School Newspaper Volume 1, Edition 3

Week 9/26-9/30

Last week was a nice little break from essay writing! The picture shows students reading "Charles" in their groups, filling out their handouts, and referring to their notes in their interactive notebooks. They seemed to enjoy the story and loved the fact that it was a cliffhanger, which, in turn, made their plot diagram a lot shorter, ha!

This week writing rears its ugly head again. Their assessment for "Charles" will be a mini-essay and then a group narrative. We end the week with beginning our third argumentative essay, at least, the planning stage (the real writing happens the following week). They are going to be deciding who the teachers of GVMS should vote for in the 2016 Presidential Election (Clinton, Trump, Stein, and Johnson are their four choices). Hopefully, they can help me out because I am at a loss (first time ever). This essay will not be a guided step-by-step essay because this will be a chance for them to apply the skills they learned. The good news (for some students, at least) is that they are going to be able to work with a partner of their choice. This will help them bounce ideas off of one another and support each other when it comes to their strengths and weaknesses in writing.

Monday
"Charles" PDF
"Charles" Handout Side 2
Tuesday
"Charles" Assessment
Wednesday
"Charles" Group Narrative
AR Log Check (Log-5 entries/Signature)
  *Students need to be reading an AR book that has a reading level >3.5 for 30 minutes 5 nights per week. Students need to earn 35 points at every quarter checkpoint (10/21, 12/9, 3/10 and 6/2). GOOD NEWS: Students only need 5-entries to take an AR quiz!
Thursday
Presidential Election Argumentative Essay Evidence Sheet and Outline
Friday
"Charles" Summary (E-Portfolio)
In-Class Portfolio Set-Up/Goals

**KROC CENTER PERMISSION SLIP DUE BY FRIDAY**

Week 9/19-9/23

Last week, was definitely a stressful week. Unfortunately, your child came home with homework more nights than not for multiple reasons. This is never my intent. I am not a fan of homework and this will definitely not be the norm. The first guided essay is always the hardest and takes the longest. Students are learning to move beyond structure and to actually analyze the deeper meaning and extend their thinking. I explained it to them as putting together a puzzle that doesn't exist, until they actually have all the pieces put together. This definitely requires think time and some students actually think better at home than at school--whether it is because there are fewer distractions, they are more comfortable, or whatever the reason, they actually like the homework. This means they are usually not using their class time wisely and they are choosing to have homework. Some students are more thoughtful and work at a slower pace taking a longer time to process the information; therefore, homework for them is inevitable and not really a choice. Whatever the reason, they had more English homework than normal. This week they will get a break from that, yay! Hopefully, this allows for more family time or extracurricular activities. 

I am in the process of grading all of the essays. I try to do a 5-day turnaround policy on all work, but sometimes life gets in the way. It takes between 6-8 hours to grade one class period's essays (that is about 30 hours of grading for a single essay). If your child's essay has been graded, there are multiple places where feedback was given: 1) all introductions were commented on in Google Classroom and were given suggestions for improvement by both peers and myself; 2) body paragraphs were given peer feedback in Google Classroom and I commented on some of them; 3) a peer editing sheet was filled out for the entire essay; and, 4) the scored rubric can be found at the bottom of the essay, along with comments made in Google Classroom for suggestions and next steps. If you are curious to see what a Grade 8 "A" level essay looks like, please click here for examples.

We will be starting the short story "Charles" about a very bright, but mischievous young man. We will be reviewing terms about characters (protagonist, antagonist, major, minor, static, and dynamic), setting, plot, and theme. We will also be extending these ideas and analyzing universal themes, perspectives, and motives (there is that evil work analyze again--this year will be filled with it and writing). I think the students will enjoy this week a lot more than the last two (I can admit that essay writing is not the most fun, but it is definitely a necessity that can eventually be E-A-S-Y).

Monday
Interactive Notebook: Plot and Characters
Tuesday
Interactive Notebook: Universal Themes
"Charles" Slidedeck and Vocabulary
Wednesday
"Charles" Vocabulary
AR Log Check (Log-5 entries/Signature)
  *Students need to be reading an AR book that has a reading level >3.5 for 30 minutes 5 nights per week. Students need to earn 35 points at every quarter checkpoint (10/21, 12/9, 3/10 and 6/2). GOOD NEWS: Students only need 5-entries to take an AR quiz!
Thursday
"Charles" PDF
"Charles" Handout Side 1 and Side 2
Friday
"Charles" PDF
"Charles" Handout Side 1 and Side 2

**GRADES FOR PROGRESS REPORTS ARE DUE BY SUNDAY**

School Newspaper Volume 1, Edition 2

Week 9/12-9/16

We just made it through the first week of September. It is crazy how time flies when we are having fun. I do have to mention that today is 9/11 and it is an emotional day for me, as I am sure it is for you. We can all remember where we were, what we were doing, and how we felt when we first saw those images that are ingrained in our minds. What is interesting, is that it is definitely history now, since our kiddos weren't even born yet. Crazy! 

This past week we started our e-portfolios that we will use throughout the year to post and reflect on work. Please check them out here! We will also be keeping portfolios in the classroom of all completed work done on actual paper (so old school, I know). You will not see papers coming home; however, if you ever want to see the work, students can bring home their portfolios (as long as they bring them back). We also started our first process essay on raising taxes for police body cameras. The kiddos are troopers as they are learning the expectations of 8th-grade writing standards. I am really hoping that by the end of the year, they say writing is E-A-S-Y!

Monday
Guided Essay BIntroduction Revision/Body Paragraphs
Argumentative Essay Guided Outline
Tuesday
Guided Essay Body Paragraphs/Counterclaim
Argumentative Essay Guided Outline
Wednesday
Guided Essay Counterclaim/Conclusion
Argumentative Essay Guided Outline
AR Log Check (Log-5 entries/Signature)
  *Students need to be reading an AR book that has a reading level >3.5 for 30 minutes 5 nights per week. Students need to earn 35 points at every quarter checkpoint (10/21, 12/9, 3/10 and 6/2). GOOD NEWS: Students only need 5-entries to take an AR quiz!
Thursday
Peer Critique 
Friday
Color Coding Essay
Final Revision
E-Portfolio Reflection

Week 9/5-9/9

Woohoo! I just love three-day weekends. Sleeping in and not waking up to an alarm is the best ever. I hope you are enjoying your Labor Day weekend surrounded by family and friends creating memories.

It was so nice to see so many of you at Back to School Night. I swear that it is the most stressful night and my anxiety increases tenfold, but you made it pretty easy. It is nice to see where these awesome kiddos come from and now I know that I not only have the best kiddos, but I have the best parents! If you missed it, here is the presentation and handout from Back to School Night.

My Journalism elective class has four of my GATE/Honors students: Ashlin, Ashmeet, Macey, and Nia. They are absolutely AMAZING young women who definitely have true leadership skills in and out of the classroom. Click here to see the first ever student-led school newspaper created by these four!

Last week, we worked on our ELA Interactive Notebooks in class. It takes a lot of time to set these up; however, the payoff is totally worth it in the end. The students have filled out different writing strategies that they can use in all of their classes to improve their writing both structurally and by adding more depth (analysis). These, of course, will be the expectation in English. We will be working on improving writing both structurally and analytically over the course of the year--you will be amazed by how much their writing grows (I swear)! 

Monday
HOLIDAY

Tuesday
Interactive Notebook: Essay Color Coding
Group Jigsaw
Diagnostic Article, Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, and Article 4

Wednesday
Interactive Notebook: Table of Contents
Argumentative Evidence Outline
AR Log Check (Log-5 entries/Signature)
  *Students need to be reading an AR book that has a reading level >3.5 for 30 minutes 5 nights per week. Students need to earn 35 points at every quarter checkpoint (10/21, 12/9, 3/10 and 6/2). GOOD NEWS: Students only need 5-entries to take an AR quiz!

Thursday
E-Portfolio Set-Up
Guided Essay
Argumentative Essay Guided Outline

Friday
E-Portfolio Set-Up
Guided Essay
Argumentative Essay Guided Outline

School Newspaper Volume 1, Edition 1