Week of September 25th

I hope everyone had a restful and/or eventful fall break.  Now it's time to get back to work!

For our next summative assignment, the students will be writing a short essay with the thesis "I believe ..." and filling in the blank. This is a personal narrative, so it is not as structured as a typical argumentative essay. Statements in the past have ranged from "I believe in laughter" to "I believe in helping the environment." The students then use examples from their own lives that support why this statement is important. The essay should be around 500 words and the students will be reading this essay aloud the week of October 2nd. They will receive two summative grades for this assignment, one for the writing and one for the speech. 

This assignment is inspired by the This I Believe international organization found here. Next week, the students will start organizing this paper and have already looked at several examples from previous students on Google Classroom. If your child has not reviewed the example and completed the analysis, please do so by Monday night. I understand many were without power or absent the week before the break, and I have extended the deadline. 

The final draft of the This I Believe essay is due Monday October 2. Please ask your child this week about working on this at home as we missed days due to the hurricane and I don't want to fall too far behind. Ask your child to read his/her essay to you, practicing eye contact, volume, and body language. This is a great way to practice the many opportunities your child will have to present in front of the class. 

After the This I Believe essay, students will each be assigned a different literary device that we will be studying in our next unit on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird starting the week of October 9th. They will learn about this literary device and create a short slideshow to show the class. 

There are lots of copies of this novel, but if you would like to purchase one for your child, please order now to ensure it arrives before the unit begins.