8/31/22 - Welcome Back Dance Party; Alderman Martin Visit
9/5/22 - Labor Day - No School
9/14/22 - Picture Day; GoCPS Applications Open
9/22/22 - Q1 Progress Reports
9/23/22 - School Improvement Day - No School for Students
10/11/22 - Indigenous People's Day - No School
10/14/22 - Pride Stride
10/21/22 - School Improvement Day - No School for Students
10/26/22 - High School Entrance Exam
I have been enjoying getting to know students this week and it was a great 1st week. I'm looking forward to a fantastic year! Week 1 is in the books!! Please review the important dates above. Hoping to get all parent/student Get To Know You surveys this week as well as back to school forms.
Homeroom/Advisory - We will begin our new SEL program, the 7 Mindsets on Monday/Tuesdays. Students will be focusing on Unit 3: We Are Connected this month with lessons focused on: Embracing Everyone, Maximizing Positive Relationships, Building Your Dream Team, and Leading with Value. We are reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson as our Equity Read Aloud on Wednesdays. Thursdays - students will have time for Free Reading and we shared our First Book Friday, learning about great books our classmates have enjoyed. Fridays, we will focus on executive functioning skills and students will have an opportunity to check Aspen GradeBook, conference with the teacher, and work on longer term projects and assignments.
ELA - We began our new curriculum Springboard and I shared an overview letter earlier in the week about Unit 4, which explores: How do writers and speakers use humor to convey truth?What makes an effective performance of a Shakespearean comedy? We have and will continue to explore a variety of texts related to this theme. Students have unpacked vocabulary, used close reading strategies to analyze and interpret text, and continued to come back to our essential questions as a guide for learning. We unpacked the rubric for our 1st embedded literary assessment essay so as we are reading to write and answer the question: How do writers/speakers use humor to convey truth? This week, we will explore high/low comedy, analyze text using the RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) and TWIST (tone, word choice, imagery, style and theme) strategies for comic strips/political cartoons and text from Jon Scieszka’s Brothers and “Pet Peeves”. We will look at the use of colons, semi-colons and parenthesis as a tool for writers. We will finish off the week looking at Shakespeare or Hip-Hop, why do we read the Bard today?
Civics/Social Science - We are well into our Civics Launch 0 Unit which explores the following questions: What knowledge, skills, and dispositions (intention to act) does a person need in order to be a powerful civic actor in our democracy and in our community? How will I use my rights and responsibilities to promote the common good in our democracy and community? We established classroom norms/expectations based on the Cougar Code so that everyone can feel seen, heard, and valued in our classwork. This Wednesday, students will meet with Alderman Matt Martin who will share his role followed by Q&A. Students will explore Power and be interviewing parents about their use of power as well as exploring stories of Chicago Youth Activists and their work to create change.
If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].