3rd Quarter

This quarter has been centered around our most recent anchor text, Two Roads by Joseph Bruchac - a historical fiction novel from the point of view of a young boy who learns about his Native American heritage for the first time. We focus especially on how to identify point of view and perspective, and how an author will convey the characters' feelings & attitudes on their surroundings through diction and language. 

We’ll use Two Roads to transition from looking at perspective from a literary lens to applying it to nonfiction as well while honing our argumentative and persuasive techniques. Students will be challenged to create strong claims with supporting evidence while also learning how to appeal to an audience. We will continue using the tools we have at hand to do research and identify credible sources as we write.

As we begin quarter 4, we will be reviewing for our end of grade exams using differentiated online resources and also incorporate further novel studies. Please encourage your students to read, read, and read! 

Thank you,

Ann Tapia & Emily Newburger (6th grade ELA)

Hello, everyone! In 7th grade Language and Literature classes this quarter, students have completed the third module of the EL Curriculum: “The Harlem Renaissance.” Throughout the third quarter, students have continued utilizing close reading strategies to analyze a variety of texts and uncover deeper meanings.

To kick off the new module, students were placed into flexible groups to explore samples of art, music, and poetry from the Harlem Renaissance using inquiry-based instruction. They traveled between numerous learning stations. Through this type of instruction, students made their own inferences about the recurring themes of this period in history and examined informational texts about the historical context. Students practiced identifying main ideas and supporting details as well as answering text-dependent questions. 

Following the background knowledge learning stations was an in-depth exploration of the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Students studied and were assessed on vocabulary that included note-worthy poetic devices, literary techniques and some of the art terms, theater terms and background knowledge from earlier in the unit. Some of the poems explored in this section of Module 3 include but are not limited to “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Calling Dreams,” “Hope,” “ and “On Bully Patrol,” all works from One Last Word by Nikki Grimes. Grimes utilizes a poem technique called “Golden Shovel” throughout One Last Word. Students used creative-based problem solving strategies to take works from One Last Word and to turn them into something new through the “Golden Shovel” poem-writing technique. Student poem creation expanded swiftly from the golden shovel poems to the creation of a complete Poetry Portfolio, consisting of all of the poetic techniques and themes explored over the course of this unit. Students created more original poetry with various styles like rhyming and free verse. A very exciting and timely addition to the poetry portion of our unit was a school visit by Charlotte’s Poet Laureate, Junious “Jay” Ward. Ward performed several of his spoken word poems in front of our students and they got to see how his poetry connected to the themes of the Harlem Renaissance.  

Finally, as we neared the end of the unit, students were immersed into the classic Broadway musical Shuffle Along. Shuffle Along gave our students their first insight into elements of drama as well as a prominent example of the impact the Harlem Renaissance has on today’s theater and entertainment industry. After doing a deep dive of the cultural significance of Shuffle Along, students produced their own stage productions inspired by some of the themes of the Harlem Renaissance. Completing this grandiose task was made more simple through the use of heterogeneous groups, tiered task lists and graphic organizers that helped students keep track of all parts of the project.  Students did have to perform their stage productions in front of the class and were given the responsibility of evaluating their peers’ work as well as their own. Completion of the Poetry Portfolio, the Scene Performance project, and the special addition of the Poet Laureate visit prove student mastery of the Module 3 Statement of Inquiry: Readers interpret a poet’s use of creativity as a means of self-expression while examining intertextuality and developing cultural expression.

We continue to deliver rigorous content that challenges our students’ roles as learners and invites them to be community leaders, and we look forward to watching our students thrive in Quarter 4!

It’s hard to believe we are finishing the third quarter and beginning our last quarter of the year together! Throughout the third quarter, eighth grade English language arts classes have been using literature to examine pivotal moments throughout history. To begin the quarter, we shifted our focus to the Holocaust. Prior to reading any of our anchor texts, the students completed inquiry activities that provided them with background information needed to understand the events of World War II. Students then began reading Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel. With this memoir, we focused heavily on themes, the life lessons characters learn from the conflicts they experience. Students analyzed how authors develop these throughout the text.

From there, we began reading Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust by Art Spiegelman. With this text, we continued thinking about theme and also focused on how authors develop characters. Additionally, students considered how the narrator’s tone affected our understanding of the characters. Comparing Maus to Night, they also considered the advantages and disadvantages of an author writing a graphic novel versus a traditional novel written in prose. To end the unit, we read a play titled “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which highlights the experiences Anne Frank shared with her family as they hid for two years from the Nazis. By reading a memoir, a graphic novel, and a play about the Holocaust this quarter, students developed a sophisticated understanding of the Holocaust, as well as some literary concepts: theme development, character development, and the benefits of different writing styles. By reading multiple accounts from the Holocaust, the students were able to compare different people’s experiences.

As your child’s teachers, we are grateful to think alongside them about the injustices that have affected our world–and continue to affect our lives. We are continually reminded of their brilliance and find hope in their desire for justice. We look forward to our continued work in the fourth quarter as we finish the year strong!

We continue to be so impressed with our students and how well they have handled this long stretch of school.  As we enter quarter 4,  we anticipate the same positive energy to continue into EOG review! 

This quarter we spent a great deal of time learning algebra and solving for variables. Students explored real-world scenarios that required them to analyze word problems and turn them into mathematical expressions, equations, and inequalities to solve. Students are able to place a variable for an unknown amount and find the value. 

Next quarter, we will investigate data collection and representation in our final unit for the year, statistics. Students will complete "Project Graph It" using their own data collected from their peers. 

We are looking forward to an exciting end to a memorable year!

Our 7th graders worked hard during third quarter! Math 7 students explored proportional relationships and percent.  Throughout this unit, the focus was on solving real-world problems involving discount, tax, tip, and simple interest.  Students honed their skills by completing scavenger hunts on finding the new price or original price. Students also worked collaboratively to find the percent change and percent error of situations as a way to mathematically describe observed changes. 

March 14th was Pi Day and students were challenged with a "Pi Day Choice Project" where they could celebrate Pi in their most creative way! Some examples of what students designed include, but are not limitetd to: T-shirts, videos, bracelets, posters, 3-D printed models, poems, and more!! We were so proud of their effort and excitement around Pi!

To wrap up the quarter, our students studied constants of proportionality (COP) through equations, tables, and graphs. They learned how to find the proportional relationships, or lack thereof, in sets of data to determine "COP's" and predict other values in the data sets. 

We moved into unit rates at the end of the quarter and will continue to build on this topic in various ways during 4th quarter when we get into scale, scaled copies, and scale drawings. 

Math 8 students explored solving systems of equations by graphing and building word problems. Throughout this unit, the focus was on solving real-world situations involving break-even points and other business-related scenarios. We concluded the quarter with bivariate data, which included scatterplots and frequency tables. 

Math 1 students finished the unit on exponential functions. Students next year will have something to talk about when we get to this unit because the entire coronavirus outbreak is really an exponential function. Students also have also completed investigative lessons involving factoring and polynomials. 

Math 2 students studied transformations using centers of rotation other than the origin and lines of reflection other than the 𝑥- and 𝑦-axis. They manually created their own transformations using “old school” tools such as compasses, rulers, and protractors. In our quadratics unit, students learned how to use imaginary numbers, 𝑖, to solve quadratic equations involving negative square roots as well as new techniques such as completing the square. They now have a toolbox full of at least 5 strategies to use when faced with the challenge of solving a quadratic equation. Students have been out for the past two weeks due to COVID-19. However, this has not stopped teachers from reaching out and loving on them from a distance.