We've spent time writing personal narratives and students will be working to turn those into plays, as we participate in Pendragon Theatre's "Young Playwright's Festival."
To gear up for that, we're stretching our "creative muscles" by doing exercises in writing dialogue and creating characters.
Our language arts work continues this month, as we work on editing practice. The students have especially enjoyed the inspirational "editing music" that is played during these exercises...
Independent reading continues and Mrs. Kennedy is scheduled to visit later this month for another round of book talks. The topic this month is graphic novels, and ahead of her visit I've read Smile and Drama by Raina Telgemeir.

Happy New Year!

 

It's great to be back and we're jumping right in by writing "personal narratives" of an important event in our lives this week.
I'll be sharing this strategy (making a timeline) to help students plan their work.
Ultimately, we'll work on turning these narratives into plays for the Pendragon Theatre Young Playwrights Festival.

Just Added: More Links

Here are more links to websites that may be helpful as students work on this week's research assignment:
http://www.biography.com/people/charles-dickens-9274087
http://www.bbc.co.uk/victorianchristmas/history.shtml
http://www.dickenslit.com/christmas-carol/dickenschristmas.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t6t3r

Dickens/"Christmas Carol" Research

Students will work on this research assignment, related to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", this week:

1). Go to the "Team Whiteface HW Page"; open the attachment in the "Mr. Carlisto" section; copy and paste the questions for your assigned topic onto a Word document (be sure to add your name at the top of your document).

2). Research and find the answers to as many of the questions as you can; type your answers onto the word document that you created.

3). Create a works cited page using Noodle Tools.

4). These links may be helpful in your research (you may use others):

http://www.dickensmuseum.com/learning/resources-for-teachers/
http://www.goodmantheatre.org/Documents/Study%20Guides/1011%20Season/ACHRISTMASCAROLStudy%20Guide10-11.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/victorian_britain/

What Will the Future Hold?

We have been analyzing different views of what the future looks like.
First, we discussed the bleak future that is portrayed in the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut.
We compared that depiction with the fantastic, flying-cars world of the 1960's TV series The Jetsons.
Next, we'll read an article in which top scientists predict what life will be like in the year 2113.
What will be in our immediate future in ELA class? After Thanksgiving, we'll tackle Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

Fairness, Equality, Sci-Fi and Trophies

We spent last week exploring the issue of homelessness, reading an article called "I Was Homeless" and watching a clip of a story of 60 Minutes: "Hard Times Generation".
We discussed the matter in terms of "fairness" and "equality" especially in light of statistics like this.
But does "equality for all" mean equal outcomes for all or rather equal opportunity under for all?
This theme is central to the story we'll read this week, "Harrison Bergeron", by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
We'll follow that short story with a non-fiction article which lays out the debate, "Should Everyone Get a Trophy?"

What We're Reading

Grade 7 students have been reading a lot.

Here are some books that they've said they liked in October:

Change Up: Mystery at the World Series by John Feinstein
Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown
The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
Warriors: The New Prophecy by Erin Hunter
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
Crossed by Ally Condie
The Year We Disappeared by Cylin and John Busby
Rapunzel Untangled by Cindy C. Bennett