Dates to Remember:                                                                                                                               Summer 2008

  Tuesday, September 2 - 9-12 – Orientation to advisories and class schedule.

  Tuesday, September 2 – noon – Pizza lunch for students and parents and sibs

  Wednesday, September 3 8-2 – Full classes begin

  Thursday, September 4-5 – Catoctin overnight with all parents welcome

 

Dear Social Studies and Language Arts Students,                                                                      

  I hope you are all having a great summer!  I apologize for intruding on your free time like this, but I wanted to check in with you about a few things, including the summer reading assignment.

 

  I will be teaching you Language Arts and Social Studies this coming year.  This year, there are an unusual number of students I donÕt know well as I plan for the coming year.  I have been reading some of your 6th grade portfolios, so I can see that you are intelligent people with lots of good ideas.   If you could take a few minutes and email me about your interests, needs, questions and suggestions for next year, I would get to know you better and so plan more effectively.  Of course, I wonÕt be able to follow all of your suggestions, especially the ones about no homework, but I will take them all into consideration as I make decisions for next year.  Feel free to email me then, at: ekh@wthole.com

 

  First, in Language Arts, I would like to know what you enjoy reading both when you are goofing off and when you want to stretch your reading a bit.  That would just help me plan the range of reading you enjoy as a group.

 

  Second, I can see that you are a group who knows how to use writerÕs workshop well.  Since you are all familiar with this workshop format, how would you adapt or change it so that it takes into account what you already know? Are there things you have done that are no longer necessary given your experience with this format? Are there things you would like to write that you have never had the chance to?  Any suggestions?  Again, I canÕt promise to use all of your ideas; I can only promise to consider them all carefully.

 

  Next in Social Studies, our yearlong theme will be Rights and Responsibilities.  What rights do you think you should have and what responsibilities would follow from those rights?  What responsibilities do we all have if we want to ensure some rights for all people?  We will be talking about this as individuals in our everyday lives, as members of a classroom and as citizens in our country and our world.  This theme should be a lot of fun and open up a lot of different types of discussions and debates.

 

  At the beginning of the year, we will explore this question in respect to the American Colonies, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights before moving on to other applications of it.   In order to help us get this unit off to a quick start, I would like you to read Blood in the Water by Elisa Carbone before the start of school.  It is available in paperback, and there are 33 used copies available on Amazon if you would like to purchase a copy.  I picked this book because it is well written, because it provides a good description of life in Jamestown and the early colonies and because it has a good discussion of what makes an effective leader.  In fact, I hope to start our discussion of leadership at Catoctin by referring to this book and its depiction of different leadership styles.  I do promise that the next book that we read as a class will have a female protagonist!  I do take gender equality in our novels very seriously.

 

  So, please read Blood in the Water and be ready to discuss:

   1) What would it have been like to come to an unknown world?

 

   2) What did you learn about the way of life in the early colonies?

 

   3) What did you notice about the way this book was written?

 

   4) What helped change the protagonistÕs point of view so that he could work cooperatively with people?

 

   5) What did you learn about what makes a good leader from this book?

 

   6) What do you think will make a good leader this fall?

 

  Thank you.

 

  Please email me with your current interest in reading, with your suggestions for writerÕs workshop and with any questions you might have about Language Arts and Social Studies.  I look forward to hearing from you!

 

  Otherwise, have a great summer!

 

  Elizabeth