8th Grade - Other Side of Life Essay

8th Grade Here is the outline for the Other Side of Life Essay:
1. Open with an introduction paragraph, with the title of the screenplay, the author (Daryn Perry), the genre, and your thesis.
2. Second paragraph will be a summary of the screenplay.

3. Third paragraph will be support for your thesis with character names and specific scenes.

4. Close with a short paragraph rewording your thesis and a closing sentence or two to wrap up the essay.

Topic Suggestions: Add a scene, delete a scene, favorite character, flaws of the story, strengths, how it should be a real movie, how it is realistic, etc.

December Newsletter

6th GRADE

Grammar

*We are creating a flip chart of the types of pronouns.

*We are doing practice workbook and worksheet pages on the various pronouns.

*There will be a quest over the pronouns the week of December 14th.

Writing/Speaking

*We finished our prayer for the prayer book.

*We are working on writing Christmas plays to perform for Kindergarten - Third grade on Monday, December 21, 2009. Any parent is invited to come. More details about the time will be known soon.

Diagramming

*We just finished diagramming adjective and adverb phrases. We now know how to diagram subjects, predicates, compound subjects/predicates, adjectives/adverbs, and adjective/adverb prepositional phrases.

7th GRADE
Grammar

*We are continuing to work on hyphens and apostrophes.

*There will be a quest over underlining, quotations, hyphens, and apostrophes.

Writing/Speaking

*We are writing descriptive catalog ads for products (food, clothing, appliances, etc.)

*We will share them with the class as a sales pitch.

Diagramming

*We just finished diagramming adverb prepositional phrases. We now know subjects, predicates, compound subjects/predicates, adjectives/adverbs, and adjective/adverb prepositional phrases.

Pentathlon

*We are reading through and analyzing all of the poems offered by the Pentathlon. Each student will have to memorize two poems, including at least one bonus point poem. The poetry recitation takes place in March.

8th GRADE

Grammar

*We are continuing to work on clauses with Chapter 20.

Speaking

*We just finished taking the test on The Other Side of Life.

Writing

*We worked in small groups to put music to the screenplay. We discussed how important music is to movies and how it helps to set the tone of the scenes.

*We are writing reader's response essays over The Other Side of Life. These will be due on Friday, December 18th.

Diagramming

*We have finished predicate nouns and adjectives. We now know subjects, predicates, compound subjects/predicates, adjectives/adverbs, adjective/adverb phrases, direct objects, and predicate nouns/adjectives.

Pentathlon

*We are reading through and analyzing all of the poems offered by the Pentathlon. Each student will have to memorize two poems, including at least one bonus point poem. The poetry recitation takes place in March.

December Family Problem

This month we celebrate Christmas! Christmas has a different meaning for each family and person. What do you believe is the meaning of Christmas? Maybe each person in your family has a different view. You can decide together in about five to seven sentences, or you can quote each member separately. These are due to Miss Perry by Tuesday, December 22nd for bonus points or chance tickets. Merry Noel!

November Plans- What's left of it!

November Newsletter

I must apologize for not posting a newsletter sooner. Actually, we have been spending the month of November finishing up October's topics. Here are the highlights for each grade level. Also, I am finally finishing up the grading of the Heritage Projects. It was a massive undertaking, and I appreciate your patience with me as I am taking time to do a thorough grading.

All Classes:

*All of the classes are working at better judging and correcting the use of the 6+1 Traits.

*All classes are diagramming sentences.

*All classes are correcting conventional errors with DOG.

6th:

Writing: We are writing prayers for creating our prayer book.

Grammar: We are beginning Chapter 23 on pronouns.

7th:

Writing/Speaking: We are wrapping up dialogues by performing them this week. We will then be working on descriptive paragraphs and presentations.

Grammar: We are wrapping up the punctuation unit.

8th:

Writing: We have just finished writing our scripts. We will then be writing a reflection on The Other Side of Life. We will also be putting music to the script.

Script: We will take a comprehension test on the script that we have been reading for the past month.

Grammar: We are continuing to work on phrases and clauses.

Don't forget to do the family problem this month!

NOVEMBER FAMILY PROBLEM

Did you know that November 22nd is "Start Your Own Country Day"? As a family challenge for this month, create a new country. What will it be called? What language would be spoken? What would the weather be like? What foods would be popular? What kind of animals would be common? What type of government would you have? What are five laws you would make your citizens follow? Include answers to these questions and a colorful drawing of your country's flag with the title of your country at the top. These are due by Wednesday, November 25th. Complete sentences are expected.

Heritage Outline

Here is the outline for the five paragraph heritage essay.

I. Introduction - 3 to 4 sentences

A. Intro sentence: a question, subject words, quote, or story

B. Thesis: A sentence summarizing your three topics

II. Body- 3 paragraphs

A. 1st paragraph- Where you are from and the story behind that

B. 2nd paragraph- Any other information about your ancestors family, lifestyle, government, schooling, etc.

C. 3rd paragraph- Traditions, heirlooms, and recipes

III. Closing- 3 to 4 sentences

A. Reworded thesis

B. Closing sentence or two about your future and how your heritage will be a part of that

October Newsletter

I have included the standards for some of the activities. If you would like a full list of the standards for an activity, I would be happy to e-mail them to you.
CROSS CURRICULAR WRITING

This month Miss Kendzicky and I have teamed up on an assignment. All three grades are writing a 5 paragraph heritage essay. I am helping the students break the essay into parts and organize their writing. All three grades will be turning in a 25 question interview and will do peer editing on Friday, October 16th. The sixth grade will then turn in the essay to me and to Miss Kendzicky on Tuesday, October 20th. I will grade on the writing traits, and she will focus on the content. The seventh grade will be presenting their essay orally in the form of a presentation the week of the 20th. The eighth grade will only be turning in and presenting the heritage project to Miss Kendzicky.

WEEKLY REMINDERS (standards 6.6.5, 6.6.4, 7.6.8, 8.6.5, 8.6.6 and 8.6.7)
We will have our first Weekly Reminder quest the week of October 12. It will cover the first eight reminders. The test is four parts: correct the error, fill in the blank, choose the right word, and memorize and use one of the reminders correctly. Each quarter we will have a Weekly Reminder quest and it will build in number until the end of the year when there will be over thirty Weekly Reminders.

DIAGRAMMING, DOG, GRAMMAR MINUTES, AND 6+1 TRAIT EVALUATIONS

We continue to alternate weekly the above activities. Whenever it is a diagramming week, we learn new additions to the diagram and have a quest on the Friday of that week. DOG and Grammar Minutes are done in class and turned in on Fridays.

6th GRADE

WRITING

*Heritage essay due on October 20th

*We will be writing prayers for a class prayer book. I have been doing this for over five years and it is a notable way of crossing religion and faith with writing.

GRAMMAR

*Prepositions have been very difficult for us. We are currently wrapping up Chapter 20 on phrases and clauses. There will be a test over this chapter.

*Pronouns and nouns will be the next part of speech to tackle. This covers standard 6.6.2 and chapter 14 in the big yellow book.

7th GRADE

SPEAKING

*Heritage essay presentations

WRITING

*There will be a test over genres

*We will be writing a pretend dialogue with someone.

GRAMMAR

*We are continuing to finish up on the lengthy punctuation chapter. Commas took a great deal of time and we even had a bonus requiz. We will be learning how to write dialogue and use apostrophes, hyphens, and dashes. (7.6.6 and 7.6.7)

8th GRADE

WRITING

*We are continuing to write a script for a story.

SPEAKING

*We will be reading the script by Daryn Perry entitled The Other Side of Life. It is a story about a young man who must change the lives of five people in thirty days or he will die. There will be activities and a test for this. (8.7.10, 8.7.2, 8.3.2, 8.3.4, 8.3.5, 8.3.8, 8.3.9, and 7.7.5)

GRAMMAR

*We finished the chapter on effective sentences and will be moving on to chapter 20 covering phrases and standard 8.6.8.

October Family Problem

Since many of you have been hounding me for the new family problem, here it is.

The month of October brings thoughts of cemeteries (since they're spooky like Halloween). Cemeteries are full of gravestones with interesting epitaphs. An epitaph is a short phrase or poem about the dead person. Some are very touching and others can make you laugh. An example of one would be, "Here lies an atheist. All dressed up and no place to go" or one that is more serious, "As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you too will be. So be prepared to follow me."

My challenge to you and your family is to make up epitaphs for yourselves or if that is too depressing write generic ones (no one in particular). You could be even more creative and pick cartoon, movie, or book characters and write epitaphs for them.

You need at least three epitaphs. You should simply draw tombstones and write the names and epitaphs on each. These are due by the end of the month. I can't wait to see some of your creative tombstone sayings.

New Blog

Hey middle schoolers! Summerblog1 is on hiatus. I now have an official blog for language arts. I can't promise to update nightly, but I'll do my best to update weekly. You will also find the monthly newsletter and family problem for language here. I hope this blog will be an asset for many of you. -Miss Perry