We did quite a bit today! We started by revisiting the Nazi's motivation to burn books during the Holocaust. We then switched gears a bit to talk about the Taliban's rules. You made great connections between the two groups, identifying that a group takes away joy, hope, and freedom in order to control. We spent the last part of class watching Unbreakable. This video is about Malala and gives us some information about the book that we will start tomorrow. I am looking forward to discussing the brave young woman with all of you. Today was a little strange because I taught the lesson for our new unit, How Are Knowledge and Power Related, during Enrichment. We did it this way because you had library and it made more sense to have you do the independent work during this time. During this lesson, though, you analyzed a Malcolm X quote focusing on the connection between knowledge and power. After a partner discussion, we talked about the relationship between these two concepts as a whole group. We then moved to a very serious topic in world history, the Holocaust. We discussed genocide during our reading of The Red Pencil. In this case, we looked at why the Nazis ordered the burning of books. We will continue discussing this tomorrow.
We had ANOTHER snow day on Monday! Well, technically it was a wind day. We jumped right into things today and took our third Interim Assessment. You did a nice job refocusing after the break and taking things seriously. This is going to be a long stretch, so make sure you are keeping it together, asking for help, and putting in lots of effort!
This has been such a strange few days because of Spirit Week assemblies. It was nice to show our love for EVCS and have some fun in the afternoon, but it has left us a little all over the place before break. 7B had more time than 7A to complete our tasks, but both classes worked hard. We spent time typing up personal narratives and completing a reflection about Eleven. Both assignments were on Google Classroom. We will have a little time to work on these when you come back.
Be good, stay safe, and have fun over our Winter Break! We will miss you all! I am a little behind here and I have so much to report. Over the past few ELA classes we spent time preparing for 7th grade's Whole School Morning Meeting, had our final Eleven meeting, worked on final projects, had a guest speaker, and started first drafts of our final narratives. Our meeting went well and I was proud of all EVCS 7th graders for showing their school spirit in front of the rest of our community. It was sad wrapping up Eleven, but you all seemed to really enjoy reading the story. Our goal before the end of this week is to rate the book and reflect on the discussion goals that you set at the beginning of the unit. Most people are at a good place in their narrative writing pieces. I am hoping that most people can type these into our Google Classroom assignment before we leave for break at the end of the week. I'd love to start taking a look at these so we can work to finalize the writing soon! Lastly, we welcomed Shelby Deck from the Girls Education Collaborative to speak on Friday. We were lucky enough to learn about the school that organization has built in Tanzania. Ms. Deck made many connections between her work in Africa and Amira's story in The Red Pencil. She even was kind enough to leave us some red pencils of our own! We will begin thinking about some work that we can do with the Girls Education Collaborative for our community service project this year.
We had our final "normal" meeting for Eleven on Tuesday. It was so great to be able to discuss the ending of the book with you all. I can tell that this was one of your favorites so far. After our meeting, we reviewed final project options and jumped right in. Wednesday was a short class before of library, but you had at least 30 minutes to work on final projects. You will have limited amounts of time on both Thursday and Friday this week. Anything that is not completed by Friday will become homework. Projects are due on Monday!
We have had such a strange week! I was not here on Tuesday, but you started working on more narrative writing. Between last Tuesday's class and Monday's class, you should have a pretty good idea about your writing topic. We are going to pause on this until next week after we've finished Eleven. People seemed a little confused about the literature circle schedule due to the snow days last week. I am so proud of those of you who used your calendars to make sure you were caught up to Meeting 9. Enjoy those homework passes! I gave you some time in class on Monday to do this work. Meeting 9 will be tomorrow, so make sure you finish the story!
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