First Things First

Hello, fellow Wildcats! If you or someone you love has me for seventh grade reading, writing or extended reading, you're in the right place.

Using this blog as a techno-tool, I'll work hard to keep you informed of our objectives, classroom activities (including assignments and assessments), and the progress we are sure to make. Feel free to leave comments and/or questions. You may also email me at kfriesen@gips.org.

In writing class, students will be creating their own blogs as space to publish the great work they're bound to do. Links to those blogs will be available on this site as well. Students may be asked to respond to one another's posts as homework, and I hope parents would do the same. Writing is a tough process, and we can use all the encouragement we can get!

In case you're wondering, we'll be responding to some great literature together as a writing class this year (including, but not limited to, The Outsiders, Tuck Everlasting, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas). Students will also enjoy daily opportunities to participate in book clubs with their choices of shared or independent anchor books. Our reading text will be Reader's Journey, and we'll use Write Source and Everyday Editing (as well as a hodgepodge of writers' workshop materials) to aid in the writing process. We can all use a little help enlarging our vocabularies, so we'll be looking at word parts (roots, prefixes, and suffixes) as strategies to reading comprehension. Most importantly, we'll be learning to work together as a community of learners, which includes: confidently sharing our ideas; patiently listening to others; graciously providing and receiving constructive criticism; learning to agree and disagree appropriately; and, together, finding the power that is present in each of our individual stories.

Just for fun, do you know how the phrase "in a nutshell" can best be described? 

a.  as a simile

b.  as personification
c.  as an idiom

d.  as hyperbole

This year is going to rock! I just know it. :)