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.
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