ELA 8th Grade 3-30/4-3
Hello Vikings,
Students will have a total of four assignments this week. The proposed schedule is to read a poem each day, Monday through Wednesday, and then work on the writing assignment on Thursday and Friday.
The first three assignments are reading poems related to our unit theme of “Happiness.” Students will be asked to annotate the text for something specific, which is basically highlighting important lines or writing notes in the margins that help them understand the text. CommonLit allows students to do this electronically, so don’t worry about printing anything. After each poem, students will be asked a few multiple choice questions and one short answer question. Students should restate the question and write in complete sentences when responding to the short answer.
I have included a few videos on Google Classroom and a figurative language review sheet for students to use as supports. The videos should be approved by our school librarian within 24 hours, so if it doesn’t play, give it a few hours to be approved.
The fourth assignment will be posted on Wednesday. It will be a writing assignment. The prompt will be “How can we achieve happiness?” We will host a video lesson on WEDNESDAY at 11:00 am to discuss the details of the assignment and the assignment will be posted after the video conference.
For this video conference, we will use Google Hangout instead of Zoom. This has been a request made by the district because students on school chrombeooks cannot download Zoom, but should have access to Google Hangouts. Students will also be required to use their school emails when accessing the Google Hangout, which will help us track attendance. I will post the Google Hangout link tomorrow on Google Classroom. To enter the meeting, students will log into their school accounts, go to Google Classroom, and press the link. I will delete the post with the link after the meeting is done, as I had some students attempting to enter the meeting from last week after it had ended.
Last weeks assignments will be reviewed, feedback will be given, and then returned this week. Students with a score of below a 70% will have their assignments returned to them to make corrections and resubmit. Students with above a 70% can request to have an assignment returned to them to make corrections as well.
Before closing out my weekly update email, I wanted to thank you for your support in this unprecedented time. It is challenging and stressful and you are doing a phenomenal job jugging everything that life is throwing at you right now. As you work from home and try to navigate both your workload and the workload of your children, please remember that we are here to help you. If {student_firstname} does not understand an assignment, please email us. If you are not certain if they are doing something correctly, please reach out and let us help you. If the workload is too much or if something is going to be late, email us and let us know that {student_firstname} might not have that assignment done until Sunday because a sibling needs the computer. Or maybe it is because they are watching their siblings as you go to work because you are an essential worker. We are assigning enrichment and due dates but understand that those dates may not be feasible in your household. Please let us know how we can support you and make this work for your family.
I am in awe of the support we are seeing from families. We could not make this transition to online learning without you.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
Megan Timpf and Jeanette Schafer