Happy fall, Piedmont! MYP Year 1 Language and Literature classes have been hard at work this year on sharpening skills in foundational elements of literature. We started by bolstering our students with the academic vocabulary—"buzzwords" that frequently pop up in their core standards and assessments—that we will revisit continuously throughout the year. Here's the list of the big ones, including some figurative language terms that we'll emphasize in the coming modules—can you illustrate your own knowledge by sneaking them into your vocabulary, too?

Our IB Statement of Inquiry this month asks students to explore how an author connects character, plot, setting, and theme to create stories that analyze human nature, tying into the state's core standards which ask students to cite specific evidence from a text to support those analyses (RL.6.1). During the first few months, we focus heavily several more of the standards from the Reading: Literature component of the NC Standard Course of Study, particularly RL.6.2, which asks students to determine theme, RL.6.3, which has students analyze and respond to a story's plot structure, and RL.6.5, where students explain how a smaller part of a text, such as an excerpt, becomes a representation of the whole.

At the beginning of October, we concluded our unit delving into mirroring personal identities through fiction, using Sharon G. Flake’s The Skin I’m In as our anchor text to ask and answer questions about the role that our personality traits play in real life, using our new skills to identify examples of how characters are developed directly and indirectly and the impact that internal and external conflicts create in a narrative. We concluded with our annual identity map project, which had students display their creativity to indicate what makes them special and help us make inferences about our peers. (As usual, they were awesome—please see some examples in photos below!)

In our next unit, we will be exploring Greek mythology through the lens of Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief. Students will ultimately synthesize their knowledge of the book and the values and lore associated with mythology in order to revise a scene from the text and make it their own—students will be evaluated on their ability to organize and self-manage a narrative that borrows the structure of the novel but adds their own style. It's an effective way to communicate their knowledge of the text, the historical (and mythological) context, and their command of composition, such as their use of figurative language and imagery to make things relevant and appealing.

As we convey information in a post-virtual/hybrid format classroom, we collaborate to use the tools we have at hand to engage students to the best of our ability without abandoning the technology component, but blending it seamlessly with in-person learning. As all three of Piedmont's 6th grade ELA teachers are seeking certification with the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards this year, we are now more determined than ever to create top-tier assignments to facilitate learning for each and every single one of our students and are committed to incorporating all the aspects of rigorous high-quality instruction. We're looking forward to a fantastic rest of the year!

—Ms. Emily Newburger, Ms. Ann Tapia, and Mr. Damien Becton

To introduce students to our EL module, we began by reading the novel A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Students participated in a variety of activities to help them build connections between themselves and the characters, including a collaborative discussion on themes in the book and how those themes can be applied to students’ daily lives. This discussion also connected to our IB Statement of Inquiry this quarter: personal identities and relationships develop when readers make connections with fictional characters.

To understand just how different a character’s story could be given the change of one or two details, students completed a perspective switch between the novel’s two main characters, thus examining how a story’s plot and its characters’ experiences are shaped by the setting of the story and supporting characters. This also allowed students to dive deeper into our Statement of Inquiry: would students relate to these characters in the same ways if circumstances were different? How would the characters’ personal identities differ with a change of perspective?

Once we finished reading the book, students completed a close reading on two articles, “The Lost Boys of the Sudan” and “The ‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan.” When reading these articles, students were invited to analyze similarities and differences between the novel and the nonfiction articles, and between the content of the two articles. In addition to our historical articles, students also viewed and analyzed clips from documentaries to further their understanding of the historical events surrounding the main characters of the novel. In watching clips from the documentary God Grew Tired of Us and a 60 Minutes feature on the Lost Boys, students were able to track the differences in how main ideas are developed in different media, and use those different media to discuss different elements of the Lost Children’s experiences. Based on the content of the novel, the articles, and the documentary clips, students then created a comparative analysis explaining the differences between the experiences of the Lost Boys and Lost Girls of Sudan and the reasons for those differences.

Lastly, students completed a narrative eBook project, in which they were responsible for developing the characters, setting, and plot of a children’s book about a fictional Lost Child of Sudan. Students also created illustrations for their eBooks and incorporated those illustrations into the text, using their art as a supplement to their storytelling. Additionally, students analyzed how they crafted their eBooks by writing an author’s note in which they justified their creative choices.

As you can see, we have dived into the traditional classroom setting enthusiastically without leaving the best elements of educational technology behind. We are committed to delivering rigorous content to prepare our students to be active, successful citizens of a dynamic technological world, and we look forward to honoring that commitment for the rest of the school year!

- Mrs. Moran, Ms. Smith, and Mx. Tapia

From there, we launched into the next unit that reviewed the elements of fiction we learned about previously. Prior to reading The Outsiders, students completed a 1960s WebQuest that allowed them to explore the setting (time, place, and cultural norms) of the novel. Through reading this engaging novel, students gained a better understanding of how characters, plot, and theme develop. Additionally, through various activities and projects, they considered issues of social justice by examining who might be “outsiders” in their lives--and why. To cap off the unit, students participated in 1960s day where many dressed like characters from The Outsiders or other figures from that time period!

As we move into the second quarter, students will have a strong understanding of the elements of fiction. We will capitalize on that understanding by reading an additional novel that lends itself well to transitioning into works of nonfiction. We will be shifting away from fiction and into a unit that focuses heavily on nonfiction. We are proud of the foundation students have created this quarter and look forward to building upon that as the year progresses!

At some point in this next unit (Rates and Percentages), we will be doing our “Culture Menu” project, where students will be using a family favorite recipe to do some conversions using their knowledge of ratios and proportions. Stay tuned, we are looking forward to a great year!