What's in Store for the 7s?

The grade 7 ELA class has a lot in store in the next half of the school year. I'm more than excited to share with you what we'll be doing. 

As you know, we're still in the middle of our short story unit where we read a piece of text pertaining to each of the 5 story elements (plot, conflict, setting, theme, and character). We still have two more short stories to read, a movie to analyze (to work on plot and character motivation), and a children's literature portion to complete where we will be creating our own children's book on the website, www.storybird.com. 

After all of that excitement we will be moving into Genius Hour - 80 minutes a week dedicated to learning about something new outside of the regular curriculum. Last year's grade 7 class presented information on everything from the Mars One Mission to the cow's digestive system to learning how to play guitar. It was interesting, fun, and engaging for the students. Check out the video I put together from last year's Genius Hour. It was such a success! 

Genius Hour Video

The 7s Are Gaining Friends in Macao!

The grade 7s don't know it yet, but soon they'll be gaining pen pals all the way from Macao (one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China - the other being Hong Kong). I had a connection to one of the teachers at the International School of Macao who hooked me up with an amazing junior high teacher at the school who accepted my request to start a pen pal program! I'm ecstatic to get the letters in the mail (they were stamped and sent out yesterday)! 

I hope with this pen pal experience that not only will my students open their eyes (and minds) to other cultures, but they can work on their writing skills, penmanship, and communication. I cannot wait! Stay tuned for when our letters arrive! 

Check out the school's website - http://www.tis.edu.mo/ 

Their school looks like nothing I've seen before. I'm thrilled to learn more about their culture and school life.

Thesis This! - The 9s Learn Essays

The grade 9 class has touched on proper essay formatting before, but never like this! Yes, they know the usual 5 body paragraph essay with the oh-so typical introduction, body, and conclusion format, but what they didn't know was how important that introduction paragraph is! This week the 9s were learning all about writing effective hooks, how to capture the reader's attention, how to incorporate general and specific information, and last but definitely not least, they were working on how to write the perfect list thesis. 

We reviewed what a hook was (from rhetorical questions, to relevant quotations, to even starting statements), and how to funnel down from general information to specific information, and what a list thesis really was. "A thesis? What's a thesis?!", they cried! Oh, it was music to my ears. I love teaching about proper thesis writing. No, I'm not crazy, I just love to teach it because it was something I struggled with in school, even in university, so when it finally clicked in my brain, I felt the need to share my enthusiasm! 

What I had the 9s do (after we did some group examples) was have them pick a topic from a list I provided and write their own introductory paragraph. Most of the topics were great starting points for a persuasive paper. There was everything from the benefits of school sports and locker searches, to the more controversial issues like euthanasia and social welfare. Once the students picked a topic, they had to write out their introduction paragraph (with a hook, general and specific information, and a thesis) and stagger their sentences on a scrap piece of paper to cut out. When they were done, they handed their pieces to a partner to see if they could put together their introduction. You see, I told them that they would know their introduction paragraph was effective if people could take their separate sentences and piece them back together in the right order. If someone could do that, then you know your introduction paragraph was a success.

Check out some of the pictures of the students trying to piece together their classmate's introduction paragraphs! I think we got the hang of it!