Back from Thanksgiving Break

Homework due tomorrow, Tuesday, December 1st: Since I was out during last spelling period with strep throat please bring in last completed spelling homework.

Homework due Wednesday, December 2nd: Students should bring in the work they did on their literature circle assignments, and be ready to discuss the 7^th to 13^th chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Each student should be able to answer the following question. Who were the Aleuts?

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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.

During writing workshop, students continued working on their personal memoirs. Most of the students are finished with their first drafts. As they work on subsequent drafts, their focus is on making their writing compelling being sure to answer any questions readers may have. Before showing me their work, the students are getting peer reviews from their classmates. Any work shown to me must be in 12 point Times New Roman type, double-spaced. It is striking to note how comfortable the 6^th graders are with the idea of writing multiple drafts before a piece of work is complete.

In drama class today the 6^th grade actors worked on tableaux. The main points we worked on were physical presentation, expressiveness of the actors, clarity of story, and relationship between actors.

In cultural studies, the students continued to work on research for their Californian Indian Presentations. We discussed some of the difficulties of conducting research, such as finding information, sorting out what is important from what is not, and putting information in our own words. The students are also confronting the advantages and challenges of collaboration. The 1^st drafts of their reports will be due next Monday.

Language Arts Homework

Homework due tomorrow, Friday, November 20th: Student’s who did not turn in today’s language arts homework must bring it in tomorrow morning.

Homework due Wednesday, December 2nd: Students should bring in the work they did on their literature circle assignments, and be ready to discuss the 7th to 13th chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Each student should be able to answer the following question. Who were the Aleuts?

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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 language arts we looked at the Island of the Blue Dolphins. We discussed the events leading up to the conflict between the Aleuts and Karana’s people. The 6th graders noted how the custom of the Indians to work with their environment in order to fill their fundamental needs became threatened by the desire to make a profit.

Upcoming Homework

Homework due Tuesday, November 16: Students should bring in their sheet with the five words they have chosen for their Weekly Word Studies.

Homework due Wednesday, November 17: Students should bring in the work they did on their literature circle assignments, and be ready to discuss the 2^nd to 6^th chapters of Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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.

Literature Homework Due Wednesday, November 11th.

Homework due Tomorrow: Students should bring in the work they did on their literature circle assignments, and be ready to discuss the 1st chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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.

In language arts the students showed me the words they had chosen for their weekly word studies. We also went over the procedure for doing their spelling homework. This procedure can be found in their writing handbooks, and in this spelling procedure link.

During writing workshop, the students were absorbed in working on the first drafts of their personal memoirs.

Homework Due Tomorrow

Homework due Tomorrow;
Remember to bring in the five words you have chosen for your Weekly Word Studies.
Spend thirty minutes working on the first draft of your personal memoir.

Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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.

In writing workshop today we moved on from poetry and looked at a new genre, personal memoir. After learning what memoir was the class brainstormed ideas about what an effective memoir looks like. We then looked at the first draft of a memoir of mine, and discussed what made it an ineffective piece of writing.

The First Time I Scored On My High School Basketball Team.

The year was 1975. I was fifteen years old. I was living in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, at the time. I had made my high school basketball team. The name of my high school was Kingston College. I had been trying out for the team for the past two years and I finally made it. I was short so I played guard. I was a good defender and an okay passer, but I was not a good shooter. After four games I still had not scored a point, even though I was the captain of the team and a member of the starting five.

Our fifth game was against Saint Jago High School. They had not won a game. They were in last place. After the first half, we had fifteen points and they had twelve points. In the second half I was called for a technical foul for arguing about a call. With a minute to go we were still leading, but the score was thirty-one points to thirty points. Then I got a pass in the corner, and I shot. The ball rattled around and went in. That was the first time I scored.

The students noted that there was a lack of emotion or feeling in the writing. They pointed out the lack of variety in the length of the sentences, and the overemphasis of the first person pronoun. Janet summed up by saying that the memoir lacked any “Wow” factor. After our discussion, the students were asked to take a subject from their heart map and begin to draft a personal memoir of their own.

In cultural studies the 6^th graders continued work on the California Indian project. Each student’s first draft is due next week Monday, November 16.

Language Arts Homework due Tuesday, Nov 10; Wednesday, Nov 11.

Homework due Tuesday, November 10. Students should bring in the five words they have chosen for their Weekly Word Studies.


 Homework due Wednesday, November 11. Students should come to class on Wednesday having read the first chapter of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and having completed the assignment for their particular Literature Circle job.


Slight Change In Ongoing Homework: Students should remember to read for thirty minutes each evening. Reading the assigned novel does count towards the nightly reading. Remember there are no restrictions on what you choose to read, as long as you make sure you get your assigned reading done. 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.

In language arts the students were all given copies of Stuart O’Dell’s book, Island of the Blue Dolphin, the novel that will begin our study of Literature this year. The sixth graders have all been divided into five literature circle groups, and each group has a Discussion Director, a Summarizer, an Illustrator, and a Vocabulary Enricher. Each of these jobs comes with a particular assignment that is designed to help the students read with a sharp sense of purpose and serve as entry points into the novel. The student will bring in their completed assignments each week in order share them with their group members and aid in their discussions and understanding of the novel.

Based on their research on the Bay Area Miwoks in particular, and California Indians in general, and the questions that their research engendered, the students have chosen areas that they would like to research and present to the class. Most of their questions have focused on how the Indians took care of their fundamental needs, and how the Californian environment affected the various cultures that were created. The main tribes that the students chose to study were the Miwoks and the Yuroks. Areas of interest vary from how the first peoples of California fed and clothed themselves, to how their systems of trade worked. Some of the students are working in triads and dyads, while others are working by themselves. They have been asked to produce a written report, and decide on a method of presenting their work to the class.

Walking in the Steps of the Miwok Indians

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.

The students all did a great job presenting their work during Student, Parent, and Teacher conferences.

Yesterday the students explored the Miwok village at Point Reyes station. They were charged with the task of looking at the village with archeologists’ eyes. What information, clues, or suppositions could they take away from their excursion? Today in cultural studies the students set about testing their suppositions through research. They used books in the classroom, and notes taken by their classmates to develop a stronger sense of the Indians of California. As they answered questions they were, as always, encouraged to find more questions.

In language arts we are about to introduce the 6^th graders to the form of spelling they will be doing this year. As a precursor to their spelling assignments, I presented a unit today appropriately called, “A Brief History of the English Language.” We took a quick look at the various other languages that have mixed and influenced English, such as Latin, French and the Germanic languages. We then discussed how this complicated past and lack of unifying structure would make finding spelling rules difficult. The next step in this unit will be for the students to be shown how to develop their own personal spelling list that will be used to collect the words for their weekly spelling test.