We spent Monday and Tuesday presenting our arguments to the class and making a decision on SpongeBob's fate. It was a lot of fun and I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of thought that went into piecing together the evidence. The students made some very persuasive cases and learned how important presentation is when trying to get someone to see your point -of-view.  

Wednesday - Silent reading class

Thursday was spent on peer and self evaluations for the Sponge Bob assignment. We also debriefed and discussed the use of persuasion.

Friday was reading response day.

We also had an assembly on Friday (period 2) by  MADD (Mother's Against Drunk Driving).

Friday was Reading Response Day.

This was a short week, as we had Parent/ Teacher interviews on Monday and Remembrance Day on Tuesday.  There was a great turn-out on Monday and I was pleased to meet with all of you. If you did not have the opportunity to come in, please email me using the contact for at the top of the page.

Wednesday to Friday - We worked on 2 sentence horror stories. The students were introduced to them and then wrote their own and illustrated. We discussed how word choice is very important when using only 2 sentences to tell a tale.
On Thursday, we had a presentation by Beyond the hurt. This presentation was about how you should get to know someone before forming opinions about him or her. The students responded well to this and had a lot to offer the conversation. On Friday we complete a reading response.


http://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/153/20-Terrifying-Two-Sentence-Horror-Stories-I-Didn-t-Think-It-Was-Possible-Until-5-When-The-Hair-On-My-Neck-Stood-Up

This week we had a couple of presentations.  We were in the library for book talks by the librarian. She introduced the student to some new books and gave a rating of each. Our hope was to get students interested in some new genre. We also had a presentation from TATU (Teens Against Tobacco Use). This group presented to all grade 9 students about the harms of using tobacco. It was very informative and hands-on.

The class was introduced to a classroom management tool called CLASSDOJO. Each student has an avatar and receives points based on positive behavior (ie. arriving on time, being prepared, having your own novel etc). AT the end of the month, the students can 'cash in' their point for rewards. These rewards were decided a s a class. I encourage you to speak with your son/daughter about this new initiative and the rewards. https://www.classdojo.com/about
Please check it out online.

This week was also TYKTWD (Take Your Kid to Work Day). I had to opportunity to visit students and am pleased with the amount of participation and initiative by our students, I hope they all had fun and learned a lot!

On Monday, we discussed the writing trait of organization. We learned how important organization is especially when writing an essay. We used the essay map at http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/essaymap/ to help us. I modeled the organization process for a 5 paragraph essay as well.

On Tuesday, the students were introduced to the Harris Burdick mysteries. http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/harrisburdick/  Students then starting planning a mystery story using the posters for inspiration.

Wednesday was silent reading day.

On Thursday, we finished writing out rough draft of the mystery stories.

On Friday, I treated them to a Halloween movie to help with inspiration for the stories.

Progress reports went home today. Please let me know if you have any questions.

This week(Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday) we reviewed the writing trait "Ideas and Content". We looked at what having good ideas means for a writer. The class was introduced to two sentence horrow stories. We read a bunch and realized that not all of them are good or scary. This was great because it allowed us to have a conversation about ideas and content in our own writing. We practiced the trait by writing our own two sentence horror stories. The students had a lot of fun reading and writing these stories.

Wednesday - Silent Reading class. Please remind your son/daughter to have their own novel with them each week.
Friday - Reading response class. Students will have three reading responses due at the end of Oct.

Presentation time!!!! All students presented their projects on Thursday and Friday. There were some amazing hats and masks.

For the next two weeks, we will not be completing any silent reading classes or and reading response classes. The reason for this is because we will be working on a Dr. Seuss themed project. This is a project based learning exercise where the teacher will give a minimum amount of directions and the students will have to be creative to design their own product.  The guidelines are as follows -  The product should be some type of mask or hat, The product should be based on one of the six featured books below, each student must complete their own project, and each product must include a writing piece which explains the product. 

We discussed this in class and I answered all questions. The students should be as creative a possible and try to think outside the box. 
The project is due on either Thursday, Oct 16 or Friday, Oct. 17th, depending on the book they have chosen. 
They are responsible to bring in all materials that are needed. 
Rubrics and planning sheets will be handed out tomorrow. 

Good Luck!

Monday we silently read for 15mins and  finished the character card activity from last week. Some students had the opportunity to present them and they are great! 

Tuesday we completed a powerpoint on Word Choice (our second trait). We then had a discussion about the importance of our words. 
"Word Choice is the use of rich, colorful, precise language that communicates not just in a functional way, but in a way that moves and enlightens the reader. In descriptive writing, strong Word Choice resulting in imagery, especially sensory, show-me writing, clarifies and expands Ideas. In persuasive writing, purposeful Word Choice moves the reader to a new vision of ideas. In all modes of writing figurative language such as metaphors, similes and analogies articulate, enhance, and enrich the content. Strong Word Choice is characterized not so much by an exceptional vocabulary chosen to impress the reader, but more by the skill to use everyday words well." http://educationnorthwest.org/

Wednesday - We had our silent reading day

Thursday - We worked in groups of 3 or 4 to complete MadLibs. We realized that most students needed a refresher on nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. After our review, we filled in our sheets and presented the funny stories. This helped to 'drive home' the idea that Word Choice is very important when writing.

Friday we completed our Reading Response Journals. The two that were completed in September were due today, as I collected the work for each month at the end of the month.