Tuesday, October 13th

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, but please remember to record the date, the title of what you read, and how many pages you read on your Reading Journal entry form. Please turn in your entry forms on Friday, so that I can review how your reading is going. I will return them to you on Monday. I would encourage you to keep up with your reading over the weekend.

Today in writing workshop we talked about tomorrow’s field trip to 826 Valencia in San Francisco. For those of you who don’t know 826 Valencia is an organization that was, “Founded in 2002 by author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari, 826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the writing.”

Tomorrow’s class, which is to be a screenwriting workshop, will focus on character, but also touch on dialogue and setting. Today the 6th graders looked at the importance of character and its effect on the writer’s voice.

After our discussion, the students spent the rest of the class working on their own writing. Many of them had conferences with me, and most of them turned in typed drafts at the end of the class.



In cultural studies, the students finished presenting their group projects on the California Regions. After each presentation, the students asked the presenters questions and gave a critique focused on content, presentation, and teamwork. Apart from sharing what they had learned with their classmates, they all continued to develop a sense of what makes for good work.