Welcome! This site have been created to help you achieve success throughout the year. You will find assignments, handouts, activities, and links to websites that will allow you to fully participate in your learning. Below is some general information and guidelines explaining how Language Arts is run. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. I am looking forward to working with you this year.
03.06.09-03.20.09
03.19.09 readng responses due
03.19.09-2nd trimester report cards go home
This week, students will continue listening to Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman (his visit is next month). Students should be reading from their independent novels at least three times per week. Students will receive a reading response packet on Tuesday. They are to select two of the options to complete at home. Both responses are due on Thursday.
02.17.09-02.20.09
02.19.09 reading response handout due
Students will spend the week focusing on their reactions to what they are reading. This will strengthen their ability to make wise selections for independent reading as well as improve their writing as they learn to critically analyze text.
02.02.09-02.06.09
Students will continue to read both in their independent reading novel and the class novel. Walk Two Moons is written using a parallel structure that tells two stories at once. We will focus on this device to increase deep reading skills.
01.12.09-01.27.09
01.27.09 Read through chapter 16 in Walk Two Moons
01.16.09-Progress reports go home
This week students will write a book review. This unit allows students to critically assess what they are reading, as well as share their choices with one another. We will also begin our next class novel, Walk Two Moons by one of my favorite authors, Sharon Creech. Please see the link beloiw to access Creech's website.
12.01.08-12.05.08
12.02.08 Read part 1 of Maximum Ride for 12.03.08
Students were provided copies of James Patterson's Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment. We will be reading this novel as a class. Please check your child's assignment notebook on a nightly basis so that you are aware of the reading, homework, and projects for this unit.
11.10.08-11.25.08
11.18.08 Trimester Project due
Students have been informed of their progress regarding the AR portion of their grade. Students meeting their goal will receive a C in this area, while those who surpass their goal can earn higher grades. Please see that your child is progressing toward meeting this expectation by continuing to read on a nightly basis for at least 30 minutes.
Students are working on a self-selected reading response project based upon the genre of their novel. We will spend the last week of the trimester presenting the projects, allowing students to gain practice speaking in front of others. Since the novel and the response are self-selected, students tend to feel a bit more at ease standing in front of a crowd and sharing their ideas. It is also a wonderful way to discover what peers are reading, helping all of us make reading choices as the year progresses. Please see that your child works on this project on a nightly basis, as this will strengthen deep reading. Students should be reading on a nightly basis and be fairly close to the AR goals.
10.20.08-10.24.08
10.21.08 Point of View handout due
This week we will focus on point of view. Students should continue to read for 30 minutes a night. This week's homework will be to write a portion of their novel from a different point of view (switch from first to third and vice versa).
10.13.08-10.17.08
10.17.08 Character Ties due
Due to my being out of the building part of last week, I moved the unit on characterization back. Thus, students will be creating their character ties this week. The mini project will be assigned on Tuesday, and is due at the start of class Friday. Students may complete the brainstorming sheet while reading each night or following their nightly reading. The goal is for students to find a method that works best for them to deeply analyze text while maintaining a sense of enjoyment for reading.
09.29.08-10.03.08
09.29.08: parent signed portion of AR letter is due
Students should have a self-selected novel that they bring to every class. If it is not an AR novel, I have numerous reading response activities they may use to earn credit for the Accelerated Reader portion of their grade. Students should be reading at home for 30 minutes a night for a minimum of 3 nights. This week we will focus on characterization, culminating with a mini project, "Character Ties" which is due on Friday, October 3. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CHARACTER TIES PROJECT HAS BEEN MOVED TO NEXT WEEK.
09.22.08-09.26.08
Students should read for half an hour at least 3x this week. Mini Project due (scrapbook page) on 09.26.08.
Reading Workshop
I have included the quotes below by Laura Robb and Nancie Atwell because these women have been at the forefront of teaching in a manner that improves literacy by fostering a love for reading for over twenty years. A genuine pasion for reading occurs through self-selection, book talks, mini lessons, and various other forms of metacognitive strategies. I find these quotes and the Bayview site listed below express my hopes and dreams for your children eloquently.
"Workshop is an ideal environment for high-energy middle school students who love to chat and socialize, are working towards independence in reading, and yearn for more responsibility."
Teaching Reading in Middle School Laura Robb (p.26)
LET THEM IN ON READERS' SECRETS
One of our primary goals as reading teachers is to eliminate—or at least reduce—frustration. We want to make reading easy. In our workshops, teachers start by being honest with kids about what we do as readers. We acknowledge the guilt many of us grew up with—the feeling that there’s a proper, rigorous way to read and that somehow we’re not doing it right—so we can help our students navigate books with pleasure and confidence. At the beginning of the year, my students and I discuss Daniel Pennac’s wonderful list of a reader’s rights (Better Than Life, Stenhouse, 1999). I let them know that serious, joyful, engaged, critical readers make choices about how, why, and what they read. In reading workshop, children are encouraged to skim, skip, and look ahead. Abandoning a book that a reader isn’t enjoying is viewed as a smart move, not a character defect. Students learn that the desire to reenter a beloved book isn’t cheating; it’s a benchmark of someone who is becoming a reader.
GETTING IN THE ZONE
A seventh grader, Jed, coined the phrase “reading in the zone.” It was his interpretation of the condition writer Thomas Newkirk characterized as “the reading state.” I shared an article by Newkirk with my class, and when Jed said it was more of a zone than a state, the phrase stuck. The reading zone is the place where readers go when they leave our classroom behind and live vicariously in their books.
The Reading Zone Nancie Atwell
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