It's hard to believe, but we are already in to October and nearly wrapping up our first unit of the year. Students are working hard this week on literary essays. They are analyzing the themes of three stories we have read and discussing their modern day relevance. Students are showing so much grit on this challenging essay, and continue to be impressed with their focus and hard work in class. Next week we will have our first Socratic Seminar of the year where students will write their own discussion questions and lead a conversation about the stories we have read. We will start our new unit on Animal Farm the week of the 18th!
We are cruising along in our short stories unit! We have read many stories so far this year: "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury, "Picciola" by James Baldwin, "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl, "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes, and we are currently reading one of my favorites, "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. We are discussing and analyzing theme, conflict, irony, setting, tone and mood while making inferences and defining challenging vocabulary using context clues.
In ILT, students are writing "Teen Matters" Expository Essays, and these will be finished and ready to publish on Thursday. I have not yet assigned homework in literacy so far this year, but when we start our next unit (Animal Farm) in a couple weeks, students will have nightly reading homework with accompanying comprehension questions. It has been such a pleasure meeting with so many of you to talk about your wonderful children during conferences this week. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to support your children in all that we do at DGS. If you haven't yet scheduled a conference, please do so. If you would like to come next week, just shoot us an email and we will do our best to fit you in.
This has been a very short week, but we're cruising along in our reading of Animal Farm. Students have finished reading through chapter 5, and chapters 6 and 7 are due on Monday. After much group discussion about the book, it looks like students are enjoying this text. Today, I introduced the concept of propaganda. We read an article entitled, "Why Think About Propaganda?" and I introduced the 5 most common types of propaganda used in advertising. Through a Jigsaw activity, students were responsible for becoming the expert on one specific type of propaganda, and they had to teach their peers all about it. Ask your child about the various propaganda techniques, and why it's important to be aware of the messages surrounding us. Next week, we will begin thinking about our parody ads, and Miss Miller, the art teacher, will come teach the kids a lesson about layout and graphics in advertisements. I'm so excited! As always, be in touch with any specific questions or concerns. On Friday of last week, students worked to answer the unit question about how much time Dorothy would have saved if she could have walked along a secret underground tunnel instead of taking the Yellow Brick Road in the Land of Oz. This week students were amazing sports, taking two assessments back to back, their interim (designed to show progress) and the unit assessment for the Pythagorean Theorem. Today and Thursday, students will be launching into the next unit, all about Systems, by investigating the best possible combination of Gold Bars and Stacks of Money for thieves to take from a vault. As we explore systems in math, we will be looking at how two different lines intersect as well as a variety of solution methods for solving system questions.
We are now in week two of our Animal Farm unit, and the kids are enjoying the themes surrounding this book. We spent a good deal of time learning about the allegory of the Russian Revolution to Orwell's novel. We even did a Capitalist/Socialist/Communist simulation where kids won and lost Starburst through rock, paper, scissors, so they could get a better understanding of the three different economic and political systems.
While reading the novel, students are exploring nonfiction articles that touch on some of the themes of this text. This week, we are reading an article about parents in Venezuela who are unhappy with the contents of their children's textbook, so they are speaking up and burning the books. Your child should be reading Animal Farm and answering questions nightly. Please ask them to tell you about the book and review some of their comprehension questions and vocabulary with them. All work for the week is due on Friday! On Monday of this week students were busy at work creating squares on the lengths of triangles to discover the Pythagorean Theorem. This week we are adding more detail and exploring what side-lengths would make right triangles. Next week students will be challenging their parents during demonstration night with some tough questions involving right triangles and three-dimensional figures.
This past week, we wrapped up our Short Stories unit with our final story, the first chapter of Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed. We continued with close reading, predicting, inferring, irony, imagery and characterization. Although this is a very sad story, I do think the students enjoyed it for its strong descriptions, methods of characterization and overall theme. The end of unit assessment was given on Friday, and students will receive their results this week. So far, it looks like the students were able to successfully apply all that was learned during the unit.
This week, I will introduce the themes of our first class text, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. The overall theme for the unit relates to critical thinking, social responsibility and civic engagement. Through the themes in Animal Farm, we will explore the idea of language manipulation and how important it is to be aware of all the messages that surround us. Throughout the unit, we will also read non-fiction articles that address how companies and organizations use propaganda to mislead the consumer and how important it is for us to be aware of the techniques used for persuasion. For our final projects, we will create parody advertisements, exposing the truths behind the advertising techniques of certain organizations. This week, we will explore background information related to Animal Farm, and next week a copy of the book will be assigned to your child. Please note that students will have reading homework almost every evening starting next week. If your child is struggling with the reading, the audio version of Animal Farm will be posted in Google Classroom. Please encourage them to use this to supplement their reading rather than replace it. If they are going to listen to the audio of the text, I encourage them to follow along in the book word for word. In addition, they will be required to complete comprehension questions and vocabulary related to the weekly reading. I will post the reading schedule as soon as it is solid. We hope to see you from 5:50-6:30 on the 22nd for demonstration night. Let us know if you have any questions. Wow! It's been a great week so far. We kicked off the week with a discussion about theme using Aesop's Fables. Yesterday, we completed our reading of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" which left many students stunned and shocked. I think they now see why this is known as one of the "Best Short Stories Ever Written". Prior to reading, we discussed setting and mood and how by analyzing these two elements we can arrive at theme. Through much discussion, guided reading, and inferring we were able to pull multiple themes from the text and support them with evidence. Ask your child what they liked and didn't like about "The Lottery"!
This week we have been exploring exponents with the context of Alice in Wonderland. So far students have explored what happens to Alice's height when she eats some cake and drinks some of the beverage. Every time Alice eats cake, her height doubles. For every time she drinks beverage, her height is cut in half. We will be connecting this work to our excursion to the Denver Nature and Science Museum at the end of the month.
We're off to a great start in Literacy this year! It has been such a pleasure working with your students and getting to know them better. They all bring such important experiences and knowledge with them that continue to form our classroom community into something wonderful.
Our first unit of the year is a short story unit where we read, analyze and write about various short stories and their elements. So far, we have reviewed many literary terms, discussed and explored a traditional plot map and learned about inferences and evidence. Ask your child about the animated short film, "Alma" and how this film followed the traditional plot map formula. In addition, talk to them about the inferences and evidence gallery walk we did today where we looked at 12 different photographs and made inferences based on what we saw. Lastly, have them tell you about the character profile they created based on trash. Yes, it sounds strange, but it's a great way to teach kids about how to make logical inferences. Tomorrow, we will read and begin to analyze our first story, "Thank You, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes. Although I don't track at home reading with a log, please encourage your child to read at home nightly. We read in class every day for 30 minutes, but by reinforcing the importance of reading at home we can create those life-long habits that will serve them in the future. Let us know if you have any questions! And again, thanks for sharing your wonderful children with us. :) Ms. Saab |