4-day week-Spring Break

Language Arts

In Language Arts we wrapped up the reading portion of our fantasy unit.  We looked at the four levels of theme work: identification, author's message, theme development, themes across texts and had some practice analyzing our books and some mentor texts.  We also recorded another partner video about our reading work.  On Wednesday, we took an assessment using "Fountain of Fair Fortune" to show our reading work.  

Students will turn in their rough draft of their narrative piece of April 10th.  We will also launch our new reading unit on Nonfiction, in which we partner with Science.  This will be our final reading unit of the year.

Social Studies

Students have been bust practicing their presentations on Athens/Sparta, The Persian Wars, Golden Age of Athens and Alexander the Great.  Students begin presenting today but will finish after the holiday.

March 18-22

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, students took some time to reflect on a partnership video they recorded last week.  They look at an exemplar for an effective partnership and then evaluated their own work, using teacher feedback, to develop an action plan for a new video they will record on Sunday.  We also looked at how authors choose to resolve some aspects of a plot line and not others.  It is important to investigate and and infer why an author would make that choice in light of the whole text.  We also did an optional mini-lesson about theme development and putting story parts together to create a whole.  

As writers, we looked at creating inner and outer story lines to bring out meaning.  We also looked at teacher and student exemplars, compared them to rubrics/checklists and labeled the stories with this characteristics to refer to later.  Students began writing their rough drafts which will be due on April 10th.

Social Studies

Students created Prezi accounts this week and have been working toward building an engaging presentation about The Persian Wars, Athens and Sparta, The Golden Age of Athens or Alexander the Great.  They also created a plan to incorporate the Social Studies standards into their presentations.  They will have all Monday to practice and presentations will begin on Wednesday.

March 11-15

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, students looked at character change through a couple different lenses.  One way we looked at character change was naming the learning a character was experiencing and explaining the impact of that learning on the text or their choices.  We also looked at different types of power and how power can be used.  Some students chose to graph the power changes that occurred for different characters throughout the book.  Other students chose to label the type of power a character had and explain its significance.  Today we will look at the inner and outer dragons that a character faces and how both those factors cause change.  Students also met in partnerships and recorded their meeting.

As writers, we are finishing up brainstorming ideas using a strategy called Name It. Place It. Twist It.  We will start the rough draft next week.

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week, students worked in groups to finish their collaborative note taking about: Athens and Sparta, The Persian Wars, The Golden Age of Athens or Alexander the Great.  Based on that information, they chose a related topic of interest with which to explore as an individual further.  They also looked at the standards related to their chapter of study and translated that standard into 6th grader friendly language.  Next week, we will create our Prezi accounts and start building the presentation that communicates our group/individual learning.

In-service Day and March 5-8

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, students chose to explore a topic of their choice by doing some station work on one of the following: Quest structure, "willing suspension of disbelief", made-up languages, symbolism and figurative language.  They will have time in the weeks to come to explore another area of interest.  We also talked about different narration styles (1st, 2nd, 3rd person) and how these narration styles lead to a certain level of trust/mistrust in the narrator, which can effect our perspective.

As writers we looked at mapping a real or imagined place for events, emotions and hidden ideas to help inspire our narrative work.

The reading part of our unit will be finished on March 25th and the students will need to have at least two fantasy texts read by then.

Social Studies

In Social Studies, students broke into groups around four topics: Athens and Sparta, Persian Wars, Golden Age of Athens and Alexander the Great.  They are following a group protocol to gather background information before they delve into individual topics of their choice.  All of this information will come together using a presentation platform called Prezi.