Today we got our graded project assignments back. There were some really good project and Mrs. Scales used some as examples. She was especially proud of the overall work that Daxton S. did on both his painting and his newspaper assignments. There were some other great projects turned in and Mrs. Scales started a “Wall of Fame” along the hallway for the best work turned in.

We talked about how each of us learn in different ways or have multiple intelligences. Some people see and remember things better if they have a picture to go along with it, while others are mathematical or number oriented learners. That is why we have so many options on assignments, like the 12 different options to pick from for the final project over, The Call of the Wild. It doesn’t make any sense for someone who isn’t artistic to pick an assignment that requires them to paint a scene from the book, or for someone who doesn’t work well with numbers to pick an assignment that requires them to graph numerical information, when there are so many other options available to them. We have to learn about ourselves and what our strongest learning styles are, so that we can use our strengths and make good decisions when we are given choices in how we show what we have learned.

We were also asked to read the lesson plans and summarize the most important things that we will be doing this week. That wasn’t too difficult; we are going to be working on our essays and focusing on the root words this week.

Everyone received their essay drafts back today. We looked at our introductions. We listened to Mrs. Scales read the introduction of a model essay, and then went to work revising our own essay introductions. Remember that the introductory paragraph of an essay must hook the reader by using catchy language or strong craft and describe clearly to the reader the reason or purpose of the essay to follow. Use your Guide to Writing a Basic Essay handout to make sure your revised essay introductions are complete.

We also walked step by step through how to set the margins and select the font and font size for our writing assignments in Open Office. We reviewed how to save our work in a .doc file to a flash drive. These are very important basic computer skills that we must understand so that we can focus on the writing tasks. The steps we covered again in class today can be found in our English Binders.

Lesson Plan for: September 19-23, 2011
English 7 / Mrs. Scales

Monday—
• Quick Write— Free Write
• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Formatting Instructions
o Setting Margins
o Font – 12 pt. Times New Roman
o Saving Work
• Writers Workshop – Mini Lesson – Essay Introductions
o Rewriting strong introductions
o Understanding Thesis Statements
o Hooks that work

Tuesday— Book Talk Tuesday
• Quick Write: The best book I ever read was…
• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Author Talk – Why do we like certain authors?
o Author’s Style / Genre
• Book Talk Tuesday Presentations:
• Root Card Review (Jeopardy Review for first 15 Root Words)

Wednesday—
• Read Daily Classroom Blog (Identify the main idea and at least 3 important bits of information)
• Root Word Test (First 15 Words)
• English Binder Review Day
o Using Your English Binder as a Study Guide / Text Book
o Checklist for 1st Grading Period

Thursday—
• Quick Write: What book do you think you will read next and why?
• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Root Card: acu and anni, annu, enni (examples already in your glossary; you just need to make the cards)
• Writers Workshop – Mini Lesson – Essay Conclusions
o Rewriting strong conclusions
o Look Back on the purpose of the essay
o Last thoughts to the reader
• Homework – Finish Essay Revisions due at start of class tomorrow. You must have two typed copies; one to turn in for grading and one to read to class.

Friday—.
• Turn in Essay Revision (Must be typed) on your way into class.
• Read Daily Classroom Blog (Identify the main idea and at least 3 important bits of information)
• Root Card: fract, frag – Madison / Blaine / Laci / Ben
• Sharing essay revisions

Today was another project work day.  We did our root word:

-crat, -cracy, -cratic, -cratism, -cratically, -cracies +

(Greek: a suffix; to govern, to rule; government, strength, power, might, authority)

Today’s root word was ARCH which means ruler, principal, or first. It comes from the GREEK archos. From this basic meaning it is associated with chief or head or king or origin in one way or another.

Anarchy : an ARCH y (an’ ar kee) n. A state without government, when chaos ensues.

Architect : ARCH itect (ar’ ki tekt) n. The (first) creator of a design or plan for a building.

Monarch : mon ARCH (mon’ ark) n. A single ruler, as a king.

Today was the first of three class periods that we will have as work days for our final book projects.  Mrs. Scales has a bunch of paper and poster stuff that we can use to do our projects.  All projects and the rubric for grading must be turned in by the end of class on Friday.  Mrs. Scales roamed around the room to check our progress and make sure everyone was on the right track.  Several people had to be reminded to read the assignment option instructions and make sure they were doing what each assignment directed. Like for number 7. Survey 10 people to see how many liked the book and why or why not. Graph your results on poster board. Some of the students just wanted to put their results on a poster and it had to be pointed out to them that the assignment required them to think about the data they collected and do something with it.  In this case graph it. Make sure you are reading the assignment requirements carefully.

Remember you only need to do 75 points to get an A. You have lots of options to select from.

We are working on the writing trait of organization and learning about writing essays.  In order to organize our writing we have to know when to start a new paragraph.  Mrs. Scales said, “developing a paragraph is like shifting a stick shift car; you can’t just change gears willy-nilly or when ever you feel like it.  There is a proper time to shift gears just like there is a proper time to start a new paragraph.”

Then we went on to look at putting those paragraphs together to make an essay.

Guide to Writing a Basic Essay

An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. A classic format for compositions is the five-paragraph essay. It is not the only format for writing an essay, of course, but it is a useful model for you to keep in mind, especially as you begin to develop your composition skills.  You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view, to retell a memorable experience, express your opinions on a specific topic, or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task. Regardless of the purpose, your essay will have the same basic format. If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. You will be responsible only for supplying ideas, which are the important part of the essay anyway. Don’t let the thought of putting pen to paper daunt you. Get started!

These simple steps will guide you through the essay writing process:

Basic Elements of An Essay

1.  Introduction:

– Catchy language ( Hook)

– Reason/ purpose – Answering the Essay Question:

An introduction should answer three questions
1. What am I talking about in this paper?
By answering this question you let the reader know what the subject of the paper is. For example, if your paper were about a particular book, your answer to this question would give the title, author, and any other necessary information.
2. How am I going to talk about it?
This is where you let the reader know how your paper is organized. Here you very briefly introduce your main points or the evidence that will prove your point.
3. What am I going to prove in this paper?
This is the dreaded THESIS STATEMENT. The thesis is usually the last sentence in the first paragraph and it clearly states the argument or point you are making in your paper.

 – Preview of sections coming up.

2.  The Body of An Essay:

– Contains three or four sections, divided into paragraphs.

– Each paragraph deals with one topic.
Paragraphs

–         First sentence contains the topic sentence, which supports the main idea of the essay.
–  The following sentences contain main points you’re making about that topic
–  Other sentences support those main points with examples, explanations, etc.  (Who, what, where, when, how, etc)

The Body consists of everything between your intro and conclusion and it is where you discuss your three main points. A good starting place is to envision that each point is a separate paragraph (or in a long paper each point might be a section). In each paragraph you:

· Introduce your point
· Explain your point
· Give supporting evidence (this is where quotes go!)
· Explain how the point and evidence relate to your thesis
The whole point of each paragraph is to relate your point to your thesis, but it helps to spell it out clearly in at least one sentence of the paragraph.

3.  Conclusion:

This paragraph should include the following:

– a look back on the purpose of the essay

– a look back on the purpose of the essay

1. an allusion to the pattern used in the introductory paragraph,

-restatement of key points

2. a restatement of the thesis statement, using some of the original language or language that “echoes” the original language. (The restatement, however, must not be a duplicate thesis statement.)

-Ending statement that makes you think

3. a summary of the three main points from the body of the paper.
4. a final statement that gives the reader signals that the discussion has come to an end. (This final statement may be a “call to action” in an persuasive paper.)

Everyone has to write an essay for one of the following five essay contests. Tomorrow our first rough draft is due. It will only be graded on the trait of organization. We need to list which contest we are writing for under our properly formatted header.

Fall 2011 7^th Grade Writing Contests

Our root word for today was mono, which means one, single, or alone.

Monarch : MON arch (mon’ ark) n.The ruler of an empire

Monologue : MONO logue (mon’ o log) n. A discourse by one person; soliloquy

Monochrome : MONO chrome (mon’ o krome) n. A painting of a single color

Glogster

We were also given our gloster account information today.  It was on a small strip of paper, so Mrs. Scales told us to tape or staple it to our English Binder or W-R’s N, or to write the information in one of them.  It is important that we not lose the log in information because every student’s account information is different.

The first time we log into glogster edu, we have to use the specific link on our account information slip. It looks something like http://edu.gloster.com/go/gk39tl. The last part of everyone’s link (gk39tl) is different and we have to go to our own.

Once we are on the site, we have to log in with the nickname and password on our white slips of paper.

As soon as we are logged in, we MUST change our nickname to our last name (and initial if there are any other 7^th graders with the same last name).

We are a part of a classroom community and today we learned about classroom participation points.

Participation Points – These are NOT extra credit points.
Everyone must contribute to the classroom community in some combination to earn 15 points this grading period. You can see the complete list of options and
point totals by looking at the Classroom Community link above.

One of the jobs, is the Master-At-Arms.  That person must answer the phone saying, “Mrs. Scales’ room.  Student speaking, how may I help you?” If the caller needs Mrs. Scales the M-A-A should say, “May I tell her who is calling?” before interrupting the class. If the phone call is something that can be handled without interrupting Mrs. Scales the M-A-A should take a message and then tell the student or Mrs. Scales afterwards.  The M-A-A should also handle anyone coming to the door during class.

Our root word for today was the Greek root log or logue, which means word, thought, speech, study of, written word

Logic : LOG ic (loj’ ik) n. Science that deals with speech and reason

Elocute : e LOC ute (el’ o kute) v. Speak out in public; declaim

Dialogue : DIA logue (die’ a log) n. Conversation (speech) between two or more persons

We also reviewed our final project options for The Call of the Wild.  Everyone seemed to understand that they have to do however many project options it takes to add up to 75 points or more.  Mrs. Scales reminded us
that we have a writing workshop tomorrow and then we will only have three days of class time to work on the projects.  All final projects are due by the end of class on Friday.  We can take the AR quiz over the book anytime between now and Friday, but the packet has to be turned in first.  If we don’t turn in the packet and get the AR test taken by Friday we will have to write an AR summary to take the AR test.

We were also reminded that Progress Reports go out on Wednesday.

Way to go 7th graders!

We had our first root word test today and 92% of all the 7th graders aced the test: 30 out of 30!  In fact, only 3 students scored below an 80%.  I am so proud of all of you.  Again, way to go!

We graded W-R’s N for homework entries and the use of craft in our own writing.  It was a great day in English today.

We had a free write as our QW in English today. I love free writes, because I can write about anything I want. Besides, doing a free write in the response section of our W-Rs’ N gives me more writing to practice my craft in. Remember, tomorrow we have to turn in our W-R’s N with at least 10 different examples of craft highlighted in the response section. We have to label the craft correctly. We have been doing two or three different forms of craft every day for the last two weeks. Each day we looked at a few forms of craft, found the definition of the craft, found examples of the craft in the books we are reading, and found in or add the craft to our own writing in the response section of our W-R’s N. The different forms of craft we have reviewed include:

o Simile and Metaphor
o Personification, Alliteration, and Onomatopoeia
o Sensory Detail, Connecting Ands, and Magic 3 (Parallelism)
o Striking Verbs and Proper Nouns
o Whispering Parenthesis, Ellipsis, Colon
o Hyphenated Words
o Commentary Dash

We also have to have 3 homework entries, labeled with an H and the date to get our homework points for this week.

We read yesterday’s blog out loud as a class and discussed again the requirements for something being Expository Writing: it was informative, gave us the most important information that was covered yesterday in class, and even anticipated some of the questions the reader might have. Next week we have to start writing the logs for classroom participation points.

Our root word today was bio and means life. It is another Greek root word and the three example words were:

Biology :BIO logy (bie ol’ o jee) n. The study of living organisms (life). We haven’t had the root log yet but Mrs. Scales told us it means the study of.

Biography :BIO graphy (bie og’ ra fee) n. The written story of the life of a particular person. Remember that graph means something written.

Biopsy :BIO psy (bie’ op see) n. Examination of diseased tissue removed from a body or form of life.

Tomorrow we have our first ROOT WORD TEST. It will cover all 10 of the root words we have had so far this year.

Tele – far away
Phono – sound, voice
Peri – around, near, about
Graph or gram – to write or something written
Scope – watch, view, examine
Micro – small, tiny
Thermo or therm – heat
Meter, metry – measure
Geo – earth, soil, ground
Bio – life

Lesson Plan for: September 12-16, 2011

English 7 / Mrs. Scales

Monday—

• Quick Write – What I like best about the novel is…
• Review Weekly Lesson Plans on Moodle
• Read Daily Classroom Blog / Review Classroom Participation Glogster
• Root Card: log, logue – Raysen/ Bradley / Chase / Daxton
• Review Final Project requirements for novels
• Review for or take AR quiz

Tuesday— BookTalk Tuesday

• 1, 2 & 7^th period -Finish reading any of The Call of the Wild by Jack London that you have not completed or take AR test.
• 4th period QW – What makes a fantasy world real to you when you read a really well written fantasy?

• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Root Card: mono –. Austin/ Darinda / Shelby / Jalen
• Book Talk Tuesday Presentations:
• Writing Mini Lesson – What is an Essay
• Writing Workshop – Revisions on Essay

• Homework: Complete any reading not finished in class. Begin working on selected final project items.

Wednesday— Progress Reports

• 1, 2 & 6^th period –Take AR test over The Call of the Wild by Jack London if you have not taken it yet.
• 4th period – The World of Fantasy – Creating a World for Your Fantasy Project Introduction
• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Root Card: arch – Lucas / Levi / Lexi /Perry
• Work Day for Novel Final Project

• Homework: Complete any reading and work on final project.

Thursday—

• Quick Write – Free Write
• Read Daily Classroom Blog
• Root Card:cracy or crat – Karli/ Nathan / Jordan / Breanna

• Work Day for Novel Final Project
• Homework – Continue working on novel final projects.

Friday—

• If you have not taken the AR test for the book your class period read by today you will have to write an AR summary to take it later.
• Root Card:the or theo – April/ Brayden / Payton / Cameron
• Last Work Day for Novel Final Project – All final projects due by end of class today.

Yesterday, on Wednesday September 7, 2011 we began class with the usual reading of the blog.  From now on, Mrs. Scales isn’t going to write read the blog on the board because we just all know we need to read the blog everyday.  It is a great review of what happened yesterday in class.   Reading the blog enforces important information we covered and will be expected to know. Such things as the root word for the day.

Yesterday our root word was meter or metry, which means to measure or a measurement.

Our example words were mostly made up of two roots put together and part of our presentation is pointing that out or linking the words to the roots we have learned or in some cases will be learning.

Pedometer : pedo METER (pe dom’ et er) n.Instrument for measuring the distance walked.  We haven’t had the root ped yet, but it means foot, as in walking by foot.

Perimeter : peri METER (pe rim’ et er) n.The distance around a closed plane figure. Everyone should always get this measurement correct in math class because we have used the example word so many times. Peri means around and meter means measurement, therefore the perimeter is the measurement around the outside of something.

Thermometer : thermo METER (ther mom’ et er) n. An instrument for measuring heat. We have already had therm and know it means heat,  Stick meter on the end of thermo and obviously you have something to measure heat.

We also reviewed all of the root words we have has so far so that everyone will be ready for the test on Friday.  It is our first root word test and worth 30 points.

We moved on to a packet on the book we are reading.  Most of us received The Call of the Wild packet, but 4^th period received a packet on Artimis Fowl.

The Call of the Wild packet reviewed the idea of using context clues to identify both literal and inferential meanings to words we might not know. We had 20 words from the book and Mrs. Scales went through the meaning to each one of them in class.  The smart thing to do was to write down the definition for each word while she was explaining it in class, but those who didn’t do that will now have to use a dictionary to look the words up again.  We did the first question in class, but have to complete number 2 through 11 on our own.

The packet also had three examples of graphic organizers. Remember a graphic organizer is a way to visually put information into a picture for the mind. We have to add at least three more situations and how they changed Buck from the first three chapters on the first graphic organizer. The second graphic organizer is a spider chart and we have to complete it for chapters 4 and 5.  Then when we are finished with the book, the last graphic organizer is a sequence chain where we have to list in the order that they happened the steps Buck took on his gradual return to the wild.

The packet also has a list of characters and dogs from the book. We should know who each one is before we attempt to take the AR quiz over The Call of the Wild.  We have to turn our packet in when we are ready to take the AR quiz and that could be anytime between now and next Tuesday.

We had a little time left in class to work on the craft review of the day.  Today we reviewed Whispering Parenthesis, Ellipsis, and Colons.