Welcome to October!  This week we will be continuing our literature circle books - in connection to these, we will be looking at the r-word.org campaign (Spread the Word to End the Word) which is sponsored by Special Olympics.  I encourage you and your students to consider taking the pledge online that asks you to make a promise to work towards eliminating the "R" word from your vocabulary.  -  In Civics, we will be delving into chapter 3 in the Civics book (mostly section 2 - critical thinking questions of pg. 104) - the branches of government (we looked at the Senate on Friday) - and hopefully generating some interest in the first presidential debate which will be televised on Wednesday evening. 

Sorry for the late post ---
This week we:

had a test in Civics - it covered the questions and terms from ch. 2
(many students need to make flashcards or use another study method in order to perform better on exams)

finished the first section of our literature circle books.
checked of section 1's journal and job.

*** if your students shows zero points for section 1 in English - please encourage them to take advantage of an offer ---- if they complete all the sections without any late items they will receive credit for their section 1 missing items (provided those are completed as well).  For the students who completed the work on time, if they complete the rest of the packet in a timely fashion as well, they will receive extra credit.  I'm hoping these inscentives will be enough to encourage them to complete work on-time!



Section 2 of the literature circle (the job and journal) is due Tuesday.

DUE DATE NOTICE!!!! the choice book journal for 1st quarter is due on OCTOBER 12th!!!!!

Things are starting to settle into a routine (sort of) --- I say this, but then realize I have students out for the Channel 3 field trip tomorrow (P.S. very few of them let me know they would be gone and needed to check out a Civics book so they could work on ch. 2 Civics reading checks.) We also have all 8th graders doing MAPS reading on Wednesday --- so maybe "routine" is a bit optimistic.

Anyways....

In English -

They should be at least 1/2 way finished with their choice book and journal.  This will be due the week before the end of the quarter.

We did a "read-around" for our literature circle.  Final selection of their books will be tomorrow and Thursday. 

In Civics -

We had our first quiz today.  They took notes last week and were asked to study them.  Some did.....some didn't.  Fortunately they will have many opportunitites to improve their overall grade.

Tomorrow, for the students that are not on the Channel 3 field trip, we will be working on Chapter 2 in the Civics book --- answering the "reading check" questions throughout the chapter. 

Hope the air stays clear and my room stays cool --- neither are likely, but it can't hurt to stay optimistic!  :)

My first thought this morning was, "Wow! We have a full week ahead of us!" --- then I remembered the students have early release on Wednesday.  None the less, we will still be very busy!

1.  In English we are reading a story called "Hamadi" about immigration and conflict resolution.
2.  In Civics we are finishing up ch. 1 and learning about immigration policy and citizenship in the U.S.
3.  We will start our first literature circle this week (reading will be done primarily in class due to the # of books we have)
4.  1st quarter choice reading should be well under way --- ask to see their dialectical journal if you would like to make note of their progress :)
5.  Finally, we will take a bit of time tomorrow to learn about 9/11 -- the history, the resulting wars and the memorial services and monuments that are currently underway. 

We are still waiting for the delivery of the Spokesman Review to start --- hopefully this week!!!