A full 5-day week!

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, students looked at the possessions that characters have and that they reveal, rather than being just "stuff".  Showing a character's possessions show their expertise, interests, values, social class and more.  There are messages about the character also based in how they treat the possessions they have which can indicate a larger change within a character.  We also looked at how characters treat one another as gateways into the characters themselves.  You not only learn about the main character, but also about the characters who come into contact with those central characters.  

As writers, we started to develop some ideas that could turn into the topics for our larger argument pieces.  Students used the thoughts prompts: My initial idea..., But now that I think more..., Perhaps it could be... and The evidence points to... as a way to tease out what a character REALLY wants.  Do they REALLY want to go on a quest, or is it the desire to contribute positively to the world?  Is it REALLY popularity or being afraid to be alone?  As we gather a variety of ideas, students will be asked to create a thesis statement and argue their idea.  We will practice paragraph writing next week and then transition into our claim statements.

Students should have completed their first book by October 10th.  Their second books is due on October 25th.

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week, we learned about the 4 major groups of Mesopotamia: Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians.  We even created a dance to remember some of their major accomplishments!  We also looked at a variety of print and electronic sources to help identify a topic about Mesopotamia that we want to study in more depth.  Examples could be: daily life, arts and crafts, roles of men and women, Sargon, Hammurabi's Code, Assyrian war techniques etc.  

Mr. Callaway also came in to introduce the research process and distinguish between paraphrasing, quoting and plagiarizing.  We will be using these skills next week when we get into researching our topic in order to write a letter.