Week of March 5th

We are more than half-way through Marking Period 3 at this point, and both 7th and 8th grade classes have finished writing their formal papers for the marking period. We are moving now towards a literary approach for a short time and 8th grade classes are already enjoying Flowers for Algernon. There is potential for our schedule to be inconsistent this week so Monday and Tuesday will set the stage for the rest of the week, whatever that may be.

English 7
With the weather cancellation last Friday, you will have Monday to write the fifth paragraph of your informative essay. Essays will not be due (typed and printed) on Tuesday, March 6th. I expect most students to finish revising and print their essays in class on Monday, the 5th. If you do not finish and/or print your essay in class on Monday, you must finish and print it at home or at your local library and be ready to hand it in on Tuesday, the 6th. Two points will be deducted for each day the paper is late after Tuesday.

Also on Monday, if you finish your essay, you will have time to complete your Week 10 language bellringer. This was the bellringer we would have completed as a class last week, but did not due to our essays. You will have class time on Monday to work on these, but all unfinished bellwork from Week 10 will need to be completed Monday night for homework. Completed Week 10 Language Bellringers will be due on Tuesday, March 6th.

On Tuesday, we will catch up on bellringers for this week. We will be completing the Week 10 paragraph bellringer. We will complete Monday and Tuesday's paragraphs and review them together in class. Any remaining time in class will be devoted to a quick preview of what to expect on your final. I will not be giving a study-guide out this early, but I will be using a few minutes of Tuesday's class to review what parts of speech students will need to know for their final at the end of the year. Of course there is still work to be done that will be included on the final exam, but students should begin reviewing the parts of speech from the first half of the year to avoid cramming the week of the exam. The parts of speech that students will need to know for their final exam are: Nouns (common, proper, concrete, abstract), Verbs (action, being, helping), Adjectives, Adverbs, and Pronouns. This is not an exhaustive list of all material for the final exam. Instead, it is intended to be a list students can start from to begin reviewing for this exam now. Students should use their Grammar Party note packets to study.

For the remainder of the week, we will be practicing our PSSA skills. This will include reading sample passages and answering multiple choice questions, reviewing terms and vocabulary and discussing test taking strategies.

English 8
This week our focus will be on moving through "Flowers for Algernon." We will be completing our bellringers as normal for the first time in several weeks and once we have finished reviewing them each day we will go back to reading our short story.

As we read this week we will be focusing on things such as point of view, textual evidence, central idea/main idea, inferences and figuring out the meaning of unknown words.