Six word memoirs and more! Weekly Wrap 11/22

This week, we distilled our life experience and thoughts into a six word phrase, inspired by the Ernest Hemmingway story “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” and the Six Word Memoir project (more here). I absolutely loved the creativity and cleverness in everyone’s writing about their lives and also about the upcoming holidays! Photos of the class collections on the whiteboard can be found on my Instagram, and they’re well worth checking out. I’d also encourage you all to submit them to the website, to be considered for inclusion to more collections! Here’s the video we looked at in class, with the six word memoirs written by teenagers:

In sixth and seventh grade, we have been working hard on writing essays based on this topic:

• Characters in novels often are used by the author to tell us something about the world. Explain how one character in the novel showed you larger ideas or themes.

If you need a new copy of the brainstorming sheet, you can download it here: Essay Planning Sheet.

And here’s the powerpoint we looked at in class about how to structure your essay writing (with sentence starters and a paragraph by paragraph guide): Essay Writing Guidelines Powerpoint

Homework reminder:
Sixth Grade: Introduction and at least one body paragraph of your essay by Monday, 11/26
Seventh Grade: Essay introduction paragraph, Book Review blog post: comments on three blogs and at least one answer on yours, Monday 11/26
Eighth Grade: To Kill A Mockingbird, read up to and including Chapter 20, Chapters 18&19 work due Monday, 11/26.

Finally, just for fun, since we have been talking about how essay writing is like dinosaurs this week (so, so many reasons!), here is an awesome dinosaur project. Keep your creativity alive!

Tic tac toes and To Kill A Mockingbird!

Sixth and seventh graders are working on an assignment that combines a variety of presentation and writing skills. They will be creating final chapters, movie posters, setting maps, original cartoons, poems, and theme posters for the class novels. If you have misplaced your tic tac toe assignment sheets:

7th Grade Tic Tac Toe
6th Grade Tic Tac Toe

7th Graders— your completed assignment is due on Friday, 11/8
6th Graders— your completed assignment is due on Tuesday, 11/12

Eighth graders are working their way through To Kill A Mockingbird, and I’m really enjoying hearing everyone’s thoughtful responses to the book and the issues it raises. I will collect Chapters 10-12 on Thursday, and your homework is reading up to and including Chapter 13 by Thursday, 11/7.  If you have misplaced your quote notes and questions (or if you would like to work ahead!):

TKM Quote Notes Ch 10-15

And, just because Tic Tac Toe is a wonderful, simple game– you can play this interactive video game of it on youtube if you need a quick break from Language Arts! 

6th Grade Blog Post: Book Review

We will be working on how to expand our points in this review with specific examples in the small 6th grade classes this week. Here’s the prompt for the blog post:

1. Would you want to live in the community Jonas grows up in? Why or why not?
2. What is one question that you have about the book?
3. What do you think the main idea or theme of this story is? (what is the author trying to say about life or our world by telling this story?) Why?
4. Explain how The Giver is similar to another book, film, story, or article that you have read or seen. What connections or comparisons can you make?
5. Would you recommend this book? Why or why not?

The Giver- Pre-reading brochure assignment

Due Thursday, 9/19

After reading about a few utopian communities, create your own ideal society. Think about the different aspects of culture you learned about in History (Social Organization, Language, Art & Literature, Religion, Customs & Traditions, Forms of Government, Economic System)– and use your imagination to make a brochure for your community that would entice people to come and live with you.

Consider what the underlying ideals would be like, the role of different people in the society, what restrictions there would be for members, what the role of religion/ science/ technology/ education would be, if there are any things that would be banned, how your society would make money. What would your utopia be called? Why?

Create an advertisement for your society. This can be in the form of a poster, a brochure, or any other visual representation. It should combine a few paragraphs or sentences about the community. Make it as appealing as possible, as these will be graded and also displayed!

You may complete this assignment individually or in pairs. You will have some class time to work on this, and it will be finished as homework.

Grading rubric:

Aspect	Needs attention	Okay	Outstanding
Process	Turned in late, some aspects incomplete or missing.	Completed on time, includes pictures and written information.	Also, finished brochure is attractive and has a professional level of attention to details.
Depth of ideas	Includes limited information on the structure of the society. Some aspects of culture not addressed.	Information about the society is complete, and includes at least two sentences about each aspect of culture.	Also, includes detailed and original ideas about aspects of culture, and explanations for most about why this structure or approach is ideal.
Layout & design	Brochure has some organization, but is difficult to read or	Information and pictures are thoughtful organized,	Also, has visual impact.
Language	Intrusive spelling and grammar errors make it difficult to read.	Spelling and grammar are easy to read. Vocabulary is varied, and interesting.	Also, includes persuasive language (words intended to convince the reader to join the community).
PAIRS ONLY Collaboration	One student contributed more to the project or assignment was not effectively divided.	Students worked well together, and each feels like an equal contributor to the final product.	Also, students can identify at least one way they went beyond the basic expectations of the assignment because of their effective teamwork.

The Giver Pre-thinking– Article Reading

Utopia.

What does this word mean?

1.  Read at least one of these articles about “utopias”: (read them all for extension/ interest)
— Explain what you find appealing about one of these utopiancommunities
— Explain something that you disagree with about one of the utopian communities
          (you will complete this as a quick write in your lit logs)

Articles:

• “My Sister’s Keeper” — About women-only communities, and the desire by these groups to have a male-free space in order to feel comfortable. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/fashion/01womyn.html
• “America and the Utopian Dream” — List of utopian communities in America. More details on each community can be found by clicking on the name of the community. http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/utopia/utopcom.html
• “Four Utopian Communities that Didn’t Pan Out” — Short summary of four attempts to reach an idea community in America. This is the shortest and most informal article, but also the article with the least detailed information. http://mentalfloss.com/article/23297/4-utopian-communities-didnt-pan-out
• “In Pictures: Eight Modern Utopias” — Short summaries of eight utopian communities that you could join today! Also provides link for more information if any sounds especially interesting, as well as a photo for each. http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/10/enviromental-utopias-communities-oped-utopia08-cx_ee_0410ecotopia_slide.html
• “Want to Escape the Modern World? 9 ‘Utopias’ That Really Exist” Short summaries of nine modern day utopian communities, with a photo for each. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/utopias_n_3768023.html