If absent, students are expected to follow what is listed in their planner. We keep an updated calendar at school that students may look at any time they are absent. Below you will find what we do daily all year long. Students also know what they are currently doing in class. See Skyward for any available attachments (sometimes all assignments are attached to past ones of a unit, as well). All make-up work is due in a timely manner, which may be upon return.
Daily Agenda Items: Students may always study States, Vocabulary (packet) and DL for the week.
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Mondays:
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Tuesdays:
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Wednesdays:
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Thursdays:
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Fridays:
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Jamestown DBQ - Assignments - October 1-13:
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| nightmare_in_jamestown_forensic_notes.docx |
2014-2015 Assignments
Notes:
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September:
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October:
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November:
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December:
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QuickWrites: Every Monday beginning 10/06
On Mondays, or Day 1, students will quickly write, getting their ideas out about the topic. They are not worrying about spelling, puctuation, or sentence structure. But they do want to get their ideas out on paper. They will have about 15-20 minutes for this writing. They may or may not complete this writing piece.
Once every few weeks, students will choose one of their QuickWrites to edit. They will have about 45-60 minutes to work on this. On this chosen piece, they will focus on the following:
As you edit, remember your story will be scored based on how well you:
· develop a multi-paragraph response to the assigned topic that clearly communicates the purpose of your story to the audience.
· describe the characters, setting, and conflict using meaningful sensory descriptions and details that enable the reader to visualize the experiences in your narrative.
· organize your story in a clear and logical manner, including a beginning, middle and end.
· use well-structured sentences and language that are appropriate for your audience.
· edit your work to conform to the conventions of standard American English.
Use any of the tools available to you, such as the Checklist, Spellchecker, or Graphic Organizer.
On Mondays, or Day 1, students will quickly write, getting their ideas out about the topic. They are not worrying about spelling, puctuation, or sentence structure. But they do want to get their ideas out on paper. They will have about 15-20 minutes for this writing. They may or may not complete this writing piece.
Once every few weeks, students will choose one of their QuickWrites to edit. They will have about 45-60 minutes to work on this. On this chosen piece, they will focus on the following:
As you edit, remember your story will be scored based on how well you:
· develop a multi-paragraph response to the assigned topic that clearly communicates the purpose of your story to the audience.
· describe the characters, setting, and conflict using meaningful sensory descriptions and details that enable the reader to visualize the experiences in your narrative.
· organize your story in a clear and logical manner, including a beginning, middle and end.
· use well-structured sentences and language that are appropriate for your audience.
· edit your work to conform to the conventions of standard American English.
Use any of the tools available to you, such as the Checklist, Spellchecker, or Graphic Organizer.
Trimester 1 - Narrative Quickwrites
10/14 QuickWrite #1 - Having a Superpower for a Day
Imagine you were suddenly granted the superpower of your choice for a day. Consider which superpower you would want to have and what you would do on the day you had your special power.
10/29 QuickWrite #2 - Duct Tape Saves the Day
Duct tape has many unique and useful qualities. It is used in all sorts of situations to build, fix, and rescue. It also inspires new ideas and inventions. Astronauts have used NASA-brand duct tape in space during the Apollo 13 mission and to repair tiles on the space shuttle. Think of the properties of duct tape and how it might be used creatively to 'save the day.'
Write a unique story with duct tape as either the main character or as a tool/resource used by the main character to fix a dire situation and 'save the day.' Make your story interesting and unusual so that your audience will want to read every word.
11/03 QuickWrite #3 - Boy Reading
Every picture tells a story. Use your imagination and experience to write a story about the picture. Be sure to develop your characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution.
Imagine you were suddenly granted the superpower of your choice for a day. Consider which superpower you would want to have and what you would do on the day you had your special power.
10/29 QuickWrite #2 - Duct Tape Saves the Day
Duct tape has many unique and useful qualities. It is used in all sorts of situations to build, fix, and rescue. It also inspires new ideas and inventions. Astronauts have used NASA-brand duct tape in space during the Apollo 13 mission and to repair tiles on the space shuttle. Think of the properties of duct tape and how it might be used creatively to 'save the day.'
Write a unique story with duct tape as either the main character or as a tool/resource used by the main character to fix a dire situation and 'save the day.' Make your story interesting and unusual so that your audience will want to read every word.
11/03 QuickWrite #3 - Boy Reading
Every picture tells a story. Use your imagination and experience to write a story about the picture. Be sure to develop your characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution.
11/17 QuickWrite #4 - On the Roller Coaster
Every picture tells a story. Use your imagination and experience to write a story about this roller coaster picture. This particular scene may be at the beginning, middle or end of your story. Be sure to develop your characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution.
Every picture tells a story. Use your imagination and experience to write a story about this roller coaster picture. This particular scene may be at the beginning, middle or end of your story. Be sure to develop your characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution.
11/24 QuickWrite #5 - Encounter with a Spaceship
Opener: Universe slide show… http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-universe-is-scary
Imagine you wake up one morning to find a spaceship has landed on your lawn. Write a story about what happens next.
12/01 QuickWrite #6 - Only Ten Inches Tall!
Openers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFseZk2PwNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68aYI5LhvM
What would happen if you woke up and discovered that you were only 10 inches tall? How did you become so small? How did you spend your day? What did you do? Where did you go? What were some problems you faced as a small person? How did it feel to be so small? How did you return to your normal size?
01/05 QuickWrite #7 - Choice
Choice #1
It was a cold dark night and not a creature was stirring, not even a... (complete this story)
Choice #2
Tell about your 2-week break.
01/14 QuickWrite #8 - Life Without Electricity Suppose you woke up one morning and found that all the electricity in the country was off and would not be restored. What do you think life would be like?
Opener: Universe slide show… http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-universe-is-scary
Imagine you wake up one morning to find a spaceship has landed on your lawn. Write a story about what happens next.
12/01 QuickWrite #6 - Only Ten Inches Tall!
Openers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFseZk2PwNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68aYI5LhvM
What would happen if you woke up and discovered that you were only 10 inches tall? How did you become so small? How did you spend your day? What did you do? Where did you go? What were some problems you faced as a small person? How did it feel to be so small? How did you return to your normal size?
01/05 QuickWrite #7 - Choice
Choice #1
It was a cold dark night and not a creature was stirring, not even a... (complete this story)
Choice #2
Tell about your 2-week break.
01/14 QuickWrite #8 - Life Without Electricity Suppose you woke up one morning and found that all the electricity in the country was off and would not be restored. What do you think life would be like?
2013-14 Past Assignments
Westward Group Project: go to the following link and follow directions
11/04 QuickWrite #2 - "The Tell-Tale Heart" by E.A. Poe
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a terrifying story told from the narrator's point of view about his descent into madness. Imagine, though, if the story had been written from the old man's perspective -- how would he have described the events that led to the story's conclusion?
Using your imagination, rewrite the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" from the old man's perspective. Be sure to use details from the original story to make your version more realistic.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a terrifying story told from the narrator's point of view about his descent into madness. Imagine, though, if the story had been written from the old man's perspective -- how would he have described the events that led to the story's conclusion?
Using your imagination, rewrite the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" from the old man's perspective. Be sure to use details from the original story to make your version more realistic.
11/14 QuickWrite#3 - An Incredible New Talent
You wake up one morning, and you discover that you have a new
and incredible talent. Write a story about the day you discover that you have a new and incredible talent.
You wake up one morning, and you discover that you have a new
and incredible talent. Write a story about the day you discover that you have a new and incredible talent.
11/18 Final QuickWrite - Final Draft
Choose one of the first three QuickWrites to edit and make into a 3-6 paragraph story. All the above editing criteria apply. Make sure this piece of work is finalized prior to turn in on 11/25, as this will be an Essay Grade.
Choose one of the first three QuickWrites to edit and make into a 3-6 paragraph story. All the above editing criteria apply. Make sure this piece of work is finalized prior to turn in on 11/25, as this will be an Essay Grade.
American Revolution: November 5-26
Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone September 9-October 25
This is an historical fiction book which takes place in 1607, pre-colonial America. Twelve-year-old Samuel Collier is a lowly commoner on the streets of London. So when he becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant, bound for the New World, he can’t believe his good fortune. He’s heard that gold washes ashore with every tide. But beginning with the stormy journey and his first contact with the native people, he realizes that the New World is nothing like he imagined. The lush Virginia shore where they establish the colony of James Town is both beautiful and forbidding, and it’s hard to know who’s a friend or foe. As he learns the language of the Algonquian Indians and observes Captain Smith’s wise diplomacy, Samuel begins to see that he can be whomever he wants to be in this new land.
This is an historical fiction book which takes place in 1607, pre-colonial America. Twelve-year-old Samuel Collier is a lowly commoner on the streets of London. So when he becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant, bound for the New World, he can’t believe his good fortune. He’s heard that gold washes ashore with every tide. But beginning with the stormy journey and his first contact with the native people, he realizes that the New World is nothing like he imagined. The lush Virginia shore where they establish the colony of James Town is both beautiful and forbidding, and it’s hard to know who’s a friend or foe. As he learns the language of the Algonquian Indians and observes Captain Smith’s wise diplomacy, Samuel begins to see that he can be whomever he wants to be in this new land.
POSSIBLE FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS
October- 13 Colonies: We are spending some time learning about the 13 original colonies prior to entering the American Revolution to give some pre-war background. This is important to how the war sets up and how the colonies feel about England at this time.
March- Civil War Activity
Click on the Civil War link below. Go to each of the subtopic sections; Technology, Union, Confederate, Battles, Places/Events, and Culture. In each section, choose another subtopic and list 3 specific facts from this section that are most impactful, interesting, or surprising to you, and why.
April - The Legend of Bass Reeves by Gary PaulsenBorn into slavery, Bass Reeves became the most successful US Marshal of the Wild West.
Many "heroic lawmen" of the Wild West, familiar to us through television and film, were actually violent scoundrels and outlaws themselves. But of all the sheriffs of the frontier, one man stands out as a true hero: Bass Reeves. He was the most successful Federal Marshal in the US in his day. True to the mythical code of the West, he never drew his gun first. He brought hundreds of fugitives to justice, was shot at countless times, and never hit. Bass Reeves was a black man, born into slavery. And though the laws of his country enslaved him and his mother, when he became a free man he served the law, with such courage and honor that he became a legend. Grade 6 Up–Drawing on newspaper accounts and his own fertile imagination, Paulsen tells Reeves's story. Brief sections give the known facts of this hero's life, set in historical context, and longer, narrative sections (the longest being about his boyhood) fill out the details. The result is a compelling tale of the runaway slave who lived as a fugitive among the Creek Indians for 22 years, until the Emancipation Proclamation freed him to become a cattle rancher in Arkansas and, finally, a federal marshal appointed to help bring order to the Indian Territory. Bring order he did, with thousands of arrests and 14 gunfights to his credit. Paulsen doesn't romanticize the Wild West or flinch from descriptions of the lawlessness (including murder and prostitution) that was rampant in the Territory, but this dark backdrop only serves to illuminate Reeves's heroism. The protagonist is a fully fleshed-out character whose story is made all the more satisfying by the truth behind it.–Laurie Slagenwhite, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
April - The Last Dance on Holladay Street by Elisa CarboneThe year is 1878, and 13-year-old Eva has lost all the family she’s ever known. Eva feels like an orphan—but she’s not. Sadie Lewis, the woman who gave her up at birth, is alive and well in Denver. And Eva sets out to find her, carrying only an address on a slip of paper.
But Denver holds more surprises than Eva can bear. When she reaches 518 Holladay Street, she discovers Sadie Lewis’s shocking secret—a secret that lands Eva in a house of ill repute, forced to dance with strangers for her keep. But Eva knows in her bones that she’s free—and that she’s got to escape. In a novel that pulses with the sights, sounds, and wild dangers of the frontier West, Elisa Carbone explores the many faces that family, and freedom, can take. Grade 8 Up–The only world that 13-year-old Eva Wilkins has ever known is her quiet life on the Colorado prairie with Daddy Walter and Mama Kate. But now that they have both died, her only option is to go live with the mother who gave her up at birth. She makes her first trip to Denver all alone and is wide-eyed with astonishment at all the people and buildings. But she is more shocked when she learns that her mother is a prostitute in a well-to-do brothel on notorious Holladay Street, and, even more, that her mother's skin is white, while Eva's is coffee-colored. After she is put to work dancing with the customers for a quarter each, she knows that she has to escape Holladay Street before she is forced to "work upstairs." Carbone's novel portrays the harsh realities of the options for single women in the late-Victorian era in the United States without graphic sexual references. The desperation and anguish these women feel are well wrought and palpable as they are largely portrayed as victims of circumstance. –Anna M. Nelson, Collier County Public Library, Naples, FL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition. |
2012-2013 Calendars
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