Woah! We only have a couple of weeks left. There are still tons to do before the school year ends and I really want students to finish strong!
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Students are expected to read 30 mins a night for Language and Literature when they have no assigned homework. This helps with vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing too!
Students will be expected to participate in the summer reading program. They have received information about this program. Also, all their documents are located in their Google Classroom.
Please be on the lookout for a paper this week with the parent code.
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Year 2 (G7)
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Year 2 students finished up a dystopia novel study. They analyzed dystopia and why governments attempt to make a perfect society. They also were in charge of creating their own society while trying to answer: “Can a perfect society exist?”
Year 3 students worked on using their 15 Mins Of Fame to become poets. They examined multiple ways of creating, mixing, and imitating poetry. They were then in charge of inspiring one another with their own original poems.
Wow! The 3rd quarter is coming to an end quickly. It took me a while to get this posted as students have been finished with this unit for a couple of weeks. Please take a look at their hard work below.
As A Reminder:
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
Students are expected to read, in English, every night. Unless I have assigned reading or other homework, the reading is their choice. They should be reading about 20-30 mins a day.
Year 2 (G7)
Year 2 students completed a poetry unit and put their creativity, vocabulary, and play on words (poetic devices) to the test! They completed a variety of formulaic poems to help prepare them for becoming a poet. For their summative, they annotated 2 poems, compared/contrasted those poems, wrote their own poems, and then created a poem photostory movie.
Year 3 students examined the bias that is present in their daily lives. They completed modules on bias in news that helped them better understand bias in news. They examined how personal bias plays a role in decisions. They viewed entertainment and commercial media for various stereotypes/biases. They completed all of these in their summative project with annotations as well as explanations. Then, they created a product to demonstrated bias and help others to be aware. I’m super impressed with how this unit challenged them to examine their daily lives, perspective they view media, and the bias that may affect them and others.
Thank you so much for all you you do to help your student(s) be successful. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or praise, please let me know
This second unit that students created was one that tested their creativity and thinking out of the box. I am always amazed at the work and dedication that students put into creating their projects.
Students are expected to read, in English, every night. Unless I have assigned reading or other homework, the reading is their choice. They should be reading about 20-30 mins a day.
This was a reading unit for both years. Throughout the unit they read their respective books, completed roles for their groups, participated in several discussions, and wrote an analysis, TIEA paragraph. There was a summative discussion and TIEA paragraph along with a project.
During this unit Year 2 students read a graphic novel dealing with teenage woes and mishaps. Each book dealt with a typical teenage character and the mishaps of her life. Students completed several practice analysis paragraphs and group discussions on the book. They had a final paragraph and discussion. As the last summative project for this unit, students created their own story dealing with teenage woes. They used Powtoons to create and animate this story using graphic novel techniques.
Year 3 students read novels dealing with equity and advocacy. In each book, there were issues that the characters in the novels had to stand up for. We had a mini lesson on the difference between equity and equality and why both are important. Students wrote an analysis paragraph and participated in a group discussion of their book. Students then chose to create a media PSA through a variety of project types based on a topic from their book.
Thank you so much for all you you do to help your student(s) be successful. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or praise, please let me know.
WOW! The first unit is usually the longest. We are getting reacquainted with one another, learning norms of the classroom, and being intentional with class time. However, the work that the students put in was amazing!
Students are expected to read, in English, every night. Unless I have assigned reading, the reading is their choice. They should be reading about 30 mins a day.
Year 3 students got their books last week. Year 2 students will be receiving their novel today.
Year 2 (G7)
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Year 2 students examined three different genre’s of text to look for theme and connections. We started with songs, moved to short stories, and finally ended with speeches. During this time students completed annotation of the texts. After studying speeches, students were expected to write and perform their own speeches. Their focus was to inspire and motivate others. You can click on the link below to see their work and their performance.
Year 3 students examined news and journalism for this first unit. We looked at student news and read a variety of news articles. For the news articles, students completed annotation to focus on what makes a news article. After analyzing news articles, students ventured out to write their own news article that affected their community. They focused on observing their every day life, seeing what issues affect the community, choosing a topic, completing research, surveys, and interviews. Once they had gathered their data, they worked in groups to create a newspaper. You can click on the link below to see their hard work!
Thank you so much for all you you do to help your student(s) be successful. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or praise, please let me know.
The school year 2017-2018 is going to be an amazing time for growth in Language & Literature. I am looking forward to working with parents and students to make this a great year! Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, concerns, or praises.
I will update this website periodically throughout the year.
In order to be successful, there are many different components that take place. The image above is a great example of what makes someone successful. The hardest and most challenging parts are the ones we face that many may never notice. I want to encourage the students to have all the qualities that many people don’t see. Those are the things that will help them to be successful, not just in school, but life.
Reading Importance
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In order for students to successfully learn a language, they need to read a minimum of 20-30 minutes (in English) everyday including the weekend. I do not typically dictate what they read, unless it is a class novel or other text assigned by me, except that it has to be in English. Please encourage your child(ren) to choose something that they enjoy to read.
As a reminder, we do practice English first. That means that students are communicating in English unless requesting further instructions from the teacher.
In order to help the school year progress nicely, I do have a few expectations. They can be found on the classroom expectations page.
One of the major skills that middle school students need to cultivate is time management. Assignments are not always due the next day.Therefore students need to prioritize their time to ensure that work is turned in on time.
I have also included the page for the course outline that will be used for this class.
If you are curious to know more about me, it can be found on Ms. Marcum’s Mind page on my blog.
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Thank you in advance for all that you do to help your child(ren) be successful. This year will be wonderful as you, myself, and the student work together.
Wow! I cannot begin to express my heartfelt gratitude for such a great year. Thank you so much for being kind, caring, and supportive parents and guardians. Students grew so much during this year. They grew academically aswell becoming more mature. I am proud of all the hard work and effort students gave this year. I hope that the good habits they have worked on will stick them into the next school year. Have a wonderful, relaxing, and enjoyable summer!
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With summer around the way, make sure that your student keeps their reading progress going! KAS Library has created a summer reading program challenge. Students will read books and complete tasks. They will obtain online badges to help track their progress. The website is the Great Reading Adventure.They do not need to buy any books as many of the books are eBooks from our own library.
If students do not read over the summer, it is like going back to December 2016 in their progress for reading.
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My expectation is that students will take part of this summer challenge and read about 30 mins a day so that they do not lose 6 months of progress.
Year 2 (G7)
Students completed a dystopia unit where they read a dystopia novel, compared it to a dystopia short story, and then created their own “perfect” society. It was really interesting seeing the types of society that students would deem as perfect.
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Then, students began working on IDU between L&L and Science. Here students learned how to communicate scientific knowledge via social media. Students created population trend graphs, solutions commercial, and a implications screencast. They learned about other’s species by commenting on their posts and creations. Lastly, students began a short unit on poetry. They have created over a dozen or two dozen poems. Year 2 students have so much to be proud of!
I know you are all familiar with the latest project from year 3 students. You were extremely involved and I truly appreciate all the efforts to help put this project together. I loved it as I got to know so much more about my students’ and their
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home culture. Prior to the interview video, students read a graphic novel dealing with identity and culture of those who might need to assimilate. Next, students researched a social issue. Once they had gathered their research, they created infographics to show the public information about their topic. Finally, they were allowed to choose a project to work on that was their choice, but must be related to L&L by one of the following: reading, writing, or speaking. Students attempted to choose something they had always wanted to learn or make. I’m excited to see what they finally produce.
As a reminder, please help students to learn and practice time management skills. Sleep is very important and staying up all night to complete a project is not what is expected.
Students re-read a favorite novel. Then, they took several components that create a novel and analyzed it to see a much deeper meaning. We worked on this daily for weeks as part of our writing unit. It was so amazing to check in with them everyday and see how much their understanding of writing as well as analyzing a text had improved and grown.
Students examine various ways to use poetry. They remixed, remade, imitated, and then were masters of poetry themselves. They read several poems and completed analysis annotations. Poetry required them to step out of the box and think about words and thoughts differently. Using figurative language can be complicated, but I am in awe of their attempts to use it and use it well.
What a great 1st semester. So proud of all the students are accomplishing. Please encourage them to keep up the good work! As always, please let me know if you have questions, comments, concerns, or praise.
Unit 2 took a little longer to finish, but I am impressed with the amount of work students have accomplished.
7th: Lessons From Text
Students learned how to annotate texts to show their thoughts while reading as well as being able to find and analyze literary devices and elements. Students analyzed songs, short stories, and finally speeches. Students compared speeches to find techniques to use when writing a speech. After all this analysis and comparing, students began writing their own inspirational speech based on the learner profiles of the MYP.
Students completed literature circles on different books. Students were grouped to read a specific book together. They had roles to complete to ensure that the discussion went well. They analyzed the book using TIEA as well as their reading journal symbols. Each book focused on being aware of rights for equity and equality. Some of the novels dealt with autism, cerebral palsy, bullying, adhd/add, and worker rights. Students completed this unit by creating a video to demonstrate equity and equality for a topic of their choice.
Our first unit is finished! We have parent-teacher conferences soon, and I hope to see you and your child there. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or praise, please email me.
Parents are often asking about vocabulary, reading, or writing prep. Here is a free resource I found at Freetech4teachers. If you click on this link, there will be others resources, but this one is free.
PrepFactory is a free service for students to prepare for the SAT/ACT or middle school subjects such as Math, Grammar, and Reading. PrepFactory offers students a series of tutorial videos and written tips to help them prepare for both tests. After completing a tutorial students can test themselves in a series of practice questions. Each question set is timed and and limited to chunks of ten questions at a time. Students can earn badges for completing tutorials or question sets. Click here for video of PrepFactory in action.
One of the easiest ways to describe how grading will go for my class is called best fit. Traditionally, student’s scores are weighted and averaged out to get a grade.
Ex: 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 5, 6, 5
The exact average and not weighted score would equal 4.15. That would be their final grade.
However, those same scores for the best fit practice would be a score of a 5. The reason students are given that judgement is based on where they end and not where they started. As long as students are growing and improving, their score will grow too. Best fit is about growth and learning.
These cannot be equated to a traditional A, B, C, D, F. For example a 5/8=62% D, but for me that would not be the case. Right now, a 5 is a really good score! I will look at student’s progress and growth to determine a final grade. When you look at their scores for Powerschool, please look and see if students are making growth and improving for each of the criteria. I hope this helps to clarify and ease some of the pressure about grading.
7th:
The seventh graders read the novel Stargirl, completed nightly reading journals, and participated in class discussions on the novel. From that novel, students began writing their own realistic fiction short story. Students read and annotated “Ribbons” and “Thirteen and A Half” as mentor texts to give them examples of realistic fiction short stories. Students brainstormed ideas, wrote test scenes, leads, and conclusion. Students completed their writing in their writing notebook. Throughout, students peer edited and self edited their story. For their final, they typed the draft, created a title page with a visual, and did an audio recording. Please check out their hard work!
The eighth graders worked on a journalism unit. This unit began by reading news articles and annotating them. Then, we watched CNN Student News to see how a newscast is put together. Students began to make observations around them. They really struggled with this and many wanted to just write about their lives. After a few practice writings, students had a much better understanding of what they needed to do to turn everyday life in their community into a news article. Once the individual articles were written, students completed a newscast in groups. They filmed the newscast here at KAS and did editing. Check out their newscasts and articles they worked on!
The first week of school was such a success. Students came back excited and prepared to learn. I am looking forward to working with you and your child(ren). I really liked the photo above as it truly describes what it takes to be successful. The hardest parts are the ones we face that many may never notice. I want to encourage the students to have all the qualities that many people don’t see. Those are the things that will help them to be successful, not just in school, but life.
In order to help the school year progress nicely, I do have a few expectations. They can be found on the classroom expectations page. One of the major skills that middle school students need to cultivate is time management. Assignments are not always due the next day. Therefore students need to prioritize their time to ensure that work is turned in on time. If you are curious to know more about me, it can be found on Ms. Marcum’s Mind page on my blog.
I have sent out the invitations for Google Classroom. Please check your email for this information.
Last week we worked on building a class community as well as ensuring the school year will go smoothly. We are continuing that this week while also gearing up to be active learners who are also self reflective. We will continually refer to digital citizenship, academic honesty (citing sources & collaboration), as well focusing on Oral, Written, and Visual Communication for MYP.
In order for students to successfully learn a language, they need to read a minimum of 20 minutes (in English) everyday including the weekend. I do not typically dictate what they read, unless it is a class novel or other text assigned by me, except that it has to be in English. Please encourage your child(ren) to choose something that they enjoy to read.
As a reminder, we do practice English first. That means that students are communicating in English unless requesting further instructions from the teacher.
Here is one of our first assignments. Students were challenged to create a 6 word story. I must admit, I am quite impressed.
Thank you in advance for all that you to help your child(ren) be successful. This year will be wonderful as you, myself, and the student work together.
