Week 5: 9/29-10/3

This week, we are continuing our learning about the experience of migrant workers. We will be reading several chapters from The Circuit, including "Under the Wire," "Soledad," and "Inside Out." We will be analyzing author's craft in "Inside Out," particularly the way the author uses a metaphor to enhance his writing.

The skill of the week is identifying subjects and verbs/verb phrases in sentences. This is a more simple skill this week, but it is important as a base for the skills we will be working with in the coming weeks as we learn about how to vary sentence structure. Practice here!

HOMEWORK: The students should be reading 30 minutes every night. Also, as a reminder, all Reading Logs for the quarter are due October 30. The goal is that the students are completing Reading Logs every time they finish a book and handing them in throughout the quarter. We will be checking in this week about the students' progress with Independent Reading.

Week 4: 9/22-9/26

This week, we are beginning our reading of informational text related to immigration. The students can access the articles "We Are Americans" and "Becoming American" from the Expert 21 link on the Jamestown Schools webpage. After that introduction, we will be moving toward discussion and reading about migrant workers in The Circuit, as well as watching this brief video on the experience of migrant workers and how it has changed/stayed the same over the last 50 years.

Our skill of the week is commonly confused homonyms. Click on these links for practice with you're/your, it's/its, and they're/their/there.

HOMEWORK: Read 30 minutes every night. Complete a Reading Log when you finish your book!

Week 3: 9/15-9/19

This week we are finishing our Reading Log for the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. We are also beginning our official work of analyzing informational and literary texts. This unit's texts will all be centered on the topic of immigration. We will begin with a discussion, read several texts along the way including The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez, and later close the unit with the same discussion questions to see how our ideas have changed.

Our Skill of the Week is using apostrophes to show contractions.

Homework: Please be sure to finish typing the Reading Log on "Eleven." It is due Thursday, September 18.

Week 2: 9/8-9/12

This week we are reviewing the elements of a story as well as identifying and analyzing character traits. We will be using the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros, When we finish reading, we will complete a Fiction Reading Log together. Also, on Friday, the students will be taking their first progress monitoring assessment for reading.

Our Skill of the Week is using apostrophes to show possession.

Homework: Please be sure to cut, sign, and return the form from the Independent Reading packet.

Week 1: 9/2-9/5

This week will be an introduction to Language Arts. We will be getting to know one another, organizing our binders, completing our Quarterly Writing Assessment benchmark, and learning the Warm Up procedure.

Each week, our Warm Ups will focus on one editing skill - what we will call Skill of the Week. On Friday, the students will be able to use that skill in addition to previously learned skills in their Reflection Friday response. This week's skill is capitalization.

Looking ahead, next week we will be reviewing story elements and working through a model Reading Log together.  

Welcome!

Welcome to Ms. Richer's Language Arts class! Here you will find links to a variety of resources as well as updates for the week.