Hello Students and Families! Here’s to the second half of the school year! I just wanted to touch base and update everyone on English Language Arts happenings.
Click HERE to vote for one of the top four "I have a dream" found poems.
Second Quarter Grades
First of all, I have to have all second quarter grades into Skyward by Wednesday. The current grade in Reading and Writing are accurate, so please have your 8th grader look over their grade. Because I accept late work and revisions, there is still a chance for eighth graders to raise their grades by improving work or turning in missing work. For example, I graded writer’s notebooks just recently, and I noticed that over half of my students did not leave their notebook for me to grade. This can be handed to me on Tuesday, or students can electronically do the work. Click here for the link to my blog page with all of the information they need for this.
Optimism Speeches
Secondly, most of the students have delivered their optimism speech. I am so impressed with the talent of this year’s 8th graders! I have seen their peers moved to tears and laughter. A special congrats goes to Kylah, Maddey L., and Adrian, who have chosen to represent us in the Optimist Oratorical Contest Wednesday.
A few students are scheduled to go on Tuesday, and some still have not even written a draft one of it. Please talk to your eighth grader and make sure they are prepared. Have them show you their speech (even if they say they already did it.)
National History Day (NHD)
Once speeches are complete, we are going to get back into NHD drafting and project completion. Students who have actually turned in their first draft will be getting feedback soon. (This is a tedious, time-consuming process. I’m going as fast as I can!) Our school contest is Wednesday, February 28. If you have some history expertise, I would love to have you join our judging team. However, for obvious reasons, you will not judge the same category in which your eighth grader competes.
I am working on scheduling more NHD work nights. Once I determine a list of dates I will be available after school, I will post another message to everyone. Please stay tuned for that within the next couple days.
Questions or Concerns?
Please contact me. I’m usually pretty quick to return my email messages.
