Final Time

Students have worked hard to learn how to organize, focus and express their voice in their writing.  Commas have become a goal that will last through out the year.  Armed with all of their new knowledge, and feedback from peers and Mrs. Benson, they are left on their own to write their final copies.

Please encourage and support your student as they finish up these final copies tonight.  They are due tomorrow, September 8th, 2011.

If there are any questions, I can be reached at cbenson@hazelwoodschools.org  My e-mail goes straight to my phone, so I will be vigilant about responding.

I can't wait to read about the amazing adventures you all have had in your lives.

Wednesday, 8-31

After yesterday's lesson on ideas, I had several students indicate that they wanted to try revising for focused ideas on their own before they would feel comfortable that they could do it.  Therefore, we took today to have a writer's workshop before moving on to voice.  I wanted to have the opportunity to check in on everyone and see how they were revising their personal narrative. 

From what I have seen so far, the kids are doing very well.  They will be coming home tonight with the request that they clean up all of their revisions and write a second draft.  This draft should be revised for ideas and organization.  The students should also fill out a reflection sheet, indicating where they are so far with their learning and where they still need improvement. 

If you have any questions about this, please let me know.  Thank you for all of the support you are giving your students and our learning community.

Off to a Great Start

We have finished our PBIS activities that reviewed our Panther Paw Laws (Safe, Responsible, Respectful and Positive).  This has allowed us all to develop a common language of expectations and behaviors at North Middle.  Today we began getting into the Communication Skills Curriculum beginning with pre-writing.  Students have begun their writer's notebooks and should have one entry at least.  If your child does not yet have a composition notebook or a spiral notebook exclusively for my class, they will need that as soon as possible. 

As we are beginning our pre-writing activities, students have been asked to create a collage at home tonight.  This collage should include images that represent who the student is.  These can be printed, drawn, cut and pasted from magazines or stickers.  They should be no bigger than 8 1/2 by 11.  Once the student has chosen their collage images, they should explain, in writing, why they chose each image.  These are due tomorrow, 8/18/11. 

In class today we practiced this activity a bit by making name tags.  However, we did not get a chance to finish these.  Students were given a choice, they could do double homework and finish these at home, or they could finish them in lieu of their quick write tomorrow.  For those who chose the double homework, here is the link to the directions and scoring guide:  https://acrobat.com/#d=ektP6Spoqmbx0*jS5d3-aA 

All of my students seem to be adjusting well to seventh grade.  Not too many locker issues and all of them getting to class in plenty of time!  I am very impressed with them all and am looking forward to a fantastic year.

REMINDERS:

Book Fair Tomorrow

We are beginning our unit on narratives and kids will be writing their first piece before Labor Day.

Multi-Genre Book Analysis

The kids have been reading whatever they wish all year and their only accountability has been recording their pages read.  In class, we have been studying the elements that make up all pieces of literature and we have been responding to those elements.  Did you know that every novel has multiple conflicts and it is through those conflicts we learn lessons that are called themes?  The kids have learned this and have practiced how to explain the conflicts in writing and express what themes were learned from them.  Did you also know that the words an author chooses, creates the mood of the book (or at least for a certain part of a book)?  In class, we went through poems and noted the moods we felt.  We then indicated what words gave us those feelings.  This process helped us decide what the poem meant and how the poet felt about that topic.  Point of view, flashback and plot structure were also studied as well.

Students have been asked to demonstrate their understanding of these elements through a project.  Students are to generate five texts, each one representing a different part of their book (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution).  they should partner each of the stages of plot with one of the elements we have studied in order to show they understand how the author has used them.

There are examples of these on the left hand side of the blog under Tom Romano, Multi-Genre.  There is a great deal of info there to go through and the samples take forever to load, but it is helpful to check it out. 

Projects are due on March 31st and can be turned in on the blog, through e-mail or in class.  Below is a link with directions and a scoring guide.


Multi-Genre book Project Scoring guide

New Year, New Way of Learning

With the return of the students comes new goals, new challenges, new celebrations.  Now that we have taken the Tungsten test four times, we have very solid data on our individual strengths and weaknesses.  We will be shifting the ownership and responsibility of our learning from Mrs. Benson to the students now that we have this data.  Beginning with a few days each week, students will be working in learning centers that will allow them to focus on their own weaknesses and build up their skills in those areas.  Think of it like circuit training at the gym.  If you want to build up your arms, you don't use a leg press machine.  It is the same thing in Communication Skills class.  If you want to build up your use and understanding of figurative language, you don't do it by studying non-fiction. 

Students have analyzed their own Tungsten data and identified their three lowest areas.  Next week, we will set goals for improvement in those areas and students will begin working in the stations that are designed to strengthen those areas.  Students will also be getting individualized homework, if necessary, to assist them in these areas as well.  Running and supervising stations is going to be a bit challenging at first as we all get used to it.  If there are any parents who would be interested in hanging out and helping kids in the stations, that would be awesome.

The other days of the week, we will be working on analyzing literary elements in texts.  Students will be looking at the plot, point of view, conflict, theme, mood, and flashbacks of texts and analyzing how these elements influence the characters in the story.  You may hear your students talking a great deal about heroes as we will be using this theme as a common thread in the texts.  This is a large unit of study that will require a lot of reading and analysis work. 

While all of these great things are going on, the kids will continue to study vocabulary.  We still have something like 80 words left to learn.  Wish us luck!  I know that I am excited to be done with school, as I can focus more intently on teaching, but I am not so sure the kids will be.  I will be pushing them rather hard the rest of the year.   

Wrapping it up

Students should be finished with the research portion of their nine paragraph essays and move on to typing.  All essays are due by midnight Friday the 17th of December.  Students should be posting them on their blogs no later than then.  If your student does not have access to the internet, then the paper is due by the end of school on the 17th.  Students were also told that they can hand write the paper neatly if they do not have access to a computer this week.  There should be no reason for excuses. 

I want them posted on the blogs so the students can get feedback before winter break is over.  I don't know about you, but I hate turning in something that I worked so hard on and then having to wait forever to find out how I did.  I won't post their grade on the blog, but I can give them feedback that will give them some idea of how they did, and give them the chance to edit their post and fix things if they so choose before grades are finalized upon our return.  Typically, I do not lose things, but collecting such a large assignment right before break makes me nervous.  A lot of things get moved around my house over the holidays as I catch up on cleaning and then reorganize for the new stuff my kids get.  I expect this to be even greater this year since I have been in school nonstop for the past year and a half.  I would like to have as many assignments posted on the blogs so I can't lose them (and don't have to carry them around with me). 

Make sure student continue reading over break.  So many of them have made such wonderful progress towards their goals, that I hate to see them fall behind.  There are a couple of announcements that I have about books and our classroom:

1)  Every year, I offer candy for books.  This is a chance for students to dig around the house and find any of my books that have been hanging around for a while.  I then offer one piece of candy for the return of the book.  We are very blessed to have so many books to choose from in our school and I firmly believe in spreading the gift of literacy.  Therefore the other aspect of "Candy for Books" is donation.  Students can donate new or gently used books of any grade level in exchange for a piece of candy.  Any books that are not used in the teacher classroom libraries, go to children's homes.  In the past we have donated them to Marygrove.  If any parents have another children's charity that would appreciate the books, I would gladly divide them up.  This is a good chance to clean off those bookshelves and make room for new literary adventures.

2)  The other thing I do every year is keep my own reading log along with the kids.  I track my pages just like they do.  This year they have a head start on me because of school.  At the end of the year, any student who has met or beaten my number of pages read is invited to a pizza party after school--my treat.  So far I am at 1,100 or so pages (most of which I read this weekend because I have missed reading for fun so much).  Encourage your students to keep reading!

Have a wonderful holiday season.  I wish you all well.  When we return, we will begin looking at the elements of literature and literary analysis.  Your students will feel like they are in a college literature class (I hope).  I love this unit because the kids really grow so much and begin to look at literature in a different way.  They will also help me revise the book I am writing as they learn plot structure, theme and point of view.  then apply it on their own as we get into descriptive writing.  I can't wait!

Let the Production Begin

Okay, I know it has been awhile, but there has been little of interest to report as we have been going through the nitty gritty of organizing expository writing. Now that the students understand how to write a topic sentence, support it with a supporting detail or fact and then tie it together with an example, they can repeat this pattern for the entire paragraph until they are ready to conclude it. We learned that our paragraphs will be well structured and organized as long as we sandwich the supporting details and examples with a topic sentence and conclusion. Learning this structure has been challenging, so watch for struggling as your child writes this week. It is one thing to write a structured paragraph about your day or something you know a lot about, but it is another to write about a civilization you have never heard of until this assignment.

Just to make sure you have the answers if your student happens to forget what this assignment is, let me explain. Students selected a group of ancient peoples. They then have been asked to research this group, looking for information on the seven characteristics of civilization, and prove whether or not the group they chose is a civilization. This is somewhat similiar to the paper they did in Social Studies earlier this year. The exceptions are: this one is longer (9 paragraphs), this one is researched and very organized, and this one will also be graded based on the student's use of revision techniques.  One last bit of information you may need is the seven characteristics of a civilization. They are as follows: government, food supply, art, religion, technology, social structure and writing. Students should write a paragraph describing how their people displayed evidence of each one.

To prepare students for this essay, we have done many things. Students have learned paragraph structure and research plans. On Friday, Mrs. Ruebusch, our librarian, presented information on how to use databases and the district's online library resources. She also told us how to determine if we are looking at a reliable source online. Now that students have all of the background, they are researching and writing.

The essay is due (final copy) on the 17th of December.  I have asked students to write at least one paragraph each night this week, leaving them halfway done and the other half to be done over the weekend. However, I did suggest that they would be in better shape if they did two each night. Everyday this week, we will be reading and giving feedback in partners. Students will then use this feedback to revise and write the final draft next week.  To see the scoring guide, click on the title of this post--it is a hot link.

Key components of expository writing

Today we learned these key components of expository writing. Over the next several week we will be learning to use these as we write a research essay. It is important that the students master these components so they can focus more on the writing. Students should study these each night as they will be quizzed over them.

 Expository writing defines, persuades, informs and/or explains.
 Introductory or lead paragraph invites the reader to explore the topic.
 Thesis/Topic statement reveals overall purpose of the writing.
 Body consists of three or more points, descriptions, or examples.
 Concluding paragraph restates the thesis and offers the reader the
opportunity to reflect further on the topic.
 Contains a topic body and closing paragraph

Our vocabulary words this week are: apprehensive, destination, jostle, meander, meticulous and narrator

Welcome Trimester 2

As trimester one wraps up, we can look back at how far we've come. This year so far we have learned how to summarize both fiction and non-fiction texts, explored our past literacy experiences as we wrote a narrative, learned how to truly revise our writing, came to understand the benefits of previewing a text and most importantly, we learned why we should read! And read we have! The district reading initiative sets a goal of 1400 pages per student for the year, and so far we have 23 students who have met or surpassed that already. We can't forget the 26 students who are very very close to this goal and will surpass it by Winter break!

I am so proud of all of the students. Each day they come in ready to do their best. One of the best parts is, if they're not ready that day, they are willing to let me push them. This shows true resilience!

Over the next trimester, we will be exploring the structure and purpose of expository writing. With this will come more practice with revision. We have 100 vocabulary words to learn (more if we finish those), similarities and differences to look at, figurative language to explore and the elements of literature to learn. Hopefully, you will see us grow as you read our blogs and hear our voices. Please continue to give us feedback as you read our writing.

As we drift into that busy holiday season, please keep books in mind as gifts. Kids like having the latest book all to themselves. There are plenty of links on the class blog that will help you find the latest and greatest. I will also be sending Scholastic book orders home next week.

Keep your kids reading and if you have questions or feedback, please let me know.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Benson

(I am currently reading "It's Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini)

What's Important?

This week we worked on most important word summaries with non-fiction.  As we read a piece of non-fiction text, we chose the most important word or phrase from each paragraph.  Then we use those words to help us construct a summary of the text.  This strategy was a bit challenging and awkward at first, but once we got it, it proved to really help us understand what we were reading.  Finding only one word or phrase is challenging at first and the students really had to talk it out with each other to be sure they had the correct and most important one. 

After practicing this, we used this strategy as we took the October Tungsten test.  One of the articles was on symbiosis which is a concept that we are not entirely familiar with, making this month's test challenging.  Students were required to use the summarization strategy before they answered the questions for that part of the test.  This seemed to help.  Many students kept their scores in range of where they were last time or rose them--both a great sign for a test as challenging as this month's was.  Take some time to look over your child's Tungsten with them and discuss their answer selections--both right and wrong.  Ask them to explain how/why they answered the way they did.  If you need a reminder, the web address is linked to this post--all you have to do is click on the post title and it will take you straight there.  I will place it in Places to Investigate links too.  Your child should know their user name and password.  If not, please let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

assessments.edisonlearning.com

I am so proud of the work I see each and every day from your children.  They are so ready and willing to stand up to whatever challenge I give them.  In fact, it is so obvious that they come to school everyday hoping to be challenged.  Thank you for all you do to support them.  I hope you have had time to check out the student blogs to the right.  The kids work hard and really want to be heard.  The best way to show them they have been heard is by offering them feedback to grow from.  Ask them questions and share what they are doing with your family, friends and neighbors.  All of their work has been self motivated with the exception of the literary histories and that proves how much they want to be heard.

For next week, be on the look out for our first poetry challenge.  George has challenged me to write a poem about underwater.  I will be posting both of our poems on the class site for voting.  They will be anonymous, so you won't know whose is whose.  May the best writer win.  Make sure you read them and vote.

Read over the weekend.  Don't forget your reading goals! 

Good is not Enough

A long, long, long time ago, I too was in Middle School.  Around 7th and 8th grade, I was inspired to write poetry.  This became what I would do in class when I was supposed to take notes, what I would do at home when I was supposed to do homework and, well, what I would do.  I have several journals filled with poems from then until now. 

Those journals are rarely cracked open.  I use them to introduce myself to the kids at the beginning of the year, but I do not let students read them.  I guess you would say I am a bit guarded.  Well, the kids asked why, and I couldn't answer this.  I've thought about it and thought about it.  Recently, the answer hit me~ I've never revised my poems.  As I was planning for our revision lesson, I was wishing I had some student work that hadn't been revised, so I began to look for some poems in my journals that we could use.

I have to admit I was a bit sick as I pulled that first poem up this morning.  Twenty plus 12-13 year olds were not only about to read my work, but they were going to critique it.  I could only imagine how similar each student must feel each time they share a piece of their writing.

I did not tell them that the writing was mine, but they figured it out when I did not tell them who the author was.  They liked the poems and had a hard time at first looking at them critically.  Once I reassured them that my feelings would not be hurt (and made the first change myself) the kids took off.   You can check out their work by clicking here.  The kids want to have a little contest, so please take the poll on our blog that will help us measure which block you think revised best.

After all of their hard work, the poems are no longer mine.  It is now OUR poem and it is a hundred times better.  I am proud of this writing now.  Today we all learned.  I learned to put myself out there a little, just like I ask the kids to and the kids learned to revise.  They saw the value in their changes and discovered the fun in playing with words, organization, verb tense, repetition and rhythm.  Now, they need to use these skills in all of their writing. 

Our literary history paper guidelines will be finalized tomorrow and an official due date assigned.  I expect that students will spend time with their writing, practicing their new revision skills.  We will take class time on Monday to work on this, so they can get some help, but I still expect time on task at home.  It took us an hour to revise one poem, and there were many of us working on it.  Tuesday will be Tungsten and Wednesday is the field trip to the History Museum. 

We hope to see you later next week for conferences.  Please call the 7th grade office to set up your appointment time if you haven't already.  The number is 953-7532.

How it all begins...

This has been an exciting week.  Challenging, but exciting.  We have partnered with Ms. Heineman's Social Studies class since the students are writing essays in both classes to explore and attempt a variety of introductions.  Yesterday, while my classes hosted Ms. Holland, the counselor, for one of her lessons, I taught with Ms. Heineman.  Today, our classes went to the library together and had a combined seminar-like class.  Both days we explored the value of essay beginnings, looked at several examples and then attempted several different kinds of beginnings on our own. 

If you talk to your student about their essay beginning, I bet they will tell you it was hard to write.  They should also be able to tell you why essay beginnings are so important.  We discussed how some employers will ask applicants to write an essay as part of the interview process and as students apply for scholarships and to colleges, writing strong essays will be important too.  Students seemed to know all of these facts, however the realization that their writing didn't just have to be good to be accepted did not appear to come as easily.  We explained to the classes how their essays would have to stand out as exemplar so they would be accepted over the numerous other candidates applying for the same positions or scholarships.

Once this was realized, students understood why the development of their introduction paragraph was so important.  In groups, we explored numerous examples of essays to study how the authors developed their beginnings.  Students chose three or four of their favorite beginnings and modeled their essay beginnings after these.  Once students had several different beginnings, they chose the one they liked the best, the one that made them want to write more. 

I watched as students went from confused, to trying, to frustrated and ready to quit and then to persistence.  With a little encouragement and feedback, students kept writing and rewriting until...THEY GOT IT!  They were so happy and proud of themselves.  It truly has been two days of repeated confirmation of why my job is so amazing. 

I realize that some students may still be struggling with the concept or exactly how to write a strong and interesting beginning.  I will continue to work with them on the essay for my class as we revise and edit.  I fully expect that one to be much easier because the writing piece is about themselves.  Please ask your child about the essay beginning they have for Social Studies.  I am sure they would love to talk about the experience they had today.

I wanted to give a few shout outs:  Calah S., I know you were frustrated and ready to give up.  I am so proud of your effort.  I think you came up with some good writing today.  Nakayla, I was very impressed and could tell just how hard you worked when you asked me to read your introduction and told me, "I'm kinda loving it."  Jordan D., your intro was so strong that I want a copy of it for an example for next year.  There are so many more of you who impressed me with your efforts and hard work today.  Hold your heads high...you guys did something great today.

We Changed Directions

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works, but when it doesn't, well you have to do your best.  We were going to go on to non-fiction summarization and post reading strategies, but our Promethean board has decided to take a mini-vacation, so we are changing plans slightly until it can be repaired.

I moved up our personal narrative/writing process unit so we could move forward.  We will come back around to the summarization lessons once we can use the Promethean and all of the activities I had already planned that utilize the technology available to us.  (In other words, I worked hard on the lessons we were going to do and I am excited to see how the kids like them and the technology played a big role in those lessons.)  So, that means that students should be talking about their past experiences with reading and writing instead of summarizing things they have read. 

They may appreciate a few reminders of what they were like as beginning readers, so they have more material to work with.  Tomorrow I will be checking to see if they have made some progress on their rough draft as Mrs. Holland, the counselor is in doing her lesson.  I will also make sure that everyone is caught up with everything.  Later this week students may ask to interview you about their progress as a reader and writer has been from a parent's perspective.  This will help them add more specific details to their writing.  for a good example of what students will be writing, please check out the amazing short selection written by Alexis on her blog, Alexis soccer girl 15.  Her piece is titled, "The First Time I Wrote my Name".

Homework:

Read 30 minutes and work on the literary history rough draft.

Parents:

Don't forget to sign up for parent/teacher conferences October 13th-15th.  Call Mrs. Kroll in the 7th grade office at 953-7532 to schedule.

Helping Your Kids at Home

I have had a couple of parents ask how they can help their student be successful.  I wanted to share the information with everyone, because what I have learned this week is very cool.  There have been changes made to Tungsten that will facilitate your efforts to be an involved and supportive parent in a more content specific manner.

1) Tungsten has changed the format to a Web Based system called eValuate.  This means that you can now access completed tests from home and review them with your child.  This will show you their score for the month, allow you to review the test and discuss their answer choices with them and analyze their data personal strand data.

2)  The personal strand data will show you your child's content strengths and weaknesses.  You will be able to determine what their struggling points are in both reading and math.  From there, you can ask the teachers or even research strategies for helping your child in these areas.  Students in my class will become very accustomed to using this data to improve their learning as the year progresses.

3)  To access this information you go to https://assessments.edisonlearning.com/ where you will be prompted to enter a user name a password.  All students should know this information.  If they do not, please send the teacher an e-mail and they will be able to provide it to you.

When working with your students on improving their performance there are a few key strategies that have proven helpful in the classroom that I would like to share with you.  Reminding students to set small, realistic goals, this gives them the opportunity to see improvement and feel success which builds up their confidence.  Make goals specific.  A goal such as, "I want to do better,"  doesn't give the student an idea of what they need to know and do to make this goal happen.  Goal statements that are more like, "This month I want to increase my score by 5% by rereading the text before I answer the questions," is a lot more specific and will help the student focus their efforts.  Students can also set goals based on a certain strand they are struggling with.  "This month, I will practice summarizing a text so I can increase my performance on the summarizing questions by 10%."  These goals give the student something tangible to work with to increase their learning and performance.

Please let me know if you need any additional support or information as you explore this learning tool with your students.  As a parent, I've been playing with my son's Tungsten.  We had a great discussion about his choices last night and he now wishes I didn't know how to get to this information because these conversations will happen often.

Homework:  Read 30 minutes.  Students in 4th and 5th block are still working with vocabulary words from last week.  They need to study for the test on Friday.  The words are noble, insinuate, integrate, eloquent, shrewd and cynical.

Vocab Masters

Today we really attacked these vocabulary words.  Students utilized context clues to help them figure out what the words meant.  At no point have they been allowed to look the words up in the dictionary or thesaurus and yet they should know at least three other words that mean the same thing as the vocab word.  These kids are also learning that they are smarter than they thought.  Camille had an amazing moment today when she connected the prefix inter-  with the word integrated to figure out that it meant within or together.  This was so very cool!  I think she stood a little taller the rest of the day after that one.  Other students in all the classes put their Science vocab to good use when we were talking about the word insinuate.  They said it means to hypothesize.  I was so proud of them for applying their knowledge from another class.  We will be predicting and questioning tomorrow and Friday we will read The Noble Experiment, the story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.  There is also a vocab test on Friday over our six words.

Homework:  Read 30 minutes and complete the Shabooya Raps 

Previewing

Today we explored the use of previewing a text before reading it.  All week we will look at the different pre-reading strategies that strong readers use when they approach a new text.  Today we looked at how the special features of a text help us make some determinations about the content of the text before we even read it.  This really wasn't so hard once we realized how much we could learn from just a few captions.

When you see your child begin to read a new non-fiction text, ask them what they think it is going to be about.  If they can't tell you, they are not ready to begin reading it.  They should look at the headings, maps, captions, graphs, pulled-out text, bold type and other highlighted texts.  Then they should be able to give you an idea of what they are about to read.  Doing this will help them begin to think of questions, make predictions and connect the text to any background they have about the topic.

We have begun exploring new vocabulary words.  We won't learn definitions exactly; we will focus more on synonyms of the new words.  We do this because it is easier to learn a word faster if you attach it to a word you already know.  Students will know how to correctly use the new words through this strategy as well.

Here are our words for this week:  noble, insinuate, cynical, eloquence, integrated, and shrewd.

Homework is to read for 30 minutes.  Check out our blogs!  The kids are creating some great stuff independently and would love feedback.

We Are Public

Many of you may have noticed the increase in student blogs to the right.  Over the past few days we have been creating and posting our sites for the world to see.  Please take some time to read and enjoy the writing of our class.

We would like feedback and comments as we are growing as public writers.  If there is anything you want more of, please let the authors know.  As their teacher, I ask that you be kind and praise the courage it takes to create for a public forum, but also offer guidance when you see places that require growth.  There have been a few guidelines given to the students.

Students need to remember that their blogs are attached to my site which is attached to the school website.  This means that their work directly represents our school, our values and our academic performance.  This is a huge responsibility that should be handled with maturity.
1)  There should be NO text talk unless the piece they are writing is about texting.  If you see it, please point it out.  This has become such a dominant part of how they write, they may not even notice they are doing it.

2)  The blogs are for respectful dialogues and we must follow the old adage of, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.  Feedback should be constructive, allowing the writer to learn and grow.  Mean comments will not be helpful or tolerated.

3)  Spelling, homophones and capitalization need to be checked closely.  So many students are slacking with these rules that we need to focus on them, so keep your eyes out for these mistakes.

4) Any use of material that does not belong to the student must be cited. You may not put the work of someone else on your blog without giving them credit for that work. A citation should include the author's name and the source/location of where the work came from.


Mistakes will happen and we hope to support one another as we learn to watch for these.  If you see any problems or concerns with the blogs, please let me know.  We hope you enjoy reading what we all have to say about the world and that you help us with our journey to become budding writers.

Truth can be stranger than fiction

Welcome back from the long weekend.  Results are in on the fiction summarization and we have that task figured out.  This is not to say that it is disappearing.  Students will be using this skill throughout the year.  That is why it was so important that we get it early in the year. 

We are ready to move on to non-fiction reading.  Today, I showed the classes all of the texts that I have to read this semester for grad school (it's not pretty, I should have some buff arms after lifting all these books).  I asked them to help me figure out how I can do all the things I need to do and still get my homework reading done.  I asked for strategies that might help me finish the work and make sure I understand it.  Once we got talking about it, we were able to figure out that I could skim and scan the text looking for key words, and details.  I could identify the main idea of the selection and make sure I wrote down any questions about the concept so I could add those to the discussion in class.  I could summarize the selection to make sure I had a grasp on the big ideas before I went to school.  I should evaluate the contents of the chapters to determine if I already know about any of it and how much of it I need to read. 

Once we realized we did not have to read the whole thing word for word, we practiced.  Students read and took combination notes on 4-5 pages from our text book.  These pages discussed the different types of non-fiction texts we might come across and strategies for reading these texts.  The students had 20 minutes to work as a group to take Cornell notes over this selection.  Then they had to summarize it.  Our table captains were responsible for making sure we only spent 5 minutes per page so we could finish.    By the end we all had a good handle on what was important in the selection.  We will practice this some more, so have us try it at home with the newspaper or any other informational text.  We need to work on skimming and scanning for the important text in the selection.

HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes and choose 5 prompts/questions from the literary history list that you may want to talk about in your personal narrative piece.  Tonight I want you to write about 2 of the ones you choose in your comp book.  I will check for them tomorrow.

Link to  Literary History Prompts:  https://acrobat.com/#d=Myy9bekTwdNZDothqwX4ow

Proving What We Have Learned

Okay, so I know the blog has been a bit silent this week, but we have been busy with learning.  After learning about story maps, we looked at point of view summaries.  We took a text, and broke it down into a RAFT.  RAFT stand for role, audience, format, topic  (ask your student and see if they know this.)  After we sorted elements of the fiction story into the raft, we were able to write a summary of the story from a different perspective.  As we wrote that, we had to be careful that we stayed on topic and focused on the details of the text.  By doing this, we had to really look close at the piece so that we gave an accurate summary.  This was challenging, but fun because we got to pretend to be someone else and try to think like them. 

Today we put all of these skills to the test.  Mrs. Benson read the story, Seventh Grade by Gary Soto, and we had to choose one of the summarization strategies we learned to summarize the story with.  After we wrote our own summary, we answered a multiple choice question that required us to choose the BEST summary of the story.  We did so much better than last time.  We were able to separate ourselves from the story, even though we made lots of connections to it.  We still struggled between one of two answers, but we had very intelligent and well thought out arguments about why one or the other was right.  This was a sign of true learning! 
 I am so proud of our budding bloggers.  Be sure to read about George and his adventures in reading and Calah and the best friend she misses, Bradley and his dreams for his future and Camille with her tribute shout out to a musician she admires.  They are all independent assignments.  None of this work was assigned to them!  That is what learning is all about.

Read 30 minutes--Book orders due September 16th (don't forget you can order online or by check).

So, how do I know I have it right?

Since summaries of a fiction text can vary so much, it can be hard to know if you have it right.  Today we looked at story maps.  Story maps help us organize the information from a piece of text into a summary without accidentally infusing our own connections or perspectives into the summary. 

Here is how we did it.  After reading a story (this would work for a chapter too probably) we organized the information into categories: characters, conflict, 3 events from the selection that support/offer evidence of the conflict and solution.  Once our information is organized, we know we have the right summary because the events match the conflict.  We can then write the summary using either the frame Somebody Wanted but So or just by paraphrasing what is in our story map.

This would be a great activity to have your student do after they have done their reading homework.  You don't even have to have read the book to know if it is right because the events should match the conflict.  If they don't, your student either got the wrong conflict or the wrong details.

Homework: Read 30 minutes.  Make sure you have at least finished a chapter of your book for our Somebody Wanted But So quiz tomorrow.