Mr. Justin Baumgartner
8th-Grade English Teacher
Westwood Middle School
Welcome to 8th grade!!
Hello and welcome to 8th grade!! I hope you are as excited as me to begin this new year. Please come back and check my site as it gets closer to the start of the new year for updates. Enjoy your summer!!
Summer Reading Assignment - you should have received one from your 7th-Grade ELA teachers. If you cannot find or did not get one, you can print out one from the link here.
Google Classroom
Classroom codes:
Period 1: lje4uzx
Period 2: zdmk7oe
Period 4: enh2p7b
Period 5: ijrxrey
Period 6: yucorig
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Who is Mr. Baumgartner?
Hello!
Welcome to English class!
This is my 10th year teaching 8th-grade English, my 8th year in Westwood, and I am excited to continue to enhance your reading and writing skills through the workshop model. I received my Bachelor's degree in English/Education from William Paterson University. In my spare time, I like to hang out with my family going to as many different places as we can. I always pride myself on the passion and excitement that I bring into every lesson I teach. I am confident that this year will be a fantastic one.
We will be learning...
We will be learning new and more intricate skills through the reading/writing workshop model. These skills include:
identifying a classic novel
writing a memoir
informational reading/writing
identifying social structures through dystopian literature
writing an argumentative essay
Workshop Resources:
Link to The Workshop Model Website
Link to How To Use Destiny Catalog Search for Titles
https://wwrsd.follettdestiny.com/common/welcome.jsp?site=105&context=saas44_2996180
Opting out of a book choice:
Opting Out
In middle school, as our students mature, so do the texts available in our libraries. Our students' developmental levels widen greatly, even within each grade and classroom, and as such, our texts mirror those different levels. We encourage parents/guardians to review their student's selections and to reach out to the teacher with any questions, concerns or requests.
Should you not want your child reading any particular title, you need only email the teacher and it will be noted and/or the text changed the next school day. Feel free to review our list of titles for each classroom through our Library Catalog. For classroom libraries, click on the "sublocation" dropdown to locate the teacher's name.
Important Class Resources
Grading Policy
In the middle school, all ELA classes follow a very similar grading scale. We go strictly with points and do not weigh our grades. That means that there are no "tests are 50% of your grade" in our class. All assignments are important and should be treated as such.
Late work procedures will be discussed on the first day of school.
If you are absent, it is up to you to check with me about any missing work you would d need to make up. This work should be completed in a reasonable amount of time.