What's Happening in Room 10?

7th Grade Reading and Language Arts

We are learning how to write a literary analysis essay by working with our whole-class novel, A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. This is a historical fiction novel about a teenager named Mary Alice who has to temporarily move in with her eccentric grandma during the Great Depression. We will be using the writer's workshop model  as we learn skills such as crafting a strong thesis statement, analyzing and citing quotes (using text-based evidence to back up our argument), and using the writing process. As always, we'll be continuing to read independently and study vocabulary and grammar along the way.

8th Grade Reading and Language Arts

We are currently working on our largest assignment for the entire year- the 8th grade research paper! Students have chosen their topics (approved by me), and our classes have a wide and interesting range of ideas that they will be exploring. We reviewed how to evaluate and choose reliable sources of information and take notes on those sources.  We then learned how to create a working outline, which is the "blueprint" of our paper. Now, we are actually writing our papers and turning our plans into a rough draft! At the very end of the writing process, the publishing stage, we'll be having a publishing party where we eat snacks and share our final drafts with each other!  
As always, we'll be continuing to read independently and study vocabulary and grammar along the way. 

7th Grade Religion and Peace

In Religion, we are studying the Holy Trinity. We are starting with an overview of the mystery and importance of the Trinity, and then we will study each part (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) in more detail. In our Peace class, we are starting a unit on empathy and communication. We'll learn how to be good listeners and practice the virtue of empathy in our lives.