Memorial Day

Memorial Day - a day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that the rest of us can be free.  I'm so thankful for them, and for their families who suffered as a consequence; I'm also thankful for the members of my family who have served - in WWII and Vietnam, and stateside in more recent years; what a great nation of people we live amongst.

I have spent my extended weekend grading 9th grade writing - at least 7-hours per day.  The good news is: I'm done!  I have all of the research papers and argumentative essays graded.  If your student has a zero for either of those assignments, I'll still take them for 50% since they are an assessment.  I also still have a few smaller items to grade from those who turned in late work or came to advisory or Tuesdays with Teachers and made up some credit on a quiz, but all of that should be finished tomorrow.  The bad news is that my house and garden are a trainwreck, and I definitely don't look like I'm ready for summer.

Last week we got through the first half of Of Mice and Men.  They read, took notes, drew a picture to reflect the details in the imagery, and wrote a Found Poem.  This week we will work on the rest of the book.  Here's the schedule as it stands:

• Tuesday, 5/30 - we'll hand back papers, finish discussions for chapter 3, and look at a Blackish clip in order to discuss the language being used in the book and author choice for that language.
• Wednesday, 5/31 - Academic Advisory -  we'll read chapter 4.
• Thursday, 6/1 - No Advisory - we'll discuss chapter 4 and add notes to our charts.
• Friday, 6/2 - we'll read chapter 5 (the big moment in the book).

That's the plan.  I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their Memorial Day Weekend.  Ciao!

Memorial Day by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

April Showers Bring May Flowers...and Allergies

A lot of sneezing is happening in my classroom right now, including me!  I love spring...the flowers, the warm air, the open windows...but I could do without a couple of things.  One would be the allergies, and the other would be the busyness.  On a personal level, over the last four weeks when I'm not teaching at school I'm chasing my own children around.  Between baseball practice, baseball games, track practice, track meets, music lessons, music concerts, and - oh, yeah - they both had birthdays which involved celebrating on the actual day, celebrating with family (usually at a track meet or baseball game), and celebrating with friends, I've barely had time to breathe (or correct writing assignments).  Well this week, it all comes to an end.  I'm sad because I love supporting my kids, but I'm happy because I'll get time back to finish the writing assignments; I've gotten everything else graded and lessons planned for, but I need large chunks of time for the writing, and that time is coming quick!

So, while I'm finishing off correcting the writing, here's what's going on.  Last week we finished the assessment for Sugar Changed the World and we've moved on to our final text of the year: Of Mice and Men.  I had them do a little preliminary information and activities, and now we've moved into Chapter 1.  Here's what this week looks like:

• Monday, 5/22 - 2nd Hour will work on Verb packet #7; everyone will work on notes for Chapter 1; we'll do a character sheet that will go through the entire book.
• Tuesday, 5/23 - 2nd Hour will finish Verb packet #7 and turn it in; everyone will read chapter 2 and start the notes.
• Wednesday, 5/24 - Academic Advisory - we will finish the notes for chapter 2; we'll start reading chapter 3 which is a long chapter.
• Thursday, 5/25 - Academic Advisory - we will finish reading chapter 3; we'll take notes on chapter 3.
• Friday, 5/26 - we'll do a "Found Poem" for the book so far. (We'll be halfway through.)

That's the plan.  I'll keep the electronic calendar up and running for any changes.  I hope everyone has a great week.  Don't sneeze too much! Ciao!

April Showers Bring May Flowers...And Allergies by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.  It's always a nice day, but my favorite part is spending it with my mom and my kids, with my grandmothers near and dear to my heart.  Here's a picture of my mom and I almost 20 years ago on my wedding day:

My plan is to head for Lansing today and spend the day with family celebrating my mom, and then we turn our attention to the many birthdays in the family, so it will be a very nice gathering.

In the meantime, I thought I'd fill you in on what we're doing right now in class.  We're in the final stages of Module 4 - Sugar Changed the World - and writing an argumentative essay based on the notes taken in class.  Then we'll head for the final unit of the year: Of Mice and Men.  I can't wait to start this novella since it's one of my favorites!  Here's the plan for the week:

• Monday, 5/15 - we'll write the 5-paragraph argumentative essay that is the final assessment for Sugar Changed the World.  It is due Tuesday.
• Tuesday, 5/16 - we'll read-aloud the essay and turn it in; then we'll hand back papers. After that we'll do preliminary work for Of Mice and Men and go get the books from the library.
• Wednesday, 5/17 - Academic Advisory - we'll begin reading Of Mice and Men  - chapter 1.
• Thursday, 5/18 - Academic Advisory - we'll continue reading Of Mice and Men - chapters 1-2.
• Friday, 5/19 - we'll continue reading Of Mice and Men - chapters 2-3.

So that's the plan. I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day Sunday and a fabulous week!  Ciao!

Happy Mother's Day! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Finishing Module Four

May is here, and so are the field trips.  I'm starting to lose people left and right, so it's very important for students to check calendars and check in frequently since the curriculum doesn't stop for spring.  We're really on a roll and getting things done, so I'm trying to keep things going while being flexible and working around all of the schedules.  One of the hardest things to get across to them, however, is that field trips don't excuse students from the work, and we go until June 14th, so any help parents can give is much appreciated.

Here's what we accomplished last week: we continued with our lessons on verbs; we also read two more sections of the text Sugar Changed the World and are working on study guides and filling in a structural chart for argumentative writing.  My goal for this coming week is to finish the Module and do the final assessment.  On that note, here's the plan:

• Monday, 5/8 - verbs; we'll do the study guide and the argumentative structure packet for the reading we finished last Friday.
• Tuesday, 5/9 - we'll read the final packet for Sugar Changed the World and work on the study guide; for homework they'll need to read pp. 118-21 and annotate it.
• Wednesday, 5/10 - Academic Advisory - quiz for pp. 118-21; we'll go over Tuesday's reading and then finish reading and annotating the text; we'll finish the study guide and the argumentative structure packet.
• Thursday, 5/11 - Academic Advisory - we'll do the pre-writing for the final assessment - outlining the argumentative essay.
• Friday, 5/12 - we'll write the 5-paragraph argumentative essay which is the final assessment for Module 4.

So that's my plan.  I hope everyone enjoys spring as it (hopefully) warms up.  Ciao!
 
Finishing Module Four by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.