Welcome Back!

Well, we've finished our first two weeks back after Winter Break!  We spent the first week working on newspaper skills.  Overall, the students seemed to learn alot about newspaper terms and sections. 

Last week we read and wrote Urban Legends.  The students really seemed to enjoy these tales and we talked about the difference in urban legends and fairytales.  Ask your student about them!  They should all know what makes a good urban legend.  We finished the week with a nonfiction short story about a woman who awoke from a coma after 16 years.  With this story, we worked on inference skills and several other comprehension strategies.

For the next two weeks or so, we will be working on reading technical materials.....specifically focusing on using student textbooks from other classes.  We will be learning techniques for reading graphics and websites and also for previewing a test (all skills that will, hopefully, serve the students well on the CRCTs).  Next week we will be going into the computer lab to work on reading websites.

This quarter we are also doing alot of vocabulary work.  Each Monday we will be working with the Classical Roots vocabulary text, learning about Greek and Latin roots.  Every day, we start class with  vocabulary warmup from the book "100 Words Every High School Freshman Needs to Know".  We will be having a vocabulary test after every 10 words.  The warmups are also graded for a classwork grade. 

We are requiring a spiral notebook this semester.  There are still several students who do not yet have their spiral in class.  If there is difficulty in getting one, please let me know.  I have given out 10 spirals with the understanding that the students will repay me with a spiral when they get one. 

Keep on reading each night and filling in those book logs! And, as always, contact me by email with any questions or concerns.