Class News

Work for Week of April 20

Posted on by Nancy Lessel

ELA Distance Learning for Week of April 20

Keeping in Touch: 

You should have been invited to join your advisory teachers “Remind” group. Let me know if you need the link.

All assignments and directions will be posted on Monday morning on the blog and Google Classroom(no more emails).

We will be using Google Meet. Directions and expectations are on GoogleClassroom. Be sure to read before the meeting.

 Monday @ 12:30                  Topic: Distance Learning

  Thursday @ 12:30                Topic: Discussion Essential Questions 

If you have questions, after reading all the directions, please email one of us directly. We often don’t see your comments on google-classroom until we are checking work.

Overview:

                   This week we will begin our Unit on “ Identity”. 

 Essential Questions:

  • What influences a person’s identity?
  • How do  circumstances impact a person’s decisions/actions?
  • How do socioeconomic ( money, class, ethnicity) differences create barriers between people?
  • In a culture where we are bombarded with other people trying to define us, how do we make decisions for ourselves?
  • Who am I now? Who do I want to become?

Article of the Week:

  1. This week’s article, a memoir,  “ I Escaped a Violent Gang” is posted on Google-Classroom with directions to read, annotate, and complete the 4 Square Graphic Organizer by Friday

Optional Movie(s) of the Week:

Freedom Writers ( available on NetFlix or Amazon Prime)- Find out more about how Ms. Gruwell and her students, including Ana,came to write their memoirs of their experiences.

IXL 

  1.  We have assigned to you from 8th grade the following:

Vocabulary: Q6  “Words with- ful”  

Vocabulary: Q7 “Words with -less” 

 The goal is 80% or higher for mastery by Friday. Please note going on for 45 minutes and finishing 3 questions or 5 minutes and finishing 92 questions doesn’t earn credit, as one is just letting the time run and the other is random guessing and neither meet 80% mastery.

Kahoot Challenge:  

” I Escaped a Violent Gang”. See Google Classroom for details.

Congratulations to last week’s Top 5  Parts of Plot Winners: Ava, Abek, Andrew, Nassim, and Hassan S.!!!

SSR+

  1. Read daily. We suggest 30 minutes a day. You can make daily annotations on a sticky note or notebook paper. See the bookmark posted on Google Classroom under SSR+ weekly Reflections
  2. At the end of the week (Friday -up until Sunday at 6 pm) write a SSR+ Weekly Reflection on Google-Classroom.

Note : If you do not have your novel at home, or you are expecting to finish it soon, you may use any online platform available to you for access to books (see list below). 

You can also order books through Scholastic Bryant  Book Fair April16-29th https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bookfairs/cptoolkit/homepage.do?method=homepage&url=bryantmiddleschool2

Mrs. Harrison, your school librarian, is getting ready to assemble book care packages. If you are need of books please email her at harrisc1@dearbornschools.org  

Be sure to give her your full name and school.

Resources for Books

  Don’t have your novel at home, or running out of books to read?  Try some of these online platforms available to you for access to books, or use some of our favorite, cheap online book sites. If you have a Dearborn or Dearborn Heights library card you may get ebooks from them as well.

FREE online reading sources:

https://rivetedlit.com/?s=full+reads

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

More free reading resources from your school librarian, Mrs. Harrison:

Thriftbooks-an affordable site for NEW and used books-spend $10 and get free shipping. https://www.thriftbooks.com

Scholastic– for new books. Support the Bryant Book Fair by using the following link by the end of April. https://www.scholastic.com/bf/bryantmiddleschool2?fbclid=IwAR3QPKtznq4dMtgfHP8CSKgELPbd8xAWhEe51urOiSMWvSYw3U5k6sB6zCE

                                              Bored Give These a Try

Bored… Give these a try:

  1. Start or continue a journal about what life is like for you in this time period. It can help your mind as well as perhaps serve as a primary source to others one-day. Wouldn’t that be cool to know a future generation might read yours just like you have read past generations.
  1. A former student, Bailey, who attended Bryant just like you, has put together a nightly “ History Bedtime Story” where she shares a story of some history from Detroit on Facebook. Don’t let the title scare you off. The stories are quirky, little known facts about Detroit. Give it a try.

 On top of being an engineer at GM (I believe), she runs a tour company and club called Detroit History Tours and The Detroit History Club. I thought it would be cool for you to hear from someone,who once sat in the same classrooms as you. Let me know. If you enjoy it, look for her other nightly stories.

https://www.detroithistorytours.com/video-bedtime-stories-1

  1. Try  a podcast: Here are a few that sounded cool to me. I’ve never listened to one, but I’m going to give it a try. I’m thinking it’s like listening to those radio shows from the old days… like “ The Hitchhiker” was a part of a weekly radio show. If you have any suggestions, email me.
  • The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified is fiction story about a reporter going out after “The Big Story”

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/483123262/eleanor-amplified

  • Flyest Fable with Morgan Givens is a fiction story about Antoine, who is bullied, and a magical book takes him to another world. Reminds me of  The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe and the cupboard.

https://www.morgangivens.com/flyest-fables

  • The Allusionist explores the oddities of the English Language. Might be a fun way to understand our language.

https://www.theallusionist.org/

Nancy Lessel