ELA 10: Dec. 7-11

Happy Hanukkah to all of you that celebrate it! I’m trying to keep homework to a minimum this week for those that have family celebrations going on.

Our big excitement this week is the DIA field trip. Thanks in advance to all of the parents who have agreed to chaperone.  For those of you not attending, I’ll take pictures and post them here next week. While students are there, they’ll be working on preparing to write an informational/research based essay about one of the pieces they see. Here is the assignment we worked on to prepare for the trip and the assignment for the paper they’ll be starting on Wednesday when they return.

As we begin the writing process on Wednesday, encourage your students to tell you about their art and their research at home. We’ve been talking a lot about “reading” visual texts. What kind of messages are writers or artists sending when they create a specific image? How does the context of the piece (when it was created, what was going on in history, etc) impact the message of the piece? This ability to read messages in different types of texts is vitally important for students developing their critical thinking skills.

The essays will be due Friday, December 18. We will work on the essays extensively for the next two weeks in class, so students should have no problem completing the essays prior to break. By the end of the week, your student should be able to show you a complete rough draft of his or her paper.

Students will also be getting their informational text reading assessments back this week Wednesday. We did a lot of practice prior to the test; you can see two of the practice assignments that were scored (but didn’t “count” toward students’ grades) in MiStar.  I scored those and gave the students feedback about them prior to the test. 4=advanced, 3=proficient, 2= almost proficient, 1= not proficient.  Some students chose to not take advantage of that practice and received 0s.  Those zeroes aren’t impacting their grades, but I’m nervous that the lack of practice will impact their ability to do well on the info text assessment.  If that proves true, students will be able to come see me before school to make up that practice and then take a second stab at the assessment to improve their scores.

Last thing:  The students are getting excited about our New Year’s Eve-themed Reading Resolutions party on December 16. Well, I’m excited and I’m pretty sure they’re humoring me :)  If you’d be willing to send in some snacks or drinks, please sign up here. And, if you’re interested in helping me craft a few decorations (I’m working on a photo booth and ball to drop!), shoot me an email!

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