January 12th

Students will take a quiz on "The Birthmark."  They will also be assigned in class essay that will count as a major grade.

January 8th

Students will read "The Birthmark" and complete activities relating to the story.

November 17th

We will finish Lemon Brown.  Students will be assigned a creative project on the story that will be both in class and at home.  The project will be due before Thanksgiving.

November 4th.

Literacy 7 will complete their venn diagram comparing "The Monkey's Paw" to "The Third Wish."

Criteria Grading of Venn Diagram

October 27th

Literacy 7 will read and discuss literary elements in "The Monkey's Paw."

Welcome to Ms. Johnson's

Literacy Connections 6 / 7

What's happening in Literacy Connections 7

April 13-17

Literacy:

This week we will focus on how theme is developed through characters, setting and plot.  In class we will read "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury which is an example of the genre of Science Fiction.  The students will demonstrate their knowledge of theme by creating a comic strip with one of the following themes:

Friends help each other.

Bullying hurts everyone involved.

Change can be scary.

Getting older can be tough.

Life’s easier with a good attitude.

It’s okay to be different.

Grammar:

From now until the end of the year we will be reviewing all the literary devices and tools that we have learned during this school year in preparation for the End of Grade test in Language Arts.  These include the following:

personification

hyperbole

antonym

synonym

simile

metaphor

March 30 - April 10

Literacy:

Welcome back to Track 1!

During the next two weeks we will begin our Unit "Singled Out" looking at the following essential questions:

What does it mean to be an insider or an outsider?

Why is it important for people and cultures to construct narratives about their cultures?

Next week we will read "The Monsters on Maple Street" and analyze this selection based on our essential questions.

Grammar:

From now until the end of the year we will be reviewing all the literary devices and tools that we have learned during this school year in preparation for the End of Grade test in Language Arts.  These include the following:

personification

hyperbole

antonym

synonym

simile

metaphor

March 9-27

Literacy:

During the next three weeks our focus will be on the unit "Say you want a Revolution".  The students will be reading fiction and nonfiction selections and analyzing them using the following essential questions:

How does conflict lead to change?

How does conflict influence decisions and actions?

What does a revolution look like?

Grammar:

We will be concluding our unit on the four types of sentences.  Students will receive a study guide on Wednesday, March 11 to assist them studying for the test on Friday, March 13.

The weeks of March 16 and March 23  our grammar focus will be on the literacy device - HYPERBOLE.

February 10 -20

Grammar:

For the next three weeks we will be focusing on the four types of sentences: Imperative, Interrogative, Exclamatory and Declarative.  For practice at home you might have your student visit the following cite:

The four types of sentences

January 5- February 9

During the month of January I will be out following hip surgery.  Ms. Townley will be the sub in the class for these three weeks.  

Literacy:

For the next three weeks the students will be reading and  discussing the novel "Number the Stars" by Lowis Lowry.

Grammar:

The grammar focus for the next three weeks will be a review of metaphors and similes.  There are  sites under the resource tab which your child may use to practice metaphors and similes at home.

December 1-19

Literacy:

For the remainder of this month we will continue our unit on "The Giver" by Lois Lowery.  The students will be focusing on drawing conclusions and making inferences from the reading.

Grammar:

From now until Winter Break we will be focusing on the simple subject and verb and the complete subject and complete predicate in sentences.  On December 15 the students will get a study guide for the grammar test on December 17.

November 10-26

Welcome back to Track 3 !

Literacy:

We are continuing our unit  "The Giver" by Lois Lowery.  This unit will take us through to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Though this literature experience the students will explore how people deal with conflict, ask questions and express opinions.   While reading we will target the literary skills of characterization, critical thinking, predicting, and symbolism.

Critical questions that the students will explore are:

How do humans cope with an imperfect world?
How do humans seek perfection?
Is Utopia attainable?

 Grammar:

We will continue learning about verb tenses (past, present, and future) and learning to use irregular verbs. Your student can use the link below to practice this skill at home.

Games to Practice Past, Present and Future Verb Tenses

November 3-7

Literacy:

Last week we began reading "The Giver" by Lois Lowery.  This unit will take us through to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Though this literature experience the students will explore how people deal with conflict, ask questions and express opinions.   While reading we will target the literary skills of characterization, critical thinking, predicting, and symbolism.

Critical questions that the students will explore are:

How do humans cope with an imperfect world?
How do humans seek perfection?
Is Utopia attainable?

Grammar:

We will continue learning about verb tenses (past, present, and future) and learning to use irregular verbs.

Use this link to practice past, present and future verb tenses

October 27-31

Literacy:

This week we will continue our study of IRONY .

On Monday and Tuesday we will read "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry.  From this story students will work in groups to determine what type of irony is demonstrated in the story and how this contributes to the theme of the story.

Beginning on Wednesday we will begin our novel unit with "The Giver" and continue to explore how humans cope with an imperfect world.  This unit will take us through the end of November.

On Friday it is our Media Circulation Day.  Students need to remember to bring library books to return that day.

Grammar:

This week we will focus on present, past, and future tense verbs.

October 13 - 17

Literacy:

Last week we began to learn about Irony by reading and analyzing  "The Lottery" a short story by Shirley Jackson.  The students worked in small groups to discuss the ironic ending and how they felt about it.  We also watched "The Eye of the Beholder" which helped them to understand situational irony.

Vocabulary words that students will be expected to know by the end of this week are:

Verbal Irony - what is said is often the opposite of what is meant

Dramatic Irony - the reader knows something about a character's situation that the character does not know

Situational Irony - What actually happens i not what is expected to happen

This week we will continue our study of irony by reading O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi".

Grammar:

Our grammar focus for the next two weeks will be on verbs. The cite below is a fun way to help your students review this grammar concept.

Verb Jeopardy

October 6 - 10

Literacy:

Last week the students completed their presentations of the"Encyclopedia of their Life". The students assessed each other using a rubric that assessed their presentation enthusiasm, preparedness, and clarity of speaking.  We will be using the presentation format throughout the school year to demonstrate mastery of concepts.

This week we will begin our unit "Quest for Perfection".   Through literature and writing the students will understand how ideas, individuals, and events interact to develop purpose and meaning.  Reading and discussing questions such as : how do humans cope with an imperfect world and how do humans seek perfection?

Vocabulary words for this week are:  Utopia and Dystopia

Grammar:

Our grammar focus for this week will be on possessive nouns and pronouns.  The cite below is a fun way to help your students review this grammar concepts.

Possessive Pronoun Game

September 29 - October 3

Literacy:

For the last two weeks the students have been reading and writing about how ordinary people demonstrate extraordinary traits in their lives.  We used informational text and multi-media to learn about the extraordinary in the lives of George Washington Carver and Georgia O'Keefee.  The students used their Interactive Notebooks to journal about the extraordinary in their lives and wrote about their lives in short alphabetically organized entries.

We are culminating this unit with a summative assessment where each student incorporates their journal entries, their rubics and their alpha entries into an online Padlet (poster) that is an "Encyclopedia of their Life".

Beginning this week each student will present their padlet to the class

Grammar:

So far this year we have completed grammar units on Prefixes, Antonyms, Synonyms, Similes, Metaphors  and Analogies.  Each of these units will be revisited during second semester to reinforce and expand their learning of these concepts.

Last week we began our unit on nouns (common and proper) and next week we will begin to discuss pronouns.

Following each grammar unit the students are given a summative test to access their learning.  The unit test for common and proper nouns will be October 3.