Take a Peek at Our Week!

In lang & lit, we finished analyzing our third debatable topics! Students are doing a fantastic job collecting evidence from both sides of the argument in order to guide their decisions. They are also becoming quite the bias detectives and discussed how it can influence the strength of an author's argument.  At the end of the week, students participated in an electronic chalk talk to share their claims, reasons, and evidence for all three topics they worked on! Next week we will start a new set of topics (snow days, television, and cellphones) and work on evaluating the strength of an argument based on the evidence presented.

In writing, we completed our research for our first argument topic-chocolate milk in schools. Students are working on citing their sources directly in their research to give credit to the author. We also worked on using resources other than texts in order to gather information (videos, charts/graphs). Next week we will start writing our first argument essay based on our research!

In I&S we began our government planner.We started by writing down what we already know about government and what we want to learn in the planner. We had a fantastic discussion and I was so impressed with the background knowledge students shared! Next, students worked in groups to identify the purpose of the U.S. government and made connections between government structures and our classroom structures. Next week we will focus on the actions of citizens!

Reminders for Next Week:

*3/4 Picture Day for Mrs. Carr's Homeroom

*3/6 Villa of Hope Lesson 

Have a great weekend!

~Mrs. Carr

Take a Peek at Our Week!

In lang & lit, we continued to work with our argument planner. Students were given new debatable topics and collected evidence for BOTH sides of the debate across multiple texts in order to determine where they stood. We also added bias to our discussions this week! We practiced identifying bias in multiple examples and talked about its impact on the overall validity of an argument.

We finished our informational writing assessments this week after our unexpected snow day! Students were given their scores and recorded them on their Chromebooks for your review. I do not send home writing assessments as they need to be passed along to sixth grade in the students' literacy portfolios. In order to view your child's writing, you will need to access their Informational Google Classroom and bring up the assessment assignment (your kiddo knows where to find it!). You will also see their scores in a Google doc and a rubric for an explanation of each score. Additionally, I sent home your child's scored I&S research that they used to write their essays. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out! :-) 

Instead of starting our next I&S planner (government) before break, we utilized our time to unpack our newest writing genre-Argument! This will set us up to start writing argument essays when we return from break! Students worked with a partner to put the argument rubric into student friendly language in order to help us understand the expectations for the genre. We also took a survey to identify which areas we are already comfortable with as they are similar to informational writing and which areas are new to us! 

On Friday, we had some special treats for Valentine's Day! Nothing like a little sugar to make us smile. :-)  I can't believe our winter break has arrived! I hope everyone has a relaxing and enjoyable week with their families. Stay warm!

Have a fantastic break, 

Mrs. Carr

Take a Peek at Our Week!

We started our argument planner called "Where Do You Stand" in Lang & Lit this week! Students were given different topics to explore (screen time, homework, and contact sports). We used our tug-of-war strategy to record the pros and cons as we analyzed multiple articles for each topic. Students learned that they need to collect evidence for BOTH sides of a debate prior to making their own decisions. This was hard at first as many kiddos had previously formed opinions, but by the end of the week they could form their decisions based on evidence from what they read! We also used Google Slides to share our claims, reasons, and evidence. Next week we will switch up topics and also discuss how bias comes into play with argument texts.

In writing, students completed their informational writing assessment using their expert explorer research from I&S. I will be scoring assessments over the weekend so that students will have their scores before break. Students will be bringing home their research score and recording their writing scores in Google docs for your review. I will not be sending home paper versions of the writing assessments since you can access their pieces on Google docs. We will begin argument writing next week!!

In I&S, students completed their research to prepare for their informational writing assessments. They will be taking their exploration summative assessments next week. We will begin our government planner, "Pursuit of Power" after break.

Next week is Spirit Week! Below is the schedule!

**Thank you to all of the families that returned their child's signed Lang & Lit assessment for F.Y.I. If your child still has their assessment, please remind them to turn them back in. They were due Friday, February 7th. Also, Lexile scores were sent home with your child this week. If you did not receive their updated reading level, please let me know. 

Reminders for Next Week:

*2/10-2/14 Spirit Week 

*2/14 Villa of Hope Lesson

Have a great weekend,

Mrs. Carr