Week of Dec. 5 – Dec. 9

Welcome to Trimester Two!

     It has been a busy first trimester, but it is done at last! Grades are being calculated and posted by teachers at this very moment, and report cards will go home by the end of the week. Trimester One report cards will include, for Language Arts, persuasive writing, grammar, presentation, and timeliness scores. Before you know it, we will be on vacation again, and then it will be a new year. But that is getting a bit ahead of things, so let's focus on the present.

     This week in Barclay Language Arts, students will take the SRI (Standard Reading Inventory) to check on how their reading comprehension has improved since the start of the year. In the coming trimester, we will be focusing on that exact subject, so this will be a handy score to compare to the end of the trimester. Students will have all class on Monday to complete this, and may finish it on their own time at home. This must be completed by Wednesday so we can compare progress by Friday's in-class student-teacher conference about it.

     On Monday, before taking the SRI, students will get five vocabulary words for the week, which they will be expected to spell and match with a definition and part of speech on Friday.

     On Tuesday, students will dive into scene descriptions, examining one moment from their novels and identifying all the descriptive words from them. Proper reading comprehension means depth of understanding, so recognizing how authors describe a setting is key to success. Students will work on this in groups or individually, and will turn in their work by the end of class.

     On Wednesday, which is a two-hour delay start for students, they will engage in a similar activity regarding a character from their novel; this time, the descriptions may come from anywhere in the text, not just one scene. This is a more student-driven assignment, and so will be done in pairs or individually. Students must be prepared to present their characterizations to the class verbally (without a computer) on Thursday.

     On Thursday, students present their characterization to the class and attend to the characterizations by their peers. Any remaining time will be used to review the concepts of characterization and setting.

     On Friday, students will take a quick vocabulary quiz, write a Week in Review, focusing on how much they understand about setting and characterization, and will be brought up to talk about their reading comprehension one at a time as they write. Any remaining time in the period will be spent reading.

     After school this week, our boys play at home against Lincoln at 4:45 on Monday, and the girls play at home against Windham at the same time on Thursday. The Newspaper Club meets Tuesday afternoon immediately following school, and Chess Club meets on Wednesday.

     Get in touch with any questions or concerns, and welcome to Trimester Two!

Sincerely,
Mr. DeMaris