Week In Review Blog

Last Friday, our class turned in the second part of the License Plate Assignment, which consisted of the license plate that represented us, a formal letter of introduction (printed out) and a typed business letter that is meant to be sent to our state’s DMV, printed out on the Correia letterhead. During class we addressed the envelopes and realized that not many students knew how to address it. After turning in the License Plate Assignment, our class took the WIR Quiz: Skills 13.3 which many of us did poorly on. The quiz was based on the Enlightenment Thinkers and Persuasive Techniques warm-ups we did. To improve our test scores we should review our notes, look more closely to the question wording and remember to not put too much value to a word/answer.

On Monday, we read a new article and took notes on it. After taking notes we had a discussion about the new found information with our tablemates, then we had the opportunity to talk a bit with the whole class. We were assigned computers that we will have for the rest of year and we were told to write down which computer is ours because we will be held accountable if we take the wrong computer.

On Tuesday, we looked into the Foundations group project. With our tablemates we started the first part which consisted of researching the government, art/architecture, religion, social structure, education, technology and trade in a selection of older locations. Each table decided how they wanted to split up the research project At the end of class, Mr. Snedden asked who had completed the Book Talk part of our Battle of the Books assignment and no one had completed it. As a reminder, we are expected to have a discussion with at least one other person who has read our same book. We must record our meeting location, time, discussion and have our book partners sign the page with the notes we took. A Book Talk should be completed every six week grading period.

On Wednesday, our class started with a warm-up entitled, Analyze That- Map of Virginia. When we looked at the map we were supposed to take note of certain details like the terrain, the direction it was created and the territories marked. Then we wrote a one page narrative explaining what was depicted on the map according to how understood the map. Mr. Snedden reminded us that we each might look at the map differently and come up with a different idea of what was being depicted. After the warm-up, we were given about 30 minutes to read our BOB books. For the second half of class, we got more time to work on our Foundations research. If your table finished the research you started on a rough draft of the one page poster we must create.

Today we spent about 30 minutes reading and BOB books. After reading, we followed some guidelines to create five questions that relate to our book. These five questions should be created so that we could use them in a mock Battle of the Books competition. Once we finished the five questions, we continued to work on our Foundations projects. We finished our rough draft, showed it to Mr. Snedden and once it was approved we began our final draft. If we didn’t finish the final draft, we will be given 15 minutes tomorrow to complete it before we present it to the class.

Our homework for this week was to do our first DBQ on the Causes of the Revolutionary War. Like a typical DBQ, we had to hand write an outline and the actual essay. To write the essay, you were supposed to use at least four of seven documents which can found on the DBQ link from the Assignment Page. Each document had a guided reading question that you were also supposed to answer. Tomorrow you should turn in a handwritten outline, essay and guided reading answer page.

By Scout Bidleman

Josh Ball WIR 9/13-9/19

On Friday of last week the class split into groups who either took the quiz first, which was unsuccessful because people from our morning class told the answers to the kids in the afternoon class, or they participated in Socratic seminar about the civil war in Syria. Then after one hour the whole class flip-flopped and then we did the activity we hadn't done yet. On Monday the whole class was supposed to have a discussion about the follow up questions for the Socratic seminar about Syria, but only half of the class completed the questions. So on Monday we ended up taking notes on how to write good essays. On Tuesday we discussed all of the persuasive techniques we could use in our business letters to convince the DMV to send us sample license plates for the license plate assignment. On Wednesday we were supposed to bring our Battle of the Books book to read and take detailed notes on in class. But more than half of the class did not bring their book to school, so the people that did not bring the book were assigned a five paragraph essay about responsibility and being prepared for school. On Thursday, the whole class brought their books to school because they did not want to repeat what happened on Wednesday. We then read our books for thirty minutes. After that, we watched and took notes on a documentary about the dangers of texting while driving. The assignments that are due tomorrow are 2 copies of our business letters to the DMV of your state with a postage stamp. Also due is our license plate about ourselves and our formal letter of introduction.

By, Not Josh Ball

9/19/13

Last Friday we had to do a Socratic seminar on Syria. We also had a test on Friday, which everybody cheated on. The test was on geography and one question on our BOB. Over the weekend we had to do some follow-ups on Syria. On Monday we kind of roasted but not really. We talked about the importance of outlines and how to properly complete a bibliography. On Tuesday we talked a lot about persuasive techniques and questions about the letter and then we had work time. On Wednesday we had to have our BOB books or else there was a 5-paragraph essay on whit is important to be prepared. Also on Wednesday we did Enlightenment thinkers part one and two in which we had to read a quote and explain how it was important. That night we had to take a bully survey to see if our statistics had gotten better from last year. On Thursday we had reading time and we watched and took notes on texting while driving. The Homework that is due tomorrow is 2 copies of our business letter titled to the DMV of your state along with a stamp for postage. Also due is our own symbolic license plate and our formal letter of introduction

By Hayden Buss

Last week we had a Socratic seminar on an article about Syria and then follow-up questions to complete over the weekend. The WIR Quiz: Skills 13.2 we did on Friday was about the five types of geography and other activities we did throughout the week. Our homework was the license plate procedures 1-4, and geography part 2. On Monday we roasted some peoples license plate assignments that were due on Friday for those who needed help with writing an outline or a bibliography. Also, we had to get our BOB books that we were going to read by Wednesday, and if you did not have it on that day you had to write a 5 paragraph essay on "why being prepared is important". Although, if you had your BOB books you were able to get started on reading while taking notes of the words you don't understand.  We did a warm up on Persuasive writing techniques on Tuesday and a warm up on the Enlightenment the next day, where we related different quotes by very accomplished people to the Enlightenment. On Thursday we a video on Texting and Driving and had to respond to a series of questions. For homework this week we have the license plate procedures 5-7 where we write our formal business letter to the DMV and create our own license plate. We also have to complete the Letter of Introduction that we must print and bring to class on Friday in addition to the business letter and license plate.
By Maddie Bolin

               On Friday we took a test on the things we needed to do when we enter the room and when we finished we talked about the scores. On Monday we did the review of all the battle of the books, books and we took notes that had a brief description of the books, the reading level, and the genre. On Tuesday we we started drawing maps of the United States of America that had to include specific mountains rivers and plains and once we finished that we would have to right about each mountains river and plain and why they are important. On Wednesday we took a page of cornell notes about the meaning of location, place, interaction and the way people adapt, movement of our bodies and movement of our thoughts and religion, our regions of physical features, and the regions of language and ethnicity, also we wrote the man made borders like states, latitude and longitude, and physical geography that you can touch like mountains rivers and claimant. And today (Thursday) we worked more on our maps of the United States of America and after we finished that we were give the assignment of creating a skit of ether proper edict in lunch in the halls or in class and the artistic style was trying to be humorous. The home work we had this week can be found on jsnedden.com but I'll tell you anyways, we had to finish part 2 of the geography, and parts 1-4 for the licence plate project. My name is Andrew Bass and that was the weekly review.

Week-In-Review Blog

This week and last Friday, are assignments were about the Battle of the Books, Geography, a Socratic seminar, a quiz, and our license plate assignment. The quiz we took on Friday was a review of what we were supposed to do when we entered the classroom. Our homework that we were given that was due Friday was "The Essentials," where we completed a chart about forty affixes and then wrote a comparative summary about two of our upcoming projects using the forty affixes. This week for the Battle of the Books project, we researched twelve books from the Battle of the Books website and made a list of our twelve books that included the title, author, a brief description, genre, and reading level of the book. When we were finished with our lists, we shared them with each other and took notes on the books that other people had been assigned. On our geography study, we took Cornell notes about the parts of geography and we made two maps, and we had to hand draw a map of the world and some of the things in it like oceans and mountain ranges. Then we had to complete two other maps. On our first map we had to locate, label, and color different landmarks like mountains, rivers, lakes, and plains in the US and then write about the significance of the landmarks. We did the same thing on our second map, except it was the whole world, not just the US and we did not have to write about the landmarks. In the geography homework, we had to locate the coordinates and write a brief description of the history of several cities. We had a Socratic seminar in which we read a poem about hope and then discussed it with other people. After we had discussed it, we responded to questions about it on a Google doc. On our license plate project, we were supposed to sign up for a state to write about and get a sample license plate from and we have two parts that are due Friday. The first part was to write a one to two paragraph expository about the federal system and the Department of Motor Vehicles and then explain their connection. The second part was to write a three to five paragraph essay about the history of state you chose and why its license plate is the way it is.

-Trajan Anzalone-Gurnee

Our Contract

We will each agree to the following 3 components of our attitude toward school this year:

1. Show up.  Barring serious health concerns, we will come to school everyday that we can with the understanding that some days will be better than others .
2. Work hard.  The teacher and students will demonstrate a commitment to ourselves and each other by adopting an ethic of hard work.
3. Laugh.  With an understanding that no one is perfect and without overstating the importance of middle school, we will learn to laugh at ourselves and with each other.

The Week-In-Review Blog

Each week a student, or students, will be assigned to provide a week in review blog post in preparation for that week's WIR (week-in-review) quiz.  Posts are due by 8pm on the Thurdsday of that school week.  Each post will include:

• A summary of the course content covered from the Friday of the previous week to the Thursday of the current week.
• A list and explanation of details of classwork assignments completed or worked on during the week.
• A list and explanation of details of homework assignments for the week.
• A discussion of important events, questions, revelations from the week.

Each student will be assigned to contribute at least 1 time during the first semester by posting a comment to the blog.

Directions and assigned contributor schedule to follow...