English Language Arts

Which one is more like a poem--a story or a song? Poems feel a lot like music because of the way they experiment with words, rhythm, and emotions. In this project, the students got a chance to explore many different types of poems, and become a poet themselves! The students looked closely at the way a poem shows a message and a point of view. Then the students crafted and illustrated their own weather, climate poems, and personal poems. From there the students took their poems and hand-boundhem thus creating a hardcover book of their own poems. After the students finished their poems they held a big “open mic” poem gallery, where, just like real poets, the students shared their work to small crowds of friends.

Poetry Books

Hand-bound Poetry Book Covers

Student created Weather and Climate Poems

Full Poetry Books

Poem Analysis

Students answer a series of questions prompting them to identify a theme, word choice, and point of view in a poem of their choosing and explain how specific details develop that theme.

Author's Statement

The students wrote a statement identifying the themes of each poem and using textual evidence and explanation to support analysis of their own poetry.

Mathematics

Expressions & Equations: In this unit, you learn to visualize, write, and solve equations and expressions, including those with exponents. In doing so, you learn and use the terms “variable,” “coefficient,” “solution,” “equivalent expressions,” “exponent,” “independent variable,” and “dependent variable.” You work with expressions that have exponents, using properties of exponents strategically to evaluate these expressions. You find solutions for equations and use these terms and representations to reason about real situations and contexts. Lastly, you represent equivalent ratios as equations and make connections between tables, graphs, and linear equations that represent the same relationships.

Rational Numbers: In this unit, you learn about negative numbers and work with them in the contexts where they appear, such as temperatures and elevation. In doing so, you learn and use the terms “positive number,” “negative number,” “rational number,” “opposite,” “sign,” “absolute value,” and the corresponding symbols. Inequalities also come into play in this unit, as you learn to compare quantities using terms like “less than” and “greater than,” and their symbols, and identify solutions to inequality statements. This unit also extends your understanding of the coordinate plane to include coordinates that use negative numbers and fractions.

Data Sets & Distributions:In this unit, you learn to ask statistical questions and to answer those questions using data. In doing so, you learn and use the terms “numerical data,” “categorical data,” “survey,” “statistical question,” “variability,” “distribution,” and “frequency.” This unit also has you learn different ways to represent data, such as with histograms, bar graphs, tables of frequencies, and box plots. This unit has you encounter data in different forms and asks you to analyze and offer descriptions using terms such as “symmetrical,” "peaks," “gaps,” and “clusters.” You also learn other tools to analyze data, such as measures of center and variability, and interpret these in the context of real situations and problems.