Seven-minute stories, making predictions, and introducing the old man...

During the week of April 13-17, students continued to practice identifying themes in literature and began reading The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Below is a quick recap of the week's events - 

• On Monday, students worked in groups of 4-5 to determine the topic and theme of five picture books I selected. Each group had seven minutes to read a picture book and come to a conclusion about its topic and theme. After seven minutes, each group passed its book onto the next group and began the topic and theme identification process with a new picture book. Each group completed this process for five books. By the end of the activity, students noticed that there were some themes that were very familiar because they'd seen them before in other books or movies and other themes that were new to them.

• In the middle of the week, students made predictions about the plot of The Old Man and the Sea before they began reading it. Students made their first prediction after only seeing the cover of the novel. Next, I gave them 12 key words from the text such as marlin, Santiago, pride, and Cuba and they were asked to write a new prediction statement based off of the new information they received.

• Students took a quiz on singular and plural possessive nouns and cleaned out their binders on Thursday.

• On Friday, we began reading The Old Man and the Sea. Students will be reading this story both in class and for homework over the next two weeks.

Enjoy your spring vacation!

Returned Assignments

One graded assignment was returned this week. Student got back Open Response #3 (a 25-point analysis paragraph). This writing assignment will be part of your child's Quarter 3 grade.

Better late than never!

For those of you who check the Team 7-1 blog regularly, I apologize for being a bit tardy with my post for the week of April 6-10. Preparation for 3rd quarter report cards kept me from blogging. Here's a quick recap of what we did in class and what assignments were returned.

On Monday, students began working on the writing portion of Independent Reading Project #3. If you remember back to the beginning of the school year, one of the first activities your child completed was a "Where I'm From" poem. In this poem, students wrote about themselves, their family and traditions, their homes, and the other details of their lives. For Independent Reading Project #3, students were asked to write another "Where I'm From" poem, but this time the poem would be about the main character in the realistic fiction novel they read. Students have already shared drafts of their poems with me, and I'm impressed by the creativity they are showing as they write in a voice other than their own.

"Michaels team has 15 win's this year!"

If you just cringed because you noticed the blantant misuse of apostrophes in the sentence above this one, that's OK. The theme of the middle part of the week in English class was using apostrophes correctly when showing possession. Students practiced their apostrophe use by reviewing and applying the three rules for making singular and plural nouns possessive.

Studying Theme

During the latter part of the week, students defined the term theme, learned how the topic and the theme of a story differ from one another, and identified the topic and theme of different pieces of literature such as a Dr. Seuss picture book and a short article about a shark attack survivor. As 8th graders, students will be interpreting the themes of the novels they read quite often. The purpose of our study of theme in 7th grade is to make sure that students are comfortable defining the term and understanding how it differs from the topic of the story. They will also be creating a catalog of common themes in their heads that they can apply to more challenging works next year.

Returned Assignments

One graded assignment was returned this week. Students got back a 7-point quiz on the structure of the 5-paragraph essay. 

Extra Credit Opportunity!

Students on Team 7-1 have an opportunity to earn extra credit for Quarter 4.

Published author Mitali Perkins is visiting Chenery Middle School on Wednesday, April 29th and will be speaking with the 7th grade. In preparation for her visit, I've created a classroom display of the young adult novels she has written. For those of  you at home, check out the virtual bookcase to the right of this post in order to see Ms. Perkins's novels. If the bookcase does not appear because your web browser doesn't recognize it, you may access the bookcase by clicking on the following link - http://www.shelfari.com/nilesenglish/shelf. More information about Ms. Perkins is located on her website - mitaliperkins.com

Here's where the extra credit opportunity comes in. If students are interested, they should choose a novel by Mitali Perkins that is displayed in the classroom, read the novel, and create four open-ended questions that they would ask her if they got the opportunity. A directions sheet for this assignment is available in the classroom.

I have a limited number of Mitali Perkins novels, but the Chenery library has PLENTY! Students should check the library if they are having trouble obtaining a copy of a Mitali Perkins novel.

Testing, testing, and more testing...

After four long mornings (and part of an afternoon on Tuesday), students on Team 7-1 finished their English MCAS testing.

Other than the MCAS, there is not too much to report. Students had a reduced class schedule due to testing, so I saw each English class once over the course of the 4-day testing period. We used that period to de-stress by playing a game called Scattergories.

Returned Assignments

One graded assignment was returned this week. Students received their "Qualities of a Hero" essay (a 25-point writing assignment) on Monday. I hope you got a chance to read your child's work!

Looking Forward

Students will wrap up Quarter 3 by practicing their apostrophe use and working on a writing assignment for Independent Reading Project #3.

During Quarter 4, students will study the literary term theme in preparation for 8th grade and take part in a poetry unit. Students will also complete an assignment for Independent Reading Project #4.