Welcome Back. Students started off with getting to know one another and creating a culture. We are excited to start the year with one another. I have sent parent emails through skyward, and I will also be sending emails for Google invites as well. Looking forward to a great week!
Week of August 20th- Students will start the unit with review of skills i.e., plot, characterization, theme, and more. Once we have (re) mastered these skills, we can start into our fiction section with The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The students are starting socratic discussions tomorrow, so look for outside of the box thoughts to appear all over class and into your homes!
Week of August 27th- As we work on skills and class discussion, we will be incorporating our summer reading next week along with the rest of the skills. Students did an analysis on The Lottery this past week.
Week of September 3rd-Students worked on projects and started getting into routines. We started the pre reading for Outsiders. Students work in socratic discussions to formulate ideas.
Week of September the 10th- Students will continue looking into the historical connections with the Outsiders and our time period. Students will use social issues to make connections. These connections will be present in their writing.
Week of September the 17th- Students are actively engaging with the book and connections to life. They are starting a performance task looking at symbolism in the Outsiders. They will have a quiz on the figurative language and connections to the text Week of September 21st-Students will be working on Outsiders performance task along with in-depth look into the events in the setting and plot connections.
Week of October 1st-Students are completing performance tasks, engaging in more power writing in bellwork, and looking at study material for the unit test on the 12th. Students will be presenting the performance tasks on the 10th & 11th.
Week of October 8th-Short week with presentation on the 10th & 11th. The unit test on the Outsiders will end our week on the 12th. The next week we will focus on writing, looking for nonfiction books for the literature circles, and elements of research with the databases.
Week of October 22nd-Students will start their nonfiction literature circles. We will be focusing on text structures and research.
Week of November 5th- Students are working on mass hysteria and researching events in history contributing to this.
Week of November 12th-Students are working on text structures for nonfiction. Many students are incorporating cross-curricular presentations.
Holiday Break
Week of November 26th- Students are working on expository essays with text evidence. These skills are essential for research based questioning.
Week of December 3rd- Students will wrap up expository and continue to work on text structures for their Unit Test and in their nonfiction literature groups. Students will also use this time to practice some debate skills with nonfiction topics supported with evidence.
Week of December 10th- Students are preparing for Unit Three Nonfiction test with study guides and analysis on questions. They are also using the nonfiction articles to form debates. They will take their unit test this week and prepare for next week's semester exam. We are excited for the persuasion to fuel their need for more information!
Week of December 17th-Students will take their semester exams this week. They will meet in even and odd days with early release on the 21st. We will review for the semester exam and spend some time on educational holiday breakouts as well as hyper docs and technology driven work to keep them engage this week. I wish all of my families a safe and healthy holiday break and a happy new year!
Jan 8th-14th- This week students are starting the new year with vision boards for the new year. We are also introducing our poetry and drama units. Students will start with figurative language while reviewing poems. Please ensure your son or daughter is checking Google with assignments and announcements. Week of Jan 21-Feb 1- This week students are working on poetry with elements embedded within them. Students are using poems to mimic the graphical elements and determine the figurative language. Students are also using tone and mood to create different versions of songs. They will work on spoken word poetry to prepare for the upcoming in class poetry slam and the school wide slam TBD.
Week of Feb 4- Literary Analysis due on the 5th. We are attending the field trip on the 5th as well. We will continue with poetry this week as we also include the elements on the Unit Four Test coming during the week of the 11th. We will also start our Performance Task on a poetry slam that TBD will take place in March.
Week of February 8-15 Students are reviewing all skills to prepare for the unit test on the 15th. We are also starting to jump into our drama portion of the unit with a play the class will practice while incorporating grammar and revising and editing skills. Week of February 18th- Happy long weekend! Students have finished the poetry unit, but we are still focusing on those skills as they will be retested in April with the state tests. This week we are starting our drama, The Lost Boy, in which we see the life of the playwright J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. We will continue to focus on analysis through writing and grammar with heavy focus on revising and editing. Week of February 25th- Students are reading The Lost Boy while also reviewing grammar skills to help prepare for the state assessment in April and May. Students continue to write poems as they are analyzing for figurative language.
Week of March 4th-Students are working poems and connections to text.
Week of March 10th-Spring Break
Week of March 17th- Students are finishing the drama and poetry with an assessment for mastery of skills.
Week of March 24th- Students are starting the persuasion unit. Students will be researching social issues and work in a project based learning to find a problem and create possible solutions.
Week of March 31-Students are working on ethos, logos, and pathos as they incorporate their persuasion in their social problem groups. Students are also starting to work on essays with revising and editing to prepare for the upcoming STAAR assessment.
Week of April 8th- STAAR assessment (Students will continue to work on persuasion after they take their designated assessments
Week of April 15th-Students will end the unit with ethos, logos, and pathos assessment to test their application with the skills.
Week of April 22nd- Students will complete, if needed, their social project with persuasion and incorporate debate. Students will also have a persuasive assessment to test mastery of skills learned and applied this unit. Week of April 29th- Students will present the PBL social change to the class. Students will debate on the solutions and implementation to increase social change. Students will also work on comprehension and reading passages for STAAR preparation this week.
Week of May 6-10th- Students are preparing for STAAR with practice on poetry terms, drama elements, and overall reading strategies. We will also start reading some Greek Myths and use them as text to support the terms. Students have been introduced to an altered book project as their last project. They will alter books to illustrate a story element in Greek Myths. Students will create pieces to represent their understanding.
Week of May13th-17th- Students will have Reading STAAR on Tuesday. Some students will take the 7th Grade Math STAAR on Monday. Wednesday we will work on book projects. Thursday we will be out of the building for Day of Service. Friday we will continue to work on book projects.
Week of May 20th-24th- Students will work on performance task with the altered book project. They will spend two-three days working in class and two days to present. Friday is a half day. Friday is the last day of school as well.