Amnesty Week

Eighth grade students are being given the opportunity to turn in ASSIGNMENTS ONLY, that they did not turn in. This will happen September 29th-October 6th ONLY and will not happen again this school year. We, the teachers, are allowing this amnesty the first semester only as we understand this is a huge transition for some. Students get your assignments in as soon as you can! Check with your teacher to see exactly how many they will accept. Good Luck!!!!

Socratic Seminar Assignment

We will participate in Socratic Seminars on September 29th. In order for everyone to become familiar with the seminar and for it to be a success, I am providing a link to some valuable information.

Students, your assignment is to go to the website, print the information, and bring it to class with you on Friday for our introduction to the Socratic Seminar. The link for the information is under the "Linx" portion of this blog and titled "Socratic Seminar".

Reading and Writing help

I have added a link in "The Linx" that will aid your child in reading and writing. There are some great resources on this page, just bear in mind that I will utilize this page as well and may give an assignment from this page. The actual site, internet4classrooms can help with your younger children as well. I encourage you to at least check it out and see what they have to offer.

Writing Prompt Essays

I have had several requests from students to take essays home to parents. The essays are part of the student portfolio and will not leave my classroom; however, I will make copies of essays and send those home. Please tell your child to make it known to me that you would like to see the essay. Thank you.

District Writing Prompt

After looking at the essays from our district writing prompt, I am pleasantly surprised. It seems that our biggest problem is writing to answer the prompt. I know that some of you may think that is a big problem and why would I be pleasantly surprised, but that is actually not bad. This is very easily corrected. It becomes difficult when students have trouble with writing coherent sentences to make clear and concise paragraphs to communicate their ideas. I did not see too much of that as I was grading the essays. Our eighth graders have minor problems with grammar and sentence variation as well as use of the word "like". Sometimes it seems as though I am having an oral conversation instead of reading a piece of written communication, but the ideas are, nevertheless; communicated in a pretty clear and concise manner. I will see if I can find some websites for parents and students alike, for help in writing. We have also been given a cd entitled, "itext" to go along with our writing book that the students will get to utilize at school and home.

The writing prompt was as follows: Think about what makes a job ideal for a teenager. Now describe the job and explain why it would be ideal.

Notebook Check

The grade for the notebook check on engrade.com was incorrect as of today, 9/5/08, 7:00 pm. It has now been changed and is correct as of today, 9/5/08, 7:20 pm. I apologize for any inconvenience.