We have spent the first few weeks creating a community, getting organized and learning routines. I intentionally do not start the school year with heavy academics. It's important I build a relationship with each student in ways that feel safe, are culturally responsive, and build trust. You can not ask a student to take risks in their learning when they don't trust the teacher. In my opinion, the older students get the more important it becomes for me to know my students as a person before I know them as a student.
You will see a reflection of this strategy when you look at parentvue. There isn't an abundance of graded work. We have have done several assignments that have been easily accessed by all students and have helped me learn about them. Not all of those will be put on parentvue. Language and Lit For our first IB unit, our statement of inquiry is: Author’s assign roles and beliefs that connect characters to impactful plots. We will be using text evidence to support our claims about character development in literature. Last week I read Grace For President as an example of how to recognize factual information about characters and inferential claims about characters. For example, for factual information, we recognized the main character is Black and a female. For an inferential claim, a student said she was a feminist because she was upset that there has never been a female president. This week students will be reading a picture book with a partner to pull out text evidence about the main character. They will use this information to make a character chart. Finally, they will give a book talk to the class about their book. The books have settings all over the world. There is a woman in Iraq trying to provide literature to women after the war. There is a black man in Harlem that starts a book store after he was denied a loan from the bank because of his race. His goal is to give Blacks the power of reading to create change in their community. All of the books celebrate characters who use reading to make social change. After this role modeling through picture books, students will be placed in reading groups based on their lexile score where they will practice this skill while tackling a chapter book. We will also focus on various comprehension strategies in our book groups. I will meet with book groups once a week to promote discussion, critical thinking and checking for understanding. Students will complete a character chart much like the one they did with a partner for the picture book as their final assessment. Their writing piece will include how to incorporate text evidence into their writing to support claims. Individuals and Societies We haven't started our first IB unit for Individuals and Societies. I'm working on how to mold the 6th grade time period of Ancient Worlds into a culturally responsive curriculum while integrating current social issues. For now, we are using the text book and responding to what we are reading in a traditional way. Those responses are in a large, district provided workbook so you will not see any of that work going home. (But do expect to see it on parentvue) After students have finished their work in the workbook, I give students a menu of options when they are done. For example, we just read about cave drawings, so they were able to create a cave drawing to explore their individual rituals, beliefs or passions. Or they could create a replica of the cave drawings we explored in class. This was an optional extension. Students who didn't participate in the cave drawings read in class. Until we start our book groups, we don't have a ton of reading time in Lang and Lit so I have no qualms about borrowing time from ind and soc for reading. As students are working on the optional activity or reading, I walk around and score work and offer feedback. Tidbits We are still working on some middle school growing pains. The biggest ones being getting to class on time and being prepared. I'm sort of amazed at the level of movement students are doing after starting an assignment. It seems to be a combination of work avoidance, bad habits (maybe) and lack of being prepared. I've been extremely structured in class to work on creating new norms. I do think I need to make the stakes higher so I will be implementing a scoring system for the following: 1 point showing up on time and prepared (that means text book at your desk, pencil sharpened and ready to go, all materials ready. Basically, no need to get up to start an assignment.) and 1 point for getting started right away. Students will start out with 10 points for the week. If I have to give ONE reminder to get started, they will lose a point for the day. If students have to visit their locker during the period to get materials or are tardy, they will lose a point. It's maddening to me that we don't have a bell system! With student advice, we created a system for tardies. Upon entering the room, we have an "on time" and "tardy" sign. When most of the students get to class, I will flip the card to "tardy". Everyone who enters at that time will be tardy. This is completely self managed. I refuse to have my first words be to a student when they enter my room be "you are tardy". Not only is that a negative first interaction but it really encourages a response from the student. The sign will take out any need for discussion or arguing. I will mark them tardy in synergy and they will lose a point. Please check parentvue for tardies! Unfortunately, MYP doesn't have a unified system for how to deal with tardies. So please check with each individual teacher. I am not a big proponent of this type of classroom management but I do have high expectations of all students. I like to utilize class time to the max so I need transitions to be swift. Finally, these are just basic self management skills. I do not expect nor desire to do this point system for a long time. The goal is students take care of these things because it's their job as a student. Not for any sort of extrinsic reward or punishment. The points will not effect their grade as both my classes grades will be on a proficiency grading model. But, I'm hoping you use the points as a discussion at home. I'm not sure when I will get the points into parentvue. I have a feeling it will be Monday morning as I am trying to give myself a time limit of working on the weekends. I will send an email when they are in. This system is effective Monday. Homework The big workbook goes home on Monday. On Friday, they bring it back to class and go over it in groups. Also, on Fridays, we go over the assignment for next week. This way they are only needing to bring it to class once. I do not focus on accuracy for homework as that is an issue of access. Either access to family that can help or having the time and place to complete the homework. Additionally, using classroom time to manage homework isn't the best use of time. I literally don't have the time to check 56 homework books. When students are correcting, I walk around the room and make observations. I can glean a lot of information from those observations. Please use the workbook as a way to form healthy habits in your student's understanding that working on academics at home can increase their skills and will be a necessity for high school. However, if homework creates a negative interaction between you and your student, please don't force it. Students can make a note in their workbook that they tried. If the homework seems to be too difficult, we can work on a modified approach. This week I will work on getting all my grades into parentvue. Unfortunately, my computer monitor at work stopped working on Friday. Fingers crossed the tech department gets there quick to fix it! Thank you to parent volunteers who met with 6th graders and helped with binder organization!
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