Hey guys, I will miss all of you today. I just wanted to let you know that I have most of the writing turned in yesterday graded and I am very excited about how well many of you have done. You really took our conferencing suggestions to heart and made some great revisions to your earlier work. I can’t wait to ger your work returned to you so that we can talk further about some of your stories. We definately have some creative writers amongst us. Way to go.

Don’t forget movie on Monday and Tuesday then on to our final project. Wow, I just can’t believe that my year with the greatest students in the world is almost over. What about you?

See you all on Monday. – Don’t forget to keep going and read yesterday’s blog to help you with the worksheet packet you are doing today.

Mrs. Scales

After two days of ISTEP testing we are back up and running with regular Language Arts classes.

There were several cool articles on TweenTribune to read and do our QW today about. We were reminded to make our posts, well-written responses.

Mrs. Scales had the specific requirements and scoring information about our Oral Presentation part of the final semester exam for us today. She gave everyone a handout that explained that as a part of our second semester exam for 7th grade Language Arts we have chosen or been assigned a topic that has been covered sometime this school year. Our score on these oral presentations will count as 20% of our final semester exam for this year. We were asked to please follow the instructions for this assignment very carefully to insure we receive the highest possible score.

Begin your presentations by introducing yourself and your topic. (10 points)
Give a little bit of information about how this topic was presented throughout the year in English class and how you will use it in the future. (20 points)
Define your topic – (20 points) – For a Book Talk this would mean telling the genre of the book and any distinguishing literary elements that are used in the book.
Give examples – (20 points)

You will also be scored on the following elements of your presentation:

Time – not less than 2 ½ minutes and not longer than 3 ½ minutes (5 points)
Eye contact and presentations (25 points)

After Mrs. Scales doing a couple of sample oral presentations we moved on to our review of The Little Prince. The focus for today’s review was all about elements of the plot, specifically rising action, Climax, and falling action and the rest of the characters.

RISING ACTION • After he believes he has been spurned by his rose, the prince travels to neighboring planets and eventually lands on Earth. He wanders through the desert in search of humans, and he is eventually found by the fox. All of our classes agreed that leaving his planet and his experiences meeting the characters on his travels make up the rising action.
CLIMAX • The fox teaches the little prince his secret, and the little prince realizes the value of his rose. This is when the little prince decides that he wants to go back to his own home planet. The climax of the plot occurs when the Little Prince decides to return to his planet and care for his special flower. He has learned from the fox that the important things in life cannot be seen with the eye, only felt with the heart. This lesson eventually makes the Little Prince realize that the flower from which he has fled is really very special. After meeting the narrator and explaining all that he has learned since he left his planet, the Prince accepts that he really loves the flower because she is his responsibility, and he has invested time and trouble in her survival. As a result, he decides that he must go back to his star to take care of his special rose.
FALLING ACTION • The prince meets the narrator, to whom he passes along the fox’s instructions. He is then sent back to the heavens by the snake’s bite. – This part was a little confusing for some of us, because the book begins with the little prince meeting the narrator. Then we remembered that when he meets the narrator he then begins to tell him about all of the things that have already happen to him. That made the order of the book a little easier to understand.

The list of characters we reviewed was lengthy and included:

The fox
The Little Prince meets the fox in the desert. The fox is a wise creature, which teaches the Prince about the essence of life. After they become friends, the fox asks the Little Prince to ‘tame him, which is what the latter does. Although the fox asks the little prince to tame him, the fox is in some ways the more knowledgeable of the two characters, and he helps steer the prince toward what is important in life. In the secret the fox tells the little prince before they say their good-byes, the fox sums up three important lessons: only the heart can see correctly; the prince’s time away from his planet has made him appreciate his rose more; and love entails responsibility.
The King
The king is the sole inhabitant of asteroid 325, which the Little Prince visits after leaving his own planet. He is the first person the little prince meets. The king insists upon his authority being respected and does not tolerate disobedience; however, since he is a very good man, he makes his orders reasonable. Just before the Prince leaves the king’s planet, the latter makes the former an ambassador.
The Conceited Man
He is the inhabitant of asteroid 326. Totally conceited, he insists that everyone else admire him. He does not listen to anything but praise and expects the Little Prince to praise and admire him. The sole resident of the second planet the little prince visits. The vain man is lonely and craves admiration from all who pass by. However, only by being alone is he assured of being the richest and best-looking man on his planet. Mrs. Scales used a very funny example to help explain this. She said that if she were the only female in the United States, she could probably win the Miss America contest. Most of us laughed at that idea.
The Tippler
The tippler lives on asteroid 327. When the Prince asks him what he is doing, the tippler replies that he is drinking to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. The third person the little prince encounters after leaving home is a drunkard, who spends his days and nights lost in a stupor. The drunkard is a sad figure, but he is also foolish because he drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. Again, Mrs. Scales added her example to help us understand the foolishness of the tippler’s actions. She told us that she is on weight watchers and has to count how many points she has eaten each day. Sometimes if she has a bad day where she eats more than she should have, she thinks, “Oh well, I might as well have Pizza King for dinner because I have already blown it for the day.”
The Businessman
The businessman sits and counts stars on asteroid 328. He thinks that he owns the stars, making him rich. The Little Prince explains to the businessman that he is of no use at all to the stars that he owns. A caricature of grown-ups who is the fourth person the little prince visits. Too busy even to greet his visitor, the businessman owns all the stars. Yet he cannot remember what they are called and contributes nothing to them. Although the little prince comments on the oddity of the grown-ups he meets, the businessman is the only character the prince actively chastises.
The Lamplighter
The lamplighter lives on asteroid 329 and does the job of lighting and then putting out the lamplight. The lamplighter thinks that his is a terrible profession, because once every minute he has to light the lamp, for his planet makes a complete turn every sixty seconds. The Prince feels that the lamplighter is the only one who could have been his friend. The fifth and most complex figure the prince encounters before landing on Earth. At first, the lamplighter appears to be yet another ridiculous character with no real purpose, but his selfless devotion to his orders earns him the little prince’s admiration. Of all the adults the little prince encounters before reaching Earth, the lamplighter is the only one the prince thinks he could befriend.
The Geographer
The geographer lives on a planet that is ten times larger than the lamplighter’s planet. He explains that he is a scholar who knows the location of all the seas, rivers, towns, mountains, and deserts. He is the one who advises the Prince to visit the planet Earth, as it has a good reputation. The sixth and final character the little prince encounters before he lands on Earth. Although the geographer is apparently well-read, he refuses to learn about his own planet, saying it is a job for explorers. He recommends that the little prince visit Earth, and his comments on the ephemeral nature of flowers reveal to the prince that his own flower will not last forever.
Garden of Roses
The Prince meets a garden of roses on the planet Earth. He is overcome with sadness on seeing them because there are five thousand of them in a single garden. His flower has told him that it was the only one of its kind in the universe. He cries when he realizes that his flower has lied to him. The sight of the rose garden first leads the prince to believe that his flower is not, in fact, unique. However, with the fox’s guidance, the prince realizes that even so many similar flowers cannot stop his own rose from being unique.
Railway Switchman
The Prince meets the railway switchman on Earth. The switchman tells the Prince that he sorts out travelers and sends off the trains that carry them. The switchman also says that no one is ever satisfied with his position. During his conversation with the switchman, the Prince tells him that only the children know what they are looking for. The railway switchman works at the hub for the enormous trains that rush back and forth carrying dissatisfied adults from one place to the other. He has more perspective on life than the unhappy, thoughtless passengers his trains ferry. He agrees with the prince that the children are the only ones who appreciate and enjoy the beauty of the train rides.

We finished class today by being reminded that we have to have finished the book before class tomorrow. Mrs. Scales won’t be here and we have a big packet to do about the book. We will have to be able to fill out a plot diagram and give details about several of the characters. This will all help us be ready for the test on Monday. We already know exactly what the test will be because Mrs. Scales told us before we started the book. The test is being able to fill out an 8th grade AR summary for the book. That means not just writing a plot summary, but listing details for each element of the plot.

The deadline for our first of three required writing assignments is coming up fast. We have to have one final draft turned in by the start of class on Thursday, April 29th; that’s just three days from today!

Our writing workshop mini lesson for today showed us how to use our color coded Quick Checks to make sure we have revised and edited our writing based on the genre of writing we are turning in. For example, one of the check list items for expository writing is, “Search for hidden and unusual details that most people wouldn’t know. However, “Show readers the weakness in the opposing viewpoint” is a check list item for persuasive writing. Mrs. Scales says most of us are doing really good in understanding how to work plot lines into our narratives and we all knew that “Figure out how the conflict, problem, or question will be resolved” was from the narrative writing check list.

We wrote and conferences with Mrs. Scales all period today. I love writing workshop days.

What bad habits or small problems can you think of that need to be taken care of while they are little? (problems in friendships, getting behind in schoolwork, etc.) List the “baobabs” of our planet and/or country. How would you uproot them? What things in today’s society might be the roots of “baobabs” to come?

Our quick write for today led perfectly into our review of the first seven chapters of The Little Prince. After several students sharing their own quick writes and some lively discussion about the problems or habits that we all have that are easier to fix before they become big issues, we began looking at the following literary elements of the book.

POINT OF VIEW • The narrator gives a first-person account, although he spends large portions of the story recounting the little prince’s own story of his travels.
SETTINGS (PLACE) • The Sahara Desert and outer space. (TIME) • “Six years ago,” although the current date is never specified we are able to determin that it is sometime after the invention of air planes. The book is not set in a particular period or in one specific place. In the first chapter the narrator writes about his childhood experiences with drawings and about his low opinion of adults. In the second chapter the narrator starts narrating a particular series of incidents. He writes of the time when his plane crashed in the desert of Sahara six years ago. Most of the narrative after the second chapter is set in the desert. The other places that function as settings include the asteroid where the Little Prince has his home and the planets that the Little Prince visits, including asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330. The last planet that he visits is the Earth, where he meets the narrator in the Sahara Desert. The story is really about the narrator’s friendship with the Little Prince and about the Prince’s own quest, which takes him to seven planets apart from his own.
Characters
The narrator is really the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The reader hears his voice throughout the book as he relates the story of the Little Prince and of his own friendship with him. The narrator says plainly that he is a romantic who does not like adults, whom he finds too practical; instead, he prefers children, whom he finds natural and delightful. The narrator writes this story of his encounter with the Little Prince in order to deal with the sorrow of losing his precious friend. A lonely pilot who, while stranded in the desert, befriends the little prince. They spend eight days together in the desert before the little prince returns to his home planet. Although he is discouraged from drawing early in his life because adults cannot understand his drawings, the narrator illustrates his own story and makes several drawings for the little prince. The narrator is a grown-up, but his view of the world is more like a child’s than an adult’s. After the little prince departs, the narrator feels both refreshed and saddened.
The Little Prince The novel is named after the Little Prince, who is a mystical and loveable person. He is the sole inhabitant of a small planet, which the narrator refers to as B-612. The Prince leaves his planet to visit other places and finally lands on Earth. In the Sahara Desert, he meets the narrator and befriends him. The narrator tells of his encounter with the Prince and also relates the adventures of the Prince on the other asteroids that the latter has visited. One of the two protagonists of the story. After leaving his home planet and his beloved rose, the prince journeys around the universe, ending up on Earth. Frequently perplexed by the behavior of grown-ups, the prince symbolizes the hope, love, innocence, and insight of childhood that lie dormant in all of us. Though the prince is sociable and meets a number of characters as he travels, he never stops loving and missing the rose on his home planet.
The Turkish Astronomer The narrator mentions the Turkish astronomer in the fourth chapter. The narrator believes that the planet from which the Little Prince has come is the asteroid known as B-612. A Turkish astronomer first sees this asteroid through the telescope in 1909. The first human to discover the prince’s home, Asteroid B-612. When the Turkish astronomer first presents his discovery, no one believes him on account of his Turkish costume. Years later, he makes the same presentation wearing Western clothes, and his discovery is well received. The scientific community’s treatment of the Turkish astronomer reveals how what someone wears or looks like has an affect on whether people will believe them or not.
The Little Prince’s flower or The Rose On the Little Prince’s planet, the flowers are usually very simple; but one day, from a seed blown from afar, a new flower comes up that is very beautiful, but also very vain or conceited. The Prince begins to doubt the flower’s credibility and finally leaves his planet to escape the company of the flower. A coquettish flower who has trouble expressing her love for the little prince and consequently drives him away. Simultaneously vain and naïve, she informs the little prince of her love for him too late to persuade him to stay home and not to travel. Throughout the story, she occupies the prince’s thoughts and heart.
Baobabs, harmless trees on Earth, pose a great threat to smaller planets like the prince’s if left unchecked. They can squeeze whole planets to pieces with their roots. Although baobabs have no malicious opinions or intentions, they represent the grave danger that can befall people who are too lazy or indifferent to keep a wary eye on the world around them.

Elements of Plot We have been use to just doing a plot summary on our AR summary forms, but next year our 8th grade AR summaries require us to break down the books we have read into the specific elements of the plot. We will need to know the exposition or introduction of the conflict, the rising action, climax, falling action and the resolution. This is something that we should be aware of as we read the book, but may not be able to clearly identify until we have finished reading the book.

After reading the first four chapters of The Little Prince, our thought provoking quick write for the day was:

Write your thoughts or a response to the quote, “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be aways and forever explaining things to them.”

What a great quote! Several students shared their quick writes and a lively discussion followed. It seems that even in 7th grade many students do not feel that their parents or adults in general really try to understand things on their own.

Today was the last day for root word review, and the BIG test in tomorrow. Everyone finished their root word presentations.

We reviewed the requirements for our 4th grading period writing assignments yet again. Today our focus was on the narrative piece. We reviewed the necessity of a plot that follows a plot diagram in any story.

For our QW today we did a pre-reading journal activity for our first reading assignment in The Little Prince. Mrs. Scales had an example on the front board. It looked like a T chart with the word Adult written above one column and the word Child written above the second column. Our task was to think about the way adults and children think differently. We listed qualities or personality traits for adults and children on the chart and then had to write an example to describe how children and adults look at things in different ways.

Our homework reading for today is: Chapters 1-4 (pages 3 – 19) of The Little Prince.

We continued root word presentations and worked on our writing assignments for the remainder of class today.

What would your list look like if you were asked to make a list of the five most important things to have in life? That was exactly what we had to do in class today. Our QW was to list in order the five most important things to have in life. Lots of people shared their lists after quick write time. It was pretty interesting to see what everyone thought was most important. Then Mrs. Scales explained that we will be reading a book and then viewing a performance called “The Little Prince,” in which a young boy meets some adults who value power and money. The boy does not understand the world of adults and their priorities just like we didn’t understand everyone’s list of the most important five things.

As further introduction to the book, we reviewed five literary terms that we have had earlier this year:

Fantasy – a fictional genre marked by the use of imaginary characters (vampires, fairies, unicorns) or elements of the setting (red rivers, floating mountains, a chocolate forest). Our example was Twilight. We talked about the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction as genre. If a vampire book is based more on the DNA or scientific issue of the blood it could also be considered Science Fiction. The big difference is that Science Fiction starts from a scientific idea that is depicted in a way that possibly created a world that is not real to us today.
Fable – a fictional genre in which a moral lesson is being taught. Many fables have personified animals as characters. We reviewed the Fable of King Midas that we had studied during the mythology unit earlier in the year.
Allegory – a story that has both a literal and a figurative or symbolic meaning. Our example was the short story we read earlier this year, “Rip Van Winkle”. The literal meaning of the story had to do with a nagging wife, while the figurative meaning of the nagging wife represented the King of England during the time leading up to the American Revolutionary War.
Satire – a critical humor than makes fun of someone – quick witty mocking.
Parody – created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work by means of humorous imitation. A parody may use satire or irony. We talked about Saturday Nigh Live and Scary Movie being good examples of parodies.

Mrs. Scales explained that this book is going to be a fun example and review of all of those lessons. She told us that The Little Prince was first published in French in 1943 and translated into English that same year. At first glance (on the literal side), The Little Prince appears to be a children’s story with its imaginative plot and drawings. The story is of a young boy, the Little Prince, from a far away asteroid who arrives on the planet Earth after an interplanetary journey that has the markings of a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey to a specific destination for a specific purpose. In this story the boy is trying to find the meaning of life and love.

Mrs. Scales then ask, “What was going on in the world at the time this book was published?”

We were correct in answering that it was during the time of World War II. Pleased that we seemed to know a little about world events Mrs. Scales went on to explain that on a different level (the figurative or symbolic level), The Little Prince is a tale told to the adult world. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote this book while he was in exile in America. So at this point we talked about how being exiled means that someone if forced to leave and not allowed to return. France had fallen to Nazi Germany and the author couldn’t stay in his home country for fear of death. Many see the story as a warning to adults who govern and live in this world. Saint-Exupéy condemned the appeasement policy that allowed Hitler to become powerful in the decade before the war. The tale told is one of responsibility and vigilance. Things of “consequence” cannot be ignored.

Everyone was given time to review the weekly lesson plans with the reading schedule. Mrs. Scales reminded us that even though there was no homework tonight, that it is our responsibility to make sure we stay up to date with the reading schedule. That means that even if we have track on Wednesday evening and don’t think we will be able to read Wednesday night, we have to have the required amount of reading done before we come to class on Thursday. This is another one of those responsibility issues that she keeps talking about. It is our responsibility to know what is due when and make what ever adjustments we need to make to get the reading done. Her suggestions were to read during our reading lab each day.

Most classes also continued root word presentations. The BIG root word test is Thursday.

With the 8th graders in Washington D.C. and the 6th graders taking a field trip, it was quiet around Selma Middle School today.

Our QW for today was: What helps you remember how to spell certain words?

Everyone showed Mrs. Scales their W-R’s notebooks to receive the homework participation points.

We reviewed the three writing assignments due this grading period and were given the due dates for each of them. Mrs. Scales explained that we have progressively been given more responsibility and more choice as the year has moved on. This is our last grading period and we can work on and turn in any one of the three writing assignments in any order. The first final draft for any one of the three writing types is due on April 29th. That means that one person may be turning in the final draft of their narrative while someone else is turning in the final draft of their expository piece. The second writing assignment due date is May 12th and the third is May 25th. Each of the writing assignments is worth 70 points.

Each final draft must be turned in on top, with all previous drafts and one of the colored checklists and parent letter on the bottom. Just like on the bulletin board: a purple checklist is for a narrative writing, an orange checklist is for a persuasive writing, and a yellow checklist is for an expository writing. Mrs. Scales read the parent letter on the back of the checklist and explained that each final writing assignment must be evaluated by a parent prior to turning it in for grading. She also warned us not to wait until the night before the due date and then use our parents being busy as an excuse for work being late or it not getting done.

The rest of the class period was used as a writing workshop. Mrs. Scales conferences with writers and everyone had about 30 to 40 minutes of time to work on their writing today.

Today everyone finally got registered on TweenTribune and we did our second well-written response to a non-fiction article.

The root word presentations continued.

Today was our first day using TweenTribune as a class. Everyone who had followed the directions and successfully registered with TweenTribune used their Quick Write time to select a news story to read and comment on. The comments had to be well written responses, so that meant no text abbreviations, good grammar, and a complete well developed thought.

Those students who had not gotten registered on TweenTribune had to read the paper copy of one of the news articles that Mrs. Scales had selected. As a consequence of not following the clear directions she had give us on Monday and repeated in the blog earlier this week, Mrs. Scales made sure the article she picked wasn’t the most interesting article. Everyone had time later in class to go through the registration process again. Tomorrow we will do another TweenTribune Quick Write assignment, so everyone must be registered in order to pick their own article and do their responses on line.

Mrs. Scales shared three bits of good news with the class today. First of all she attended the track meet last night and was very impressed with our runners. She said she wished she had taken her camera. That led her right into her second bit of good news. We received another Bell Grant. The grant will pay for 12 flash drives for the classroom, writable DVDs and materials to design and make covers for our whole 7th grade Language Arts class to do a really cool digital yearbook / portfolio. Every student will get to have a DVD to keep and remember all the cool things we did over the last year. The last but certainly not least appreciated bit of good news was that everyone had done such a good job on the Sentence Type homework assignment that we don’t have to do any more worksheets or homework on it. Mrs. Scales said that she was either a really good teacher, we were all extremely smart kids, or at least one of us was extremely smart and everyone else just copied. She was just kidding; she knows that we would never copy our homework.

We did review one of the sentences on the homework sheet that several people missed. It was number 4 on the Complex & Compound-Complex Sentence side of the homework.

Because mangroves have complex root systems, the trees only thrive in very watery conditions, such as wetlands, and slow-moving rivers.

We reviewed the foldable we made for the definition of each type of sentences. While a complex sentence has one independent clause and one dependent clause, there must be at least two independent clauses in a sentence to make it a compound-complex sentence. The only independent clause in the above example sentence is the trees only thrive in very watery conditions. There are two other clauses in the sentence, but they are both dependent clauses.

After finishing the sentence modeling and review, Mrs. Scales reminded everyone that the purpose of the root word presentations is to help everyone remember the root words and meanings for the big second semester root word test. That test will be given next Thursday.