Writing is what seventh grade English is all about!  Throughout the school year, we focus on the six traits of effective writing—ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, word choice, and conventions.  There are several things parents can do in partnership with us.  First, please check your child’s assignment notebook each night and ask about long-term projects.  Homework in my class is often not the traditional worksheet or page out of the book.  More often, my homework is something like working on a rough draft or editing a piece of writing.  Sometimes students forget that this is “real” homework, so they fail to have it done on time.  In addition, each student has a binder for English class, which was collected and organized for them.  When you open the binder, the first thing you should see is whatever we are currently working on!  Throughout the binder you will also find our editing practice pages, reference materials, information on the six traits of effective writing, special projects we are working on, and more.  

Please feel free to call me at 668-8518 ext. 264 if I can ever be of help to you.  I do have joining me this quarter a student teacher, Ms. Kim Goeres, from Concordia University, and she can be reached at my number as well.  Both Miss Goeres and I look forward to working with your children this quarter.

October:

We have started a novel unit on Freak the Mighty that will take us through to the end of the quarter. We will be doing a lot of class discussion and work in class but please be aware that the students have a dictionary project that they should be working on throughout the unit. After we finish the novel, the students will be doing a fun project to demonstrate the ideas discussed in class. We have had a number of students who have not been completing their assignments on time. Any help you could give by checking their assignments at night would be appreciated.

November:

At the start of the new quarter, the seventh grade English students will be studying how to organize their writing effectively.  Students will be working on sequencing, sticking to a topic, using transitional words and phrases, and writing effective leads and conclusions.  Look for students to be doing several small writing projects during this time.  We will also be continuing our study of capitalization, which we do on the last day of each week.

January:

In January, students in English class will be finishing our unit on capitalization.  After that, we’ll be starting a unit on sentence structure and sentence fluency.  We’re going to pay particular attention to eliminating fragments and run-on sentences.  In addition, every Friday we will be having Reader’s Workshop, which encourages students to read independently and to reflect in writing on what they’ve read.

February:

The beginning of February will be a continuation of our unit on basic sentence structure and sentence fluency.  I’m very pleased with the serious approach the students are showing; the students are asking some excellent questions in an attempt to understand the material.  You may have noticed the results of this in improved grades recently!

     In mid-February, the seventh grade will be kicking off its large thematic unit on the Iditarod.  From mid-February through the end of March, our regular instruction will continue, but it will be revolving around the great Alaskan sled dog race, which begins the first weekend in March.  The students will be ending the month of February honing their reading skills as they gather background information about the mushers, the equipment, the race rules, the route traveled, and the historical aspects of The Last Great Race on Earth!  Expect to see lots of details about some exciting projects in the March newsletter!

March:

          March is a busy month in English class!  Your child should know a lot about the history of the Iditarod, which is the annual Alaskan sled dog race.  Students have read all about the history of the Iditarod, the vocabulary of a musher, and the rules of the race.  Right now, students are engaged in two activities in English class:

1. The seventh grade is trying to beat the first place musher to the finish line.  For every hour the seventh grade reads, they earn 5 miles on the trail.  If every child reads the required 210 minutes, the class should make it to the finish line on the 1,049 mile trail.  You should see your child reading at home!

2.  Students were paired up recently, and each pair of students “adopted” one of this year’s mushers!  Every day, the students follow their musher’s progress via the Internet.  The students are also researching an Iditarod-related topic and are writing a multi-paragraph news article.  Ask to see their instructions for the Adopt-A-Musher project because there are a lot of requirements involved.  We do most of the project during class time, but you might want to track their progress at home as well.