Middle School English

8th Grade Honors

     Classes continue the study of Shakspeare’s Julius Caesar.  This week students received print outs of the iconic speeches they will memorize to perform for their classmates. They are strongly encouraged to study their selected speech in small sections. Additionally, our women’s month speaker this coming week will model how signing interprets musical lyrics. Physical gestures are also excellent aids for memorizing performance monologues, so students should be attentive to this talk. 

Modern, English, and Italian sonnets will be read over the course of the next two weeks in anticipation of another poetry journal entry. 

   This week’s vocabulary  sentences require a minimum of eighteen words, must be compound and contain both a gerund and a participle. Also returning to reinforce students’ grammatical skills is the art of diagramming.

 Poetry journals have been returned and may be corrected in keeping with our standard corrections’ policy.

    The extra credit books for this quarter include Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist for seven points and The Giver by Lois Lowry for three points. 

 

English 8 College Prep

     Classes continue to delve into Homer’s Odyssey and will evaluate the alliance of father and son and their impact upon the suitors. Students will pair their reading with poems themed around The Odyssey. After reading and discussing three, students will choose one for another poetry journal entry. 

     This week’s vocabulary assignment requires sentences to have a minimum of eighteen words, contain a gerund, and a participle and be compound. 

     The extra credit books for this quarter include Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist for seven points and The Giver by Lois Lowry for three points. 

       

         

JWeb

      The yearbook is completed- huzzah! With the monumental culmination of our efforts completed, we are beginning a myriad of projects including some detailed review of different kinds of article writing and photo editing. We also will be completing some graphic design projects to get familiar with different types of Adobe programs such as Illustrator and Photoshop.

Communication Arts and Debate 

     We closed last week with a mock Oscars debate on several short animated films. Next, we are moving into a new debate topic. Students will be brainstorming debates in which we can engage together. We will move away from historical and athletic debates for the time being.

 

8th Grade Directed Studies: 

     Directed Studies - Grammar Review - We are reviewing our Glossary of Usage with common words that are used and accepted in the English language. We are also beginning our review for the ERB tests in April. 

    

7th Grade Directed Studies

     On the grammar front, students are studying the proper pronouns to use in the nominative case and the objective case. In addition, students will continue coding. These STEM activities are engaging and thought provoking. We will continue balancing grammar and STEM throughout the fourth quarter.     
     Next week, students will do some practice Kahoots in Directed Studies to help them prepare for the ERB tests in April.

     

 

7th Grade Honors
     This week begins with a quiz on the most recent vocab list. This list will be the last one using words from To Kill a Mockingbird.

     We are moving into our final literary unit on William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado about Nothing. 

     Concurrent with our study of Shakespeare, students will be writing persuasive speeches that they will present aloud. Reading the play aloud will reinforce students’ oral presentation skills in the writing project.

7th Grade College Prep 

     Upon returning from the long weekend, students will utilize the block period to finalize their To Kill a Mockingbird critical essays. To celebrate the conclusion of this unit, we will spend time analyzing key segments of the Oscar-winning film adaptation, observing how the text translates to the screen. 

     In our grammar studies, we are continuing to sharpen our mechanics regarding apostrophes and plurals. Students are highly encouraged to submit corrections for their recent quiz to reinforce these concepts; we will continue to build on this progress through daily bellwork and homework in preparation for a follow-up assessment at the end of the week.

     During the second half of the week, we will transition to the world of Shakespeare as we introduce our next major text, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To kick off this unit, students will begin a poetry journal where they will practice the fundamentals of scansion, rhyme schemes, and textual annotation. 

     As we enter the final two-month stretch of the school year, I encourage everyone to stay proactive. Taking advantage of assignment corrections and planning ahead with extra credit reading are excellent ways for students to maintain their momentum and finish the year strong.

6th Grade Honors 

     Students have begun reading, annotating, and discussing Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey. While we will read and annotate in class, students will also have lines to read and annotate independently. As they do, they should be sure to define vocabulary that they do not know; write new characters on top of the page with a brief description, and add notes in the margin. We will finish reading and annotating Book II by Thursday, 9 April. 

     In grammar, we are preparing for an adverb usage quiz set for Friday, 10 April. Students will have a collated review packet and a practice quiz to help them prepare.  

     The extra credit books for quarter four are Argos, The Story of The Odyssey As Told by his Loyal Dog by Ralph Hardy, Nobody’s Princess, by Esther Friesner, and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Students will have to read and successfully complete a comprehension check on two of the three novels in order to earn the short essay exemption for the quarter four final exam. 

6th Grade College Prep 

     We have finished reading and annotating Book I of Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey. While we will read and annotate in class, students will also have lines to read and annotate independently. As they do, they should be sure to define vocabulary that they do not know; write new characters on top of the page with a brief description, and add notes in the margin.

     In grammar, students are preparing for an adverb usage quiz scheduled for Friday, 10 April. Students will collate a review packet and have practice sheets to help them prepare.