Aren't you excited to begin a new school year? Let's make 2015-2016 your best year yet! I am excited to meet all of my new students and out find out what kind of readers, writers, and thinker you are. We have two action packed days ahead; we will be writing an ABC autobiography poem, setting up our classroom, and getting to know each other. I am looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday. 

This week we are focusing on our reading strategies for informational text as we read some articles about a few different environmental issues. We are also learning a new writing strategy called "RAFT"- role, audience, format, and topic. Students are being asked to develop a piece of writing around an environmental issue using the role, audience, and format of their choice. They have come up with some amazing ideas and are excited to write their rough drafts!

After we finished reading the novel, A Long Walk to Water , the students had lots of questions about the characters and connections to real-world events. We will be reading a non fiction article about the conflict in southern Sudan as well as watching the 60 Minutes episode about the Lost Boys. It is very important for the students to realize how this conflict truly impacted all the people of the Sudan.

Survival factors are an important concept in the book A Long Walk to Water. We have been discussing three kinds of survival: physical, mental, and emotional. The students have been considering what helps the characters survive in these ways and finding evidence from the book to support their thinking. We are looking forward to some great discussions as we finish the book this week.

Today, the students worked with a partner to come up with questions for their assigned chapter. The questions had to elicit a conversation and not just require a yes or no answer. They then posted the questions in the room and shared them with the whole class. I will use these questions to create the quiz for tomorrow on Chapters 5-10.