Gretchen Buis - Language Arts

How much I enjoyed meeting all of the six, sevens, and eights today! What a wonderful group of young people!  This week the goal is logistically to work our way through each day's schedule.  The handbook, cell phones, uniforms, supplies, classroom procedures, and the Honor Code are focal points of discussions.  In terms of English, assignments will be concrete for awhile:  students know exactly what to do.  Each class has memory work to be studied these next two nights and then written in class Thursday.

Next step: exams.   As I put the exams together, I will verbally give students a study guide in terms of exam content.  i will then plan to post an overview of the exam on this site.  At the moment, the eights are reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream, the sevens are finishing Sherlock Holmes, Man Without a Country, and are now reading A Raisin in the Sun.  The sixes are reading the the poetry section in their red literature book and working on sentence diagraming.  Eighth Grade Exam/ next week/ definite questions will include the following:

For now, there are no major changes in the English Middle School assignments.  The eights should be finishing up their term paper drafts. (Ideally, they have submitted approximately 4 or 5 drafts.)  Next week we will undertake the final leg: inserting footnotes and compiling the bibliography.  The sevens are solving The Hound of the Baskerviles along with Sherlock Holmes.  They are enthusiastic sleuths doing a great job!

Fourth quarter, final leg, here we go, the road to exams.  The eights will be working on term papers until the papers are submitted May 11.  The sevens are hoping to outwit Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervile. The sixes are reading and annotating Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry.    

Following several weeks of grammar and reading comprehension focus in preparation for Terra Novas and taking Terra Novas last week, we rested a bit this week.  The sixes have been reading selections in their literature books, the sevens have finished Anne Frank which was followed up with the Holocaust video, Everyone Has a Name.  The eights finished Macbeth while simultaneously working on term papers.  Everyone should have completed the first fourteen lessons in their vocabulary workbooks.

For the eights, March brings the conclusion of Great Expectations and Macbeth and the beginning of term papers.  The sevens are reading Anne Frank and the sixes, short stories.  All 3 classes are working in vocabulary workbooks and grammar textbooks. On Friday, March 5, the sixes will be  presenting  Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech following the 8:30 Mass at St. Benedict's.  All families are certainly welcome both to the Mass and the  short presentation.   

Somehow the last 3 weeks have been a bit chaotic.  Diversion, however, is fun and other than exams, I hope students have enjoyed themselves.  I will send home exams if parents would like to see them.  Please sign and return them.  The exams were a combination of "givens," questions students knew would be on the exam (approximately 60%) and essays which involved character, plot, setting, and theme which are the components (thanks to Aristotle) of our literary discussions.  In between spirit days, and snow days, we have returned to Dickens for the eights.

Hopefully, this week we will finish the short story sections we have been work in on in all three classes.  Vocabulary tests are also on the agenda.  After break, we will look to Greek mythology in the sixth and seventh grades and Homer's The Odyssey in the eighth grade.  I would also like to read Tom Sawyer and Tuck Everlasting in the seventh grade and Dickens's The Christmas Carol in the sixth grade.  Most importantly right now, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.   

Just a note as we move into the  second grading period.  I think we are all ready to take a break from grammar for awhile and move into short  stories.  Both the sevens and eights have been given several of the short stories we will read over the next few weeks.  The sixes will also be working with short stories beginning next week.  We will continue working with vocabulary and reading comprehension passages.  Writing will be incorporated via written responses to literature.  The approach to literary discussions will be premised on character, plot, setting, and theme.