Please see the handout below to find out more about the Karen Ty Writing Award. Make sure that you take note of the deadline, inspiration, and other important information.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Dear Parents:
Below you will find the published Honors letter for all parents of grade 8 students. This letter explains the honors process for students going into grade 9 next year. The information in this letter is being disseminated through teacher blogs, emails, and hard copies available in the MS office. We are not sending out hard copies with every student because we want to save the environment and the English Honors program is not for everyone.
It is important for parents and students who are interested in this program to read the letter below BEFORE they think about applying. The English Honors program is an enrichment program for students who meet the Honors profile described in the letter; it is for students who are already independent readers, writers, and thinkers. The bottom line is that the honors program will be more challenging; however, it will also bring more homework, longer assignments, and possibly lower grades. The English Honors program does NOT act as a streaming program for IB and will not guarantee student placement in higher classes.
Please take note of the initial cutoff grade for applying. For those interested from grade 8, the minimum grade to apply is now A- from the first semester; please do not fill in the form at the end and hand it in if your son or daughter is below this cutoff.
Please read this letter and feel free to email me any questions you have about the process. Dates are explicitly mapped out for the entire process.
This quarter every grade 8 student, mainstream and honors alike, will complete a literary response essay. Below you will find the topic sheet done in the style of a Tic-Tac-Toe as well as the rubric for assessment.
Our last class of each week is dedicated to group discussions on books while the earlier classes will focus on writing. All of our handouts are available on googledocs. We are doing chunked paragraphing, how to build detail through commentary, references and quotes, and revision vs. editing. There will be numerous opportunities to practice throughout the quarter.
As to the final assessment- it is due on February 16, 17 (depending on your class) and each student will choose one topic from the sheet. We will review our option before, but please do not be overwhelmed by the possibilities; you are only expected to complete one (1) question within one (1) box. We want to focus each student’s arguments as opposed to answering a series of questions.
See the handout below:
I hope that you had a wonderful Chinese New Year’s celebration- welcome to the year of the Dragon.
There will be a number of notices coming out this week for our studies as well as upcoming events- please check this blog out if you can.
This is a late but important message.
Last week I sent out my usual email to parents, the little note that encourages people to check this blog for updates and assignments. Seems that our email server has issues with other email servers- they don’t play together well it would seem- and my notes was resent 50, 70 or even 100 times. Parents with Blackberrys were not happy, notes were sent to the office, and at one point I thought I would be tarred and feathered.
I apologize for something that was out of my control.
I will not be sending out my weekly emails until I get confirmation that the recurring emails issue has been fixed.
Please visit the site if you can despite my silence.
I would like to welcome everyone back to a new year. There should be a slew of new stuff on this blog over the next few days, so please keep an eye out for new postings.
Some things to think about:
1. Report cards for the first semester will be finalized this week- all MS teachers are writing their comments right now- if you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with me as soon as possible.
2. We are starting a new conceptual unit on the power of language; we will have different novel groups along with some delving into propaganda and advertising. The schedule will be posted here later today.
3. We have made the switch over to Googledocs, so all handouts and notes are available through each student’s school googledoc account- if you are having issues getting into the account, please see me because it is vital that you have access to it.
4. Our writing workshop focus will be expository essay writing and every student will be expected to write (and read!) regularly this semester.
Welcome back, and I am looking forward to a great semester.
Hopefully we will move away from having to post these sheets when we get the googledoc system up and running properly- it is taking some time.
Included here are the 2 key documents- the research sheets for your conversational topic and the assignment sheet with rubric and checklists.
Welcome to week 6- how many more week to go until we are in the December break? More importantly, what do we have coming up that needs to be thought about right now?
Last week was filled in with ERB testing. This week we must focus on Task 1 Graded Discussions. The groups were set earlier and topics have been chosen; Thursday will be the day when we do the small group fishbowl discussions. You have the checklist, and we have reviewed the do’s and don’ts of this conversation.
We will also start talking more about the upcoming debates on Friday. We will have to move our speed debate to Tuesday of week 7.
Please continue to work on your Things Poetic Scrapbooks.
Another 5 day week- and a busy one. This is just an encouraging note that says, “Hey, you have only 3 odd weeks left and then it will be the December break.” There is much to get done, but you will have a sense of accomplishment once you get through this quarter.
For this week, we are focussing on Task 3: Looking at Poetry from Three Sides. This is a continuation from Task 2 because each student shoul use a poem or song by the artist researched for the index card assignment. A copy of the poem must be brought to class for our in-depth work. The due date for Task 3 has been moved to November 28/29.
The Things Poetic Scrapbook should still be in process; please do not leave your work on this until the last possible moment. The due date for this has been shifted to tthe last week of the quarter as well. Please speak to me or Ms Peters if you have any questions.
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