Homework due Thursday, January 14th: For language arts students should be ready for their Weekly Work Study quiz. They should bring in their completed Weekly Word Study sheets, as well as five sentences using their five spelling words. Homework due Tuesday, January 19th: Students should bring in the five words they plan to study for their Weekly Work Study quiz
Homework due Wednesday, January 20th: Students should read from chapter 23 to chapter 26 of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and then complete their Literature Circle tasks for that week.
Homework due, Monday, January 25th: Students should come to drama class with the piece of writing they chose memorized.
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 today the students ran their own Literature Circles, focusing on chapter 20 to chapter 22 of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Halfway into the class we stopped to share what was working in the various groups, and what qualities made for a productive Literature Circle. We ended the class with a general discussion of some of the questions presented by the discussion directors.
Homework due Wednesday, January 13th: Students should read from chapter 20 to chapter 22 of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and then complete their Literature Circle tasks for that week.
Homework due Thursday, January 14th: For language arts students should be ready for their Weekly Work Study quiz. They should bring in their completed Weekly Word Study sheets, as well as five sentences using their five spelling words.
Homework due Tuesday, January 19th: Students should bring in the five words they plan to study for their Weekly Work Study quiz
Homework due, Monday, January 25th: Students should come to drama class with the piece of writing they chose memorized.
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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.
Homework due Thursday, January 7th: For language arts students should be ready for their Weekly Work Study quiz. They should bring in their completed Weekly Word Study sheets, as well as five sentences using their five spelling words.
Homework due, Monday, January 11th: Students should memorize William Carlos Williams’ poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow.” For drama class students should bring in a piece of writing—poem, dramatic monologue, or even a piece of fiction, that they are interested in memorizing.
Homework due Tuesday, January 12th: Students should bring in the five words they plan to study for their Weekly Work Study quiz.
Homework due Wednesday, January 13th: Students should read from chapter 20 to chapter 22 of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and then complete their Literature Circle tasks for that week.
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 Literature Circles today the 6th graders spent the class learning about the role of vivid, active verbs. When I asked the students in the beginning of the class which part of speech they thought was the most important in a story, one of them indentified verbs as being the most important because, “They are about action.” The students were given a passage from Island of the Blue Dolphins, in which they were each asked to circle strong, active verbs. They then shared their choices with the three other members of their Literature Circle. They had to explain their choices, and talk about how the verb they choose affected their sense of the novel. To end the class each group picked one verb to dramatize for their classmates. The verbs chosen were attacked, whirled, watch, slash, and breaking.
In cultural studies the students continued working on their in-class project to plan an expedition to an imaginary land of their creation. They where also given an overview of the Age of Exploration.
Homework due Thursday, January 7th: For language arts students should be ready for their Weekly Word Study quiz. They should bring in their completed Weekly Word Study sheets, as well as five sentences using their five spelling words.
Homework due, Monday, January 11th: Students should memorize William Carlos Williams’ poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow.” For drama class students should bring in a piece of writing—poem, dramatic monologue, or even a piece of fiction, that they are interested in memorizing.
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.
This week's focus in writing workshop has been on William Carlos Williams’ dictum, “No ideas but in things.” The sixth graders began the class by giving their impressions on what Williams might have meant by this famous statement. We then, using, “The Red Wheelbarrow” as a launching pad, discussed what it means to a writer to focus on the concreteness of things.
In cultural studies the students are about to begin a study of the Spanish explorers' effect on California. Their first in-class project is to work in groups of four and document their expedition to an imaginary land of their creation. This expedition is to be undertaken in the name of Rey Normando el Fabuloso, that oh-so-well known king of the 16th century.
Homework due tomorrow, Wednesday, December 9th : Students should read from chapter 14 to chapter 19 of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and then complete their Literature Circle tasks for that week.
Homework due, Thursday, December 10th : Students should prepare for their spelling quiz. They should bring in five sentences, each containing a one of their spelling words.
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 during writing workshop we completed a lesson on using quotation marks to signal dialogue. The students then got a chance to use what they had learned by punctuating a paragraph that contained dialogue between two characters.
Homework due tomorrow, Thursday, December 3rd: Students should bring in their completed spelling assignments.
Homework due Wednesday, December 9th: Students should read from chapter 14 to chapter 19 of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and then complete their Literature Circle tasks for that week.
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 todays literature class, the students discussed Island of the Blue Dolphins, from chapter 7 to chapter 13. Some of the questions discussed were, how mature was Karana’s six-year-old brother, Ramo; does the environment in the novel just serve as the setting, or is it also a character; what drove the Aleuts to become violent against other Indians? After a whole class discussion the students then broke into their four person Lit circles and continued their own discussions, with learning specialist MaryBeth Ventura and myself circulating though the classroom.
In cultural studies, the students started a review quiz on the four main Californian Indian tribes that we have been discussing. This review will be continued during our next class.
Homework due tomorrow, 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.
Continuing our work on personal memoirs the class read the handout, "Questions For Memoirists." We discussed the importance of writers choosing subjects that matter to them. If a writer is bored by their subject very likely their readers will also be bored. The 6th grade writers then spent the rest of the writing workshop working on their own drafts of personal memoirs.
In cultural studies, the students continued to work on research for their Californian Indian Presentations. The 1st drafts of their reports will be due next Monday.
