Islamic New Year and NEW UNITS!

Good morning,

I hope that you all enjoyed the three-day weekend for Islamic New Year.  Even though it was a short week, we will still quite busy!

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, we officially launched our Characters Across Series unit.  Students were given a variety of series to pick from.  The requirements are to read at least two books in the series so that we can make connections within and between books.  The first book is due on October 10th and the second is due on October 25th.  These will also be the basis for our argument essays in writing.  We also talked about the importance of knowing when to zoom out and zoom in while we are reading.  At times, we need to see the big picture of the story and get a sense of its movement as a whole.  However, it is equally important to zoom in on a phrase, sentence or paragraph to notice the little things that make a big difference in the lives of our characters.  We also looked at asking the question "Why this detail?" as we are reading.  Of all of the things that an author could say, why this?  Why now?  These little moments will become important as we make inferences as to their purpose in the whole story.

Social Studies

We officially wrapped up our Hominids unit this week.  Students created a blog post explaining the pace of change of these early humans as well as hypothesizing why certain technology developed.  They also took an assessment.  We gave a brief introduction into Mesopotamia and will look more in-depth into this group next week.  Students will be creating a letter to a curator where they will research a topic of their choice and justify why that is a necessary addition to a museum's collection.

A short week?

Good morning,

I decided to publish the blog on Wednesday, just in case there is no school tomorrow for Islamic New Year.  If there is school on Thursday, I did include what we would accomplish.  Either way, I hope you have a nice three-day weekend!

Language Arts

Ideas from one class about content and structure of their log jot samples

In Language Arts this week, students were flooded with a variety of examples of long jots.  We looked at over 50 samples and tried to identify the content of the jot (what did they try to communicate) and the structure (how did they organize their information).  We then used that knowledge to raise the level of our own work on the short story we read together as a class.  

We also took our MAP Reading test.  This will give me some great data that will drive instruction for future lessons as a class and as individuals.

If we have school on Thursday, students will be analyzing their reading log they have been keeping for the last 4 weeks.  They will also analyze their own notebooks and the response that I wrote to them about their reading work so far.  They will then set some goals for their reading life and for the upcoming unit.  They will also do some "speed partnering" where they can interview fellow classmates to find a possible reading partner.  If there is no school on Thursday, we will do this important work on Sunday.

Social Studies

These questions will be answered after EACH civilization

In Social Studies this week, we presented our podcasts.  Students needed to be listening for technological advancements and interesting facts.  We then used a text set of nonfiction articles in Newsela to do a "Newsela slam" where they had to "sell" the content of their article to the class and pique their interest and desire to hear more.  Finally, we did some reflection work on our blogs, which we will do at the end of every unit to draw some larger conclusions about Ancient Civilizations as a whole. 

This is the rubric for their blog post.