On this page, you will find links and general information about language arts: Home Reading, Self-Selected Independent Reading, Book Clubs, and Word Wizard.
The Basics
Our language arts program follows the long-range planning model promoted by the Oregon Writing Project, with students completing a poem, narrative, and expository piece each quarter of the year. The new districtwide literacy adoption, Inquiry by Design, also is an important foundation for our program. Students do a great deal of reading (literary and nonfiction texts) as part of their language arts class. There is a mix of teacher and student choice in the reading and writing assignments.
Students are using a Composition Book as a Readers'/Writers' Notebook this year. After beginning work in this Notebook, students must type their pieces, preferably using Google Drive, for ease of editing. All students may access Google Drive using their apps4.pps.net account for ease of digital sharing and for compatibility with Google Classroom.
Students are encouraged to revise and edit pieces as often and as much as they like prior to the end of the quarter.
Below you will find information about the home reading and vocabulary routines for this course. For more information about assignments in each grade level class, please go to that grade's tab.
Home Reading
Home reading is a very important part of language arts homework. My language arts classes use a quarterly Home Reading Contract, through which students (and their parents) promise to make student reading at home a priority and guarantee that the student will read for at least three hours each week outside of class. Over the course of the school year, students typically have the assignment to design a creative novel project and/or present a novel to the class based on their home and in-school self-selected reading.
Self-Selected Independent Reading
Students will engage with self-selected texts, during language arts class time, at least once per week, and usually more often. This activity will occur on Fridays and on other days as time allows. Early in the year, we will work on how to choose interesting and appropriately challenging reading material. We use this book-choosing system. Students should bring personal reading material with them to class every day, and they must have reading material with them every Friday.
Book Club
Several times a year, students will have the opportunity to read and discuss a novel with a group of peers. Groups will choose the novel(s) to be shared based on a teacher-selected theme or genre, such as social justice, medieval historical, biography/memoir, or dystopian fiction.
Vocabulary
Each week, students will learn and practice three to seven new vocabulary words. Three words are based on an SAT preparation resource; we also add important and interesting words that come up in class during the week. Quizzes will occur every fourth week and will cover the nine class words from the immediately previous three weeks. Here is the Word Wizard sheet, in case you lose it.
Daily Openers
The schedule for Daily Opener is: Monday: nonfiction read and response; Tuesday, read aloud with conventions of writing; Wednesday, read aloud with journaling; Thursday, read aloud with sentence craft; and Friday, Word Wizard. Written warm-ups are completed on this Opener Page and turned in every week on Thursday or Friday.
The Basics
Our language arts program follows the long-range planning model promoted by the Oregon Writing Project, with students completing a poem, narrative, and expository piece each quarter of the year. The new districtwide literacy adoption, Inquiry by Design, also is an important foundation for our program. Students do a great deal of reading (literary and nonfiction texts) as part of their language arts class. There is a mix of teacher and student choice in the reading and writing assignments.
Students are using a Composition Book as a Readers'/Writers' Notebook this year. After beginning work in this Notebook, students must type their pieces, preferably using Google Drive, for ease of editing. All students may access Google Drive using their apps4.pps.net account for ease of digital sharing and for compatibility with Google Classroom.
Students are encouraged to revise and edit pieces as often and as much as they like prior to the end of the quarter.
Below you will find information about the home reading and vocabulary routines for this course. For more information about assignments in each grade level class, please go to that grade's tab.
Home Reading
Home reading is a very important part of language arts homework. My language arts classes use a quarterly Home Reading Contract, through which students (and their parents) promise to make student reading at home a priority and guarantee that the student will read for at least three hours each week outside of class. Over the course of the school year, students typically have the assignment to design a creative novel project and/or present a novel to the class based on their home and in-school self-selected reading.
Self-Selected Independent Reading
Students will engage with self-selected texts, during language arts class time, at least once per week, and usually more often. This activity will occur on Fridays and on other days as time allows. Early in the year, we will work on how to choose interesting and appropriately challenging reading material. We use this book-choosing system. Students should bring personal reading material with them to class every day, and they must have reading material with them every Friday.
Book Club
Several times a year, students will have the opportunity to read and discuss a novel with a group of peers. Groups will choose the novel(s) to be shared based on a teacher-selected theme or genre, such as social justice, medieval historical, biography/memoir, or dystopian fiction.
Vocabulary
Each week, students will learn and practice three to seven new vocabulary words. Three words are based on an SAT preparation resource; we also add important and interesting words that come up in class during the week. Quizzes will occur every fourth week and will cover the nine class words from the immediately previous three weeks. Here is the Word Wizard sheet, in case you lose it.
Daily Openers
The schedule for Daily Opener is: Monday: nonfiction read and response; Tuesday, read aloud with conventions of writing; Wednesday, read aloud with journaling; Thursday, read aloud with sentence craft; and Friday, Word Wizard. Written warm-ups are completed on this Opener Page and turned in every week on Thursday or Friday.