Ma'am.

Homework was assigned on Monday and Tuesday night.

This upcoming week we will begin preparations to read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Check back later for more updates!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

One week down!

Hello parents and students,

Today is Wednesday, August 18, 2010 and we have been in school for a week. We are currently working on Unit 1: Fiction, Short Stories, and The Novel.

This week we had a quiz on Genres of Fiction and learned about the various fiction genres. We also began reading our class novel, S.E. Hinton's Rumble Fish. We read 15 minutes per day and work on comprehension questions to assess their understanding of the text.

On tomorrow we will work on elements of plot, and revisit the new vocabulary terms for the upcoming short story, Seventh Grade by Gary Soto. On Friday we will have a short open book quiz on chapters 1-4 of Rumble Fish.

Thursday, August 5, 2010


Hello students, parents, and visitors!
We have six days remaining before the first day of school. I am looking forward to meeting my new students and exploring Seventh grade English and Literature.
On the first day of school we will get to know one another by playing "Get to know you" bingo, completing an "About Me" activity, and interviewing a friend.
On the second day we will find out our individual learning styles, multiple intelligences, and complete interest inventories. The students will also be given a writing prompt which will be used to assess the students' writing abilities.
On the third day, Friday, students can look forward to a diagnostic test in English Language Arts with a focus on reading comprehension. This test will be graded, but not for correctness nor a grade. The scores will be used to create individual learning plans for each student. This is a way for me to obtain data on each student's strengths and weaknesses.
On Monday, August 16, 2010 we will begin working from the EBRPSS comprehensive curriculum. Unit One's focus will be on Fiction and the short story.
Stay tuned for future updates.