Genesis Reading/Writing: We continued our reading and writing workshop.  Students continued their independent reading and writing with individual teacher conferences.  Our current reading focuses on developing interpretive questions (these investigate points of doubt in an author’s text) and our current writing project is our young children’s book development.  Students also reviewed the homophones to, two, too, they’re, their, and there, and demonstrated their knowledge in our first common assessment.  Our PLC uses common assessments to match students with an appropriate X Block experience.  Students also learned about simple and complete subjects and predicates and demonstrated their knowledge in a quiz.  We continued our daily poem study with Sonnet 73 (”That time of year thou mayst in me behold”) by William Shakespeare.

Legacy/Explorers Reading/Writing: Students learned how to distinguish the literary terms “tone” and “mood” through a drama simulation as well as critical analysis of their independent reading books.  Students shared “book talks” on intriguing passages from their independent reading books with members of the whole class.  We spent the bulk of our week composing and revising selections for our Trimester 1 reading and writing portfolios.  The assessment of this work will help students set goals for their growth as readers and writers in Trimesters 2 and 3.  Explorer students also worked with Mrs. Franks on their social studies response assignment.  Additionally, we continued our daily poem study with Sonnet 73 (”That time of year thou mayst in me behold”) by William Shakespeare.

Genesis X Block: Our change unit continued with cooperative learning groups’ discussions of new generalizations about change in Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Stanley Kunitz’s “The Layers,” John Kass’s excerpted editorial ““From King to Obama, by way of Chicago” and Aristotle’s Ethics.  Students also used the Surrealists’ “exquisite corpse” composition technique to develop an original group poem about the concept of change.

Explorers X Block: After the week’s reteaching and practice of participial phrases, students have demonstrated mastery of the grammar material.

Genesis Reading/Writing: Daily independent reading.  Work on any last-minute writing revisions for Trimester 1.

Legacy/Explorers Reading/Writing: Daily independent reading.  Any straggler portfolio assignments are due no later than midnight Saturday 11/8.