Happy Friday! We had a great time in Language Arts today! The students discussed their argumentative essay topics in small Socratic circles. They had meaningful conversations with each other and helped each other understand their topics better by teaching each other about it.  I took some photographs of my afternoon classes and will post on the blog this weekend (my iPad wouldn’t connect to Wifi today!).  At the end of class we wrote our final responses to the Article of the Week. Some students did not finish this in class and needed to take it home for homework. The response should answer the EQ at the top of their graphic organizer and be written in a Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning paragraph (CER). These sentence stems should help guide their thinking if they are stuck:

I strongly believe___.  In the article it says____and that makes me think_____.

Another piece of evidence from the text is_____this means_______.

Furthermore, if we_____ then _____.

There are also sentence frames on their graphic organizer to help them out. Basically they state their claim (opinion) on the topic first. Explain why they think this with evidence from the text (at least two pieces of evidence). Then end with their reasoning for why this makes sense. (How does the evidence support their claim?)

Homework:

• Read for 20 minutes and respond on reading log!
• Finish Article of the Week CER response if you didn’t turn it in Friday (Due Monday!)