Chrome Books Are Here

Our exploration of William Strunk and E.B. White's, The Elements of Style, continued with us looking at rule 3:

1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's.
2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comm after each term except the last.
3. Enclose parenthetic clauses between commas.

Today in our Writing Workshop class the seventh graders finally got the Chromebooks they have been hearing about since the beginning of the school year. Each student has been given a student account, which will make using google documents and chrome apps for school work much easier.

For the Reading Response Letter assigned below I will allow students to turn it in tomorrow, Friday, September 28th. Since I do not have a class with the seventh grade tomorrow, it will be the students responsibility to come and find me to turn in your work.


Homework:
Due every day: Read for thirty minutes.
Due Thursday, September 27th: Reading Response Letter

Strunk and White

William Strunk and E.B. White, authors of the well know primer on grammar and writing style, The Elements of Style, made an appearance in the seventh grade English Class today. We discussed how even though the English language is constantly changing it is helpful for writers to have some rules to serve as guideposts. Each student titled a page of lined paper, "Rules of Writing," and then wrote down these first two rules:

1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's.
2. In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comm after each term except the last.

After making sure we understood what the rule said, we looked through a selection of reading material to find examples of the rule in action. We will continue to examine the other rules, which will be kept in the English section of the seventh graders' binders.


Homework:
Due every day: Read for thirty minutes.
Due Thursday, September 27th: Reading Response Letter

Reading Response Letter

This year Middle School students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade are being asked to write a weekly Reading Response Letter. Each student was given this letter as a handout and in class today we read the handout, went over the requirements of the letter, and answered questions that came up. The purpose of this letter is to encourage the students to pay more attention as they read, not only to the content, but also to their reading own habits.

Homework:
Due every day: Read for thirty minutes.
Due Wednesday, September 18th. Read the New York Times article on lions in suburbia. Then respond to the questions.
Due Thursday, September 27th: Reading Response Letter

Reading the Times

Today in English the 7th. grade students read an article from the New York Times, and then were asked to respond to a series of questions. We will be using newspapers throughout this year in the 7th Grade, and eventually the students will create a class newspaper.

Homework:
Due every day: Read for thirty minutes.

The First Week.

To all my seventh grade students, welcome to The Berkeley School, 2012/13 Seventh Grade English Blog. While I taught you all in sixth grade, this is my first year teaching seventh grade English, and I am quite excited. It is the end of the first week and you all seem to be settling in to the newness of seventh grade. In English we have already jumped into Writing Workshop, exploring what it means to be a writer and to be intentional about what we are writing.

I was very impressed by our discussion of the poem "America," by Tony Hoagland. I thought many of you had very insightful comments. I hope the poem inspires some of your own writing.

My plan is to use this blog on Seventh Grade English class to offer reflections, comments, and descriptions, throughout the year. I hope this will allow you all to do your own reflecting, as well as offer your families some insight into our class. I will also use this space to record homework, important dates, and copies of handouts. 

Remember that the Summer Reading Posters group project is due by the end of class on Monday.

As always you are expected to read 30 minutes a day, seven days a week, rain or shine, throughout the school year. Let's have a great year of learning together.

Homework: Read 30 minutes each night.