Our class will have a strong focus on literature and writing. Students will write a minimum of one 5-paragraph essay per month. For students in core classes, essays will often be tied to the social studies curriculum. Students will learn to write narrative, informative, and argumentative essays this year. All essays will go through the writing process of drafting, editing, and finalizing. For final drafts, students have the option of traditional writing on paper, or word-processing. Word-processing may be done on Google Docs, or Microsoft Word. Having a printer is not necessary as they can share their document with me online.
We will be reading a minimum of 3 novels in class, in addition to many short stories and poems in our Collections curriculum. Our three novels are Tuck Everlasting, A Long Walk to Water, and Counting By 7s. These novels will be read as a class, allowing for discussion and group synthesis of the text. Students will have an at-home reading requirement which is outlined below. Our textbook, Collections, can be accessed online here. Students will log in by clicking "log in with active directory" and using their school email address (lunch [email protected]) for the username and and 8-digit birthday as the password. Scroll down to English Language Arts and click on Holt McDougal Online. |
At-home reading requirementYour child will be required to read for 20 minutes each night, Monday-Thursday. They should choose a fictional book, at their independent reading level, that interests them. They will have activities related to their reading to complete each night as homework. Reading is essential to ensure that they continue to acquire new vocabulary words and increase the level at which they are able to read and comprehend text. I have many books in my classroom that they may take home to read if you do not have books at home. Or, you may visit the Scholastic book store below. Enter classroom code NCFXQ and our classroom will earn free books with your purchase!
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HomeworkStudents will have nightly homework Monday-Thursday which will consist of reading "BINGO," and any unfinished assignments from class that day. The BINGO sheet can be found below and will change periodically throughout the year. Students are to complete one activity per night from each column. All activities are due on Friday. I will not accept late homework unless a student is absent from school on Friday. My homework load is not very heavy as I realize the importance of down time for students, however, getting in the habit of doing nightly homework will prepare them for high school and beyond. In-class assignments will be given more flexibility, but late homework will not be accepted, as the sole purpose of my homework is to teach responsibility and time-management.
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Binder RemindersEach day, the first thing your student will do is copy the agenda from the board in a binder reminder which will be provided by the school. The agenda shows the students what we will do that day. This gives students a sense of security in knowing what to expect from their time in my class. The binder reminder also allows parents to see what students are learning. Writing the agenda each day is required, however, I do not require parent signatures in binder reminders. Other classes (particularly AVID) may require parent signatures.
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