Social Responsibility Assessment

Social Responsibility
& the Civil War

In class, we have been expanding our knowledge of the social studies unit focusing on the Civil War by reading various texts including, “Civil War Journal” by Louisa May Alcott, and “Abraham Lincoln Photo-essay.” The theme of this unit is to understand how social responsibility and how one person can make a difference.
The assessment for this unit will include two components, a journal and a photo-essay. Students will brainstorm a way to get involved in their school, their home, or their community in a positive way. You could try to clean up the school or your neighborhood, work to eliminate bullying in the school, volunteer to read in a classroom, or anything you think helps improve a facet of your surroundings. You will then write a journal chronicling your experience, including a few pictures that will become a photo-essay. Please make sure:

 100 points: Your journal includes 10 entries, each at least 2 paragraphs apiece that show your creation of a project, how you implement it, and your reflection on how it made you feel and what you learned.
 30 points: Your photo-essay includes three pictures of you taking part in your project or three downloaded photos relating to the theme.
 20 points: Your presentation of your photo-essay to the class, no less than one minute in length.

Your journal will be collected on Friday, November 19th, and your photo-essay will be presented and collected on Monday 22nd or Tuesday 23rd.

Social Responsibility & The Civil War

As part of the service learning component of "Generation Yes," our ELA class will engage in a cross-curricular unit with Ms. Ventresca to examine social responsibility as it pertains to the Civil War. Students will activate their prior knowledge from social studies class to frame our readings; one is a personal diary called "Civil War Journal" by Louisa May Alcott, and the other is a photoessay on Abraham Lincoln. The objective is to understand social responsibility by examining these pieces and the ways in which the authors got involved. Then, students will write their own journal and present their own photoessay that chronicles their own attempt to be socially responsible through service learning! If you want to get involved, email me at jsmith49@scsd.us.

The Monkey's Paw - SCAAAAARY!!!

This week, we will be reading the W.W. Jacobs classic tale, "The Monkey's Paw." We will use the story to revisit the elements of plot, including Freytag's Pyramid. Once completed, we will embark on our own scary story writing assignment for the season. OooooOOOhhhhhh!!!

The TTR this week: "There's "fun scary" and "scary scary"." What's the scariest experience you've ever had? Which one was it?

Memoir Unit Wrapup

Just as a reminder, all the components of the memoir unit are due Friday, October 22nd. Make sure students submit everything on time for success!

Memoir Unit

Mrs. Tkacz has begun the personal writing unit that will focus on memoir. Students should be doing a little bit of personal writing each night. This will culminate in our submission of pieces to the National Writing Project on October 20th.

Open House tonight!

Open house starts tonight at 6:30! It will run until 8:00, and you will have the opportunity to see all of the teachers in 7th and 8th grade. See you there!

Flowers for Algernon & Irony

Hello All-

Mrs. Tkacz and I will be coteaching this week as she prepares to take over full responsibility of the class. We are reading the classic piece "Flowers for Algernon," and using it to examine the difference between situational irony and dramatic irony. If you have any questions or want to get involved, email me at jsmith49@scsd.us.

Mr. Smith