FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

ISTEP PREP: I will be fitting in some quick ISTEP practice exercises to help prepare the middle school for the ISTEPSs at the end of this month.

6th GRADE

Grammar

*We have finished Chapter 14 covering nouns and pronouns. Now, we are looking more closely at pronouns with Chapter 23. There will be workbook pages, quizzes, and an end quest for this unit.

Writing

*We will begin to write journals leading to a persuasive research essay. This piece will take a great deal of time, since we have to learn how to document sources and the form for a five paragraph essay with a thesis statement.

Diagramming

*With Catholic Schools Week and the snow days, we were unable to get to a diagramming week. Therefore, we will be learning how to diagram interrogative and imperative sentences this month. There will be a quest on this after a week of practice.

7th GRADE

Grammar

*We will be working on writing dialogue with proper quotation marks, comma use, and paragraphing.

*We will be having a quest over all areas of punctuation, including hyphens, semicolons, colons, brackets, dashes, etc.

Writing

*We are finishing up on our persuasive journals. We will then write a five paragraph essay with documented sources.

Diagramming

*We will be diagramming direct objects. There will be a quest after a week of practice.

8th GRADE

Grammar

*We are working through Chapter 27 covering capitalization. We took a diagnostic test before beginning this unit, therefore, some students have tested out of certain sections. There will be a quest over this unit that all of the students will take.

Writing
*We are beginning our research for the persuasive essay. We will be reviewing how to document research sources.

*The essay should be complete by the end of this month.

Diagramming

*We will be diagramming appositive phrases. We will practice them for a week and then have a quest at the end of the week.