Mr. Buxton 7th Grade RLA

Sunday, September 11, 2016

CWW - Thanks for a great trip!

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

H/W - All classes (C/D E/F G/H) - FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY -

Bring in two items that you value. Be sure to ask your parents for permission!

Go to this website to see examples: www.susanmullally.com

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G/H Parts of Speech SUMMATIVE:
Make a copy of this file and add it to your short cuts on your 'favorite' bar

Unit 2: Identity Through Memoir

Lesson Recap,

Today we learned that we can measure the quality of our writing using three categories:

Meaning Craft Structure (and Language)

You must alway be able to answer this question "What moves have you used as a writer?"

After CWW, you have a 4 DAY WEEKEND. Make sure you read a book. For the academic year to date, to stay on tract you should have read between 3 (meets) 4 or 5 (exemplary) books by Wed. 14th Sept.

Don't forget to bring in your CWW tomorrow!

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Exemplary Email Sample for Powerschool Analysis

Hi mom and dad,

I hope your having a good day so far. In this email I am going to explain to you guys what PowerSchool is and the grades in it. PowerSchool is where I can see all my grades. My first grade is a formative and it was a diagnostic test that we did on The 8 Parts of Speech. I got a below but after a week I had studied all the parts of speech and learned a lot when I was studying. Later when I took the summative test I got a meets and I learned a lot so I was proud, I did get three questions wrong though and I know now I need to practice conjunctions and adverbs. To practice this I can use noredink as a tool to work on my conjunctions and adverbs. I want to try to go further and get an exemplary and to get an exemplary I have to do further practice in noredink.In three weeks I am going to be able to retest to get my exemplary.

We had one activity we had to do which was decorating our reading notebooks. I learned a lot about myself when I was decorating my readers notebook because we had to connect all the books together with a theme and I learned what reading really meant to me. I got an exemplary on this and I am pretty sure I deserved it. My theme for all my book was, "The key to my heart is reading." I understand why I got this grade, I had a linking theme to connect all my books.

For my summative on writing a claim on the music video, "Wings". I got an approaching my claim wasn't very clear. "Your claim needs to be expressed as a clear idea in one sentence that has two

parts... e.g .what happens when people realise their appearance isn't what is important?" This is one comment that Mr. Buxton wrote on PowerSchool. The same thing happened on my Summative: Claims and Evidence, I got an approaching there too but if I keep practicing and do better next time my grade can be improved. One comment Mr. Buxton wrote on PowerSchool for my summative claims and evidence was, "Your argument is that all these characters ‘became happier’ by helping others - but you do not explain ‘how’ they were better or in what way they were happier. Were the characters happier for what they did? How do you know? There is no evidence to support your claim. Was Elizabeth happier when she realised the prince was a ‘bum?’" To get a better idea of what a good claim is like I could read the students claim who got an exemplary grade.

I have learned a lot about different strategies to collect my reading. I am going to use compare and contrast and as well as see think wonder. Compare and Contrast is what it sounds like it's when you take notes from your book and compare them to other notes using for example a t-chart. See think wonder is another strategy and that is when you make three columns and in the see column you write what you see from what the book is telling you. In the think column you write what you think about the characters, where they are coming from if they are walking, what they look like that the book doesn't tell you. Lastly, in the wonder column you write what you are wondering about that particular scene or the characters. I just started a new book which is called, "The Missing Girl." So far it's a really good book and I am using a t-chart to gather my reading notes.

I am also using a program called Membean where I am learning new vocabulary words and widening my vocabulary range. Every week to get exemplary you need to do at least 40 minutes of membean a week. Sense I did do more than 40 minutes a wee I got an exemplary. I can try to spread out the amount of membean I do throughout the week. I think membean can be vital when wanting to learn new words. We also took a membean test were I did get four questions wrong but I put those four words down on my membean note taking sheet and proceeded to study them. I did get a meets on that test.

RLA class is like a jigsaw puzzle, hard to put all the pieces together but in the end the beauty of the picture is all worth it and sometimes you loose a piece but in the end it always comes back.

Comment on the strengths of this piece for a +1

Monday, September 5, 2016

Email Home: A Walk Through Power School

H/W - Finish your email home. DO NOT SEND IT UNTIL TOMORROW

IMPORTANT H/W - ALL CLASSES (C/D, E/F, and G/H) DUE TUE. Come with an idea for a story about either - How you got your name OR a situation where people have treated you differently because of your appearance. Tomorrow (TUE) - you will write the 'story' about one of these events

Make a copy of this file and add it to your short cuts on your favorite bar

Unit 2: Identity Through Memoir

Lesson Recap

Today we stopped and reflected on how far we have come as readers and we shared some strategies on how we make our reading visible.

Powerschool Reflection Grading Rubric

Summative RR - Claims and Evidence.

Enjoy Luci's summative piece. Win +1 for writing a comment about what she did well in her piece.

In the story “Thank You M’am by Langston Hughes the author does a great job of showing how important it is to have people that will lead others to do the right thing. Likewise, In “The Paperbag Princess” by Robert Munsch the main character, contrary to status quo is a strong confident princess that stands up for herself. “The Paperbag Princess”does a great job encouraging others to be leaders. Similarly to both stories “The other side” by Jacqueline Woodson shows a young girl making sense of racial separation. All three of these books combined show that anyone can be a leader and has the power to make a change.

In a significant scene from "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes, a lady teaches a boy (who tried to snatch a pocketbook from her) about the fact that she had done some bad choices in life too, and she didn't want this boy to suffer what she did. She wanted to make a significant and important change to the boy's life. “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he didn’t already know." (Page 3). This shows courage that this woman has that she is letting out some personal information that people might not even dare to let out. "And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody else’s—because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet."(Page 3). She is questioning the status quo by not sending him to jail. This also shows women's power that she is holding- she is using her past to change the future. All of this leads to the fact that anyone has the power to be a leader and to question the status quo- both men and women. Everyone has equal power in them, it's just about how they use it.

The scene from The Paperbag Princess, by Robert Munsch, when Princess Elizabeth goes to rescue her betrothed Prince from a dragon shows us that a woman (or in this case, a girl) can use her power in ways other than what a stereotypical princess (girl) does. An example of this would be after the prince was kidnapped by the dragon, the Princess didn’t ‘freak out’ like how any other girl would have done in her place. Instead, ‘she decided to chase the dragon and get [Prince] Ronald back.’ And she went on, though she had no clothes on and all she had was a paper bag covering her. Another example of this would be when Elizabeth was outsmarting the dragon. ‘“Wait,” shouted Elizabeth, “Is it true that you are the smartest and fiercest dragon in the world?”’ (pg. 14) In the scenes following this dialogue, Elizabeth was tricking a dragon into tiring himself so she could save her prince without any physical harm or bloodshed. When Prince Ronald is rescued and shows how ungrateful he is toward the Princess saving his life, Elizabeth used her power and rejected Ronald right then and there

In an inspiring scene from The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson Clover is questioning the status quo and finds out that just because the way people live is a certain way doesn’t mean it’s right. In one of the most important scenes of this book Annie girl from the other side of the fence asks if she can join Clover and her friends in jump roping but Clover’s friend immediately said no. “I don’t know what I would have said. Maybe yes, maybe no.”. At this point in the story Clover is perplexed. She is perplexed because her mother and friends are so against the people living on the white side of the fence. Then when Annie invites Clover to sit on the fence with her both of them realize that doing what you know to be right even though others say not to is sometimes okay and even a positive action to take “But she never said nothing about sitting on it.” “ Neither did mine” replies Clover. In this moment Clover shows that anyone (even little girls) that can question the status quo has the power to be a leader.

People normally believe that you have to be “important” or well know to be a leader. The paperbag princess, Clover, and the lady from “Thank You M’am” show us differently, all of these characters took it upon themselves to change the way life is lived for themselves and others around them, showing that just about anyone willing can be a leader. “A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible”- Mark Yarnell.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Parts of Speech Summative

Click on the link to complete your TEST - Parts of Speech SUMMATIVE:

Summative Grade Policy

Once students receive a 'summative grade' for a unit - they have a 3 week window to turn in that work again in an attempt to raise the grade. Students must PROVE that they have completed more studying before being given the opportunity to resubmit eg. completed lessons on NoRedInk.

Thanks for a great week of deeper thinking!

Reading Across Texts

Congratulations to Ethan Hsu. For scoring a perfect 100% on the grammar 'parts of speech' assessment.

Congratulations to Anika Kola for the first student generated teaching point of the year. When students discover a writing craft move or reading strategy that teaches me a technique or something new - that technique gets named after that student. This normally only happens once a year!

"The Kola Klose"

Find out what this is on Monday!

Next Week

Writing Unit #1 Identity through Memoir Unit