Comparing Text and Multimedia

This week, we will be focusing on comparing text to multimedia representations of that text. Students will be analyzing a chapter of The Fault In Our Stars, and then watching a clip from the movie of the same scene. They will be writing a short argumentative essay in which they compare and contrast formats and argue why one form made more of an impact than another.

Here are all of the materials for this assessment.

Chapter: The Fault In Our Stars Chapter 18
Video clip: The Fault In our Stars Clip YouTube
Rubric: Compare and Contrast (RL6.9); Argumentative Writing (W6.1)
Example: Example Argumentative Essay (Annotated)

Figurative Language

Students were hard at work this week identifying figurative language in various songs and poems. Everyone worked really hard and I was very proud of their progress! We will have one more day of review on Monday, and then their figurative language assessment will be on Wednesday, Dec. 10. Please see the links below for helpful information:

STUDY GUIDE
ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

On Tuesday, Dec. 9 we will be taking Winter MAPS testing. Please make sure your child is present on this day as make-ups take your child out of class on a different day where they miss instruction.

Scholastic flyers went home with kiddos on Friday. If you would like to pick up a few cheap books for Christmas, please consider ordering through Scholastic. Order with the flyer order form and a check, or go online and order with our classroom code: HYGYZ. http://clubs2.scholastic.com. Orders are due Wednesday, Dec. 10 so we receive the books before kids leave for Winter Break. If you order and would like it to be a gift for your child, please let me know and I can leave the books in the office for you to pick up rather than sending them home with your child.

Upcoming Week!

Today we began discussion of our newest essential question: What impact does struggle have on people's character? We discussed the struggles of the main character August in our read aloud Wonder, and looked for current events that deal with struggle and how those struggles have impacted the people involved and society as a whole.

For the rest of the week we will be learning about figurative language as we read poems about struggle. Please click here to see what types of figurative language we will be learning and what students need to know for their figurative language assessment next week.

Read in the Dark!

On Tuesday, November 25, students will participate in our annual Read in the Dark! Rooms will be darkened and students will bring a flashlight, book light or back lit reading device, curl up with their favorite book, and relax! We have permission for students to wear pajamas on that day, and they may also bring a favorite (small) blanket, pillow, or stuffed animal. Any items brought must fit into their locker.

Upcoming Dates & Read in the Dark!

Students are learning what techniques authors use to introduce and elaborate on a struggle in text. We are practicing using the inspiring stories of Lauren Hill and Erica Powell. They will be assessed on this skill on Monday, November 24. View the rubric for this assessment here or on the homework page. If your child will not be in school on Monday, please have them check in with me to make up their assessment after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Read in the Dark!

On Tuesday, November 25, students will participate in our annual Read in the Dark! Rooms will be darkened and students will bring a flashlight or back lit reading device, curl up with their favorite book, and relax! We have permission for students to wear pajamas on that day, and they may also bring a favorite (small) blanket, pillow, or stuffed animal. Any items brought must fit into their locker.

This is an event enjoyed by all and even the administrators are likely to pop by with their favorite book to have a break with the kids for a few minutes!

The STRUGGLE goes on...

This week, students discussed what struggle means to them personally, and then were able to see what their peers identify as personal struggles. This changed a lot of student's minds about what struggle is! It was a great revelation to see!

Now that we've identified and discussed our own struggles, we are moving on to identifying the struggles of others and how they react or change to them. We have been reading a chapters of Bridge to Terabithia and Firegirl and analyzing what struggles the characters go through. Next week, we will begin identifying and analyzing struggles in nonfiction text, including a focus on Lauren Hill, the Mount St. Joseph University basketball player who only has a year to live.

Please ask your child about struggle and discuss how our ideas of struggle change when learning about what others have gone through. They have learned an important lesson when talking about struggle: never say something isn't a struggle, simply acknowledge that it is not your struggle.

Unit 3: Struggle

We began Unit 3 yesterday and the students did a wonderful job of identifying their own struggles and respecting their peer's struggles. Our activity was called What's In Our Hearts. I can tell this is going to be a very powerful unit!

Please visit What Are We Studying? to learn more about our unit. For the rest of the week we will be reading a chapter of Bridge to Terabithia, attempting to identify how the plot of this chapter unfolds, what the character's struggle is, and how this struggle changes the character.

For homework, we've asked students to bring in an example of struggle from outside of the classroom. This can be a quote from a novel, a news story, a photograph, or anything else tangible that can be put onto a bulletin board to depict different instances of struggle. This is due Friday.

Unit 3

Happy Halloween!



Today we completed Unit 2 and move on to Unit 3. Please click the What Are We Studying tab to learn more!

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Final Perception Project

We are now in the last week and a half of Unit 2, which means students will be expected to share a culmination of their learning in a final project. Today, each student received links to example projects and we discussed expectations and deadlines. Here is the information you need to know:

What: Final Perception Project
When: Due Friday, Oct. 31 in class
We will be working on it in class Monday-Friday of next week (10/27-31)

Example projects:
Prezi
Google Presentation
Google Doc

Projects do not have to include all elements shown in the examples. Students can choose to showcase their understanding in other ways. The examples are not templates, just examples.

Below are links to an outline of the project expectations and the rubric on which the project will be graded. Congratulate your student on the hard work they put into this unit and ask them to tell you about something they learned while studying perception!

Final Perception Project Guidelines
Rubric

Perception Connections

Students spent the last couple of days on Symbaloo taking notes about articles and videos that center around perception. Their task was to discuss each article they read or video they watched with a partner in order to discover how the topic lent itself to perception of others and self. Students will be taking an assessment tomorrow to demonstrate how they can connect these ideas of perception to the text they are reading in class. If students want more practice on the Symbaloo, I've linked to it below. The rubric for this assessment is also linked here!

 PERCEPTION SYMBALOO
ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

Perception Project!

Students should have come home talking about a Perception Project they have to do for Language Arts. This project is outlined here (students should choose ONE option) and is due on Friday, Oct. 17. Students can present their findings in ANY way they choose. The sky's the limit! It can be simple or complex, written or online. They are in the driver's seat for this exploration project, and it will get them ready for their final project of the unit where they will be asked to synthesize everything we've gathered for our Unit 2 porfolios.

It's all about perception.

Nonfiction Perception Analysis

Students will be assessed tomorrow on listening and nonfiction informational analysis. Today they watched this video 3 times and took notes. Tomorrow they will watch it once more and be asked to write an analytical response regarding JR Martinez's perception and message. The video is below if any students want to watch it tonight for a refresher!


Rubrics for this assessment can be found here (content) and here (listening)!

Schoology

All students were assigned a Schoology Reading Response that was due today (Monday, Sept. 29). This assignment was assigned on Wednesday, September 24th to allow students enough time to complete the assignment or touch base with  me.  If you received a Class Dojo notification that your student was "missing homework" or if you receive an Infinite Campus notification that your child is missing homework this week, this is the assignment to which its referring.

Students are responsible for the keeping of their login and password information and were asked to check that they were able to log in without problems BEFORE the weekend to ensure that they could accurately login, knew their password was correct and/or anticipate any internet concerns (example: no computer, internet issues, etc).  I reminded them that they could attend lunch help sessions or study sessions before school if arrangements were made between us.  

Thank you for taking the time to discuss the importance of your child assuming responsibility for their time management and ability to complete assignments online. Please support me in reminding them that they should keep their logins and passwords in a safe place so that they can complete assignments, and that if situations arise where they need assistance, they should plan ahead so they can still complete homework on time. 

Test Your Brain!

We watched the first 15 minutes of this video in class yesterday to remind ourselves what perception is and how we can tie it to our novels. Students had a lot of amazing analysis and discussion after seeing the first part of this video. I promised I'd put the whole video up in case students wanted to finish watching it. Enjoy!


National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 2... by procrastinator87

Learning Goes Beyond Four Walls

Making connections to our characters/events in the text and tracking our thinking in our journal, will help tie everything back to our concept of perception.  I am so proud of the hard work and deep thinking I have already begun to see.  Students are REALLY excited about our concept, our read aloud Wonder and their own mentor text.  

I encourage students to bring in any ideas, texts, articles or other examples of the idea of perception, misconception, unfair judgement or being misunderstood.  

In-Class Novels (Mentor Texts)

Unit 2:  Authors as Mentors and our overarching concept of perception is under way! This week we started our read aloud Wonder.  Everyone is LOVING this text and are working together to make excellent connections to August and his struggles, all while tying everything back to our overarching concept of perception. Ask your kids about this book, it's a great read! 

Students also began their own novel in class that they will be reading during the unit. We are working together to build reading stamina while interacting with the text.  

Mentor Texts (selected by students--to be read in class)

Students are welcome to get a copy of the text to read at home to keep up with reading in class if necessary.  

• Freak the Mighty By Rodman Philbrick
• All About Sam by Sam Krupnik
• The Truth About Truman School by Dori Hillestad Butler
• Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements
• Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters
• The Loser List by H.N. Kowitt
• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Honors students were given the choice to select one of the above books or select a book on their own, as long as they could tell me how it relates to our overarching concept of perception. 

Unit 2 Begins

Please check the What Are We Studying? tab for information on Unit 2: Authors as Mentors. Our work with Unit 2 begins tomorrow, Sept. 16 and runs through October 31.

Theme

Students are studying how to find theme, and more importantly, selecting relevant evidence from the text to back up their ideas about theme! Students will be assessed on theme on Friday, Sept. 12 and Monday, Sept. 15. You can find the rubric for these assessments here.

Ask your child about working on Table Talks today; we read a short story and then wrote our ideas about its main idea and theme down on large sheets of butcher paper at our tables. This is a great way to collaboratively interact with a text while each student is still responsible for their own thinking.

Close Reading

We completed our MAPS testing today and are getting into the groove of Readers/Writers Workshop. This week we worked on a technique of reading called Close Reading using nonfiction articles. By looking at the text multiple times for different purposes, we are able to notice new details we hadn't noticed before, pull out the main idea, and discover evidence to back up our thinking.

Students have been told that this is an important skill since finding text evidence to support ideas is the crux of our standards in sixth grade. We require evidence for EVERYTHING. This is important practice for a skill they will continually be asked to demonstrate.

Ask your child about what they learned while reading "Dogs on Duty" or "Hard Knocks." Both articles were very enjoyable to read!

Homework this week was simply reading every night. I hope your children are all into a novel of their choice right now. Scholastic flyers went home today. If you'd like a cheap way to get a book for your child, Scholastic is the way to go. Return orders to me or order online by Wednesday, Sept. 10. Our classroom code for online orders is HYGYZ.

Letter To My 8th Grade Self

"Letter To My 8th Grade Self" will be assigned Friday, August 29 and is due Tuesday, September 2. Students must include at least two paragraphs. The first paragraph must describe their 6th grade self (or how the year is going so far). The second paragraph must include goals for themselves in 8th grade and reasons behind the goals. Example: If they want to get good grades, WHY?

Goal setting is one of our standards for 6th grade.

Please see an example letter here. Be sure to use the example to format your letter correctly.

MAPS

Tomorrow (Tuesday), Zephyr core students will be taking MAPS in their Language Arts classes. MAPS stands for Measures of Academic Progress and is one form of monitoring we use to help us inform instruction. MAPS gives us a baseline with which to measure student growth when we take it again in the winter. You can find out more about MAPS here. As always, contact me with any questions or concerns!

Language Arts Syllabus

The Language Arts Syllabus is now available! Please click here to view or download a copy!

First Day of School!

It was a whirlwind first day for 6th graders! We saw a ton of excellent behavior in the halls and classrooms, and are so excited to start learning!

Tomorrow, students are expected to have their supplies for each class. I've listed below what students need to bring to each class. Teachers will continue to be in the halls helping with lockers and we will give some leeway and not mark students tardy this week. It's a great week to practice and get your routine down!

IN ALL CLASSES, STUDENTS NEED A PENCIL AND THEIR PLANNER.

In addition, students should bring the following:
Language Arts: spiral notebook and folder, independent reading book or device
Math: binder, spiral notebook, math book, red pencil or pen
Science: all supplies will be held in class
Social Studies: binder, pencil bag w/ colored pencils, scissors, glue

Students will get their planners tomorrow and a small cheat sheet of the list above to help them remember what to bring to each class.

Parents who attended back to school night, thank you for giving me an email address with which to contact you. That is truly helpful! If you did not attend back to school night, please feel free to email me your contact information and I will add you to the classroom email list. In addition, join Remind to receive important texts about assessment dates! Information is in the column to the right.

Have a fantastic rest of your week!

Welcome to 6th Grade!

Wow, it's hard to believe summer is just about over and it's time to start the 2014-2015 school year! This is an exciting time for your child as they move into middle school and face a whole new set of experiences and challenges. Some of the best advice I can give you as a parent is to let them fly! Your child will learn independence as we guide them to their own problem solving, and gain confidence because of it. Once spring comes around, they will not remember (or admit) how terrified they were to start middle school, and you'll be so proud of the confidence they have gained through experience.

My name is Mrs. Peoples and I am the Zephyr Core Language Arts teacher. Language Arts, put simply, is reading and writing. This year we will be tackling the common core standards and as you know Silver Hills is moving into our second year of grading using the standards-based system. You can find out more information by clicking the links I've provided. In Language Arts, we will be exploring:

• Literacy and how it empowers us
• Authors as mentors
• Theme and perspective
• Argumentative writing
• Informational (non-fiction) text
• Organization and presentation of text
• Providing evidence for our reasoning
• Using figurative language to express ourselves
• Comparing and contrasting types of literature and media

Please feel free to look around our website, subscribe to email notifications, and/or bookmark us so you know where to always find the latest information. My personal goal this year revolves around parent communication, so I look forward to working with you to make this a successful year for all of us! 

Questions? The best and most efficient way to communicate with me is email. I will not answer my classroom phone during teaching hours, so that I can focus all of my attention on my students. christina.m.peoples@adams12.org

After teaching hours you can reach me by phone; if I am in meetings please leave a message and I will be sure to get back to you within one business day. 720-972-5012