6th grade
6th graders are working with partners to understand their spelling sorts for the week. Silver Surfers are reviewing familiar letter patterns for words with the long and short a vowel. The Flash group is learning about irregular verbs like sweep/swept, shine/shone, and keep/kept. Rogues are working on unaccented final syllables with words ending in -en, -on, -ain, -in, and -an. Our Hawkeyes are studying comparatives like braver/bravest and prettier/prettiest. And our Storms are sorting words from long to short vowel sounds and long or short vowels to schwa as seen in wise/wisdom, preside/president, and metallic/metal.
6th grade has been reading the Book of Three, as we study academic language, details, patterns, big ideas, and rules within the text. We have been learning more literary concepts through the use of literary devices, and Mrs. Pilon's class enjoyed a foray into the Zine world, creating a Special Interest Zine. Zines are a great way to encourage creativity in writing, especially for reluctant readers and writers and students who experience dyslexia. Everyone did a great job!
7th grade
The holidays are the perfect time for 7th graders to practice literary devices in an attempt to bring their writing to life. Through selected vignettes from Sandra Cisneros' classic story, The House on Mango Street, students are realizing they can make their writing jump off of the page. They have been practicing figurative language in a variety of ways, including creating a persona for a turkey and writing about their names in a way that gives the reader a clear vision of who they are in both an interesting and informative way. We are encouraging our young writers to not only explore the topic, but to also engage the audience so that they want to read and experience each unique voice.
8th grade
Students in Mrs. Marrero's ELA classes recently finished reading The Most Dangerous Game, and students have been working on several important literacy skills. We explored how authors develop themes, practiced analyzing lines of dialogue to understand character motivation, and examined word connotations to see how language shapes tone. Students also used context clues to help build detailed story maps, strengthening their comprehension and critical-thinking skills.
Mr. Milton's ELA is preparing to write a paper on 'why human societies have holidays.' We've been looking at a number of holidays--Advent, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, as well as a few others from around the world--as examples or cases of what holidays are and why we have them. We're also preparing a skit based on some of our literature stories!
