Mrs. Lisa Verdigets

Literacy, 7 West

lisaverdigets@claytonschools.net

314-854-6438

24th year teaching

Essential Question:What is value? How is value determined?

Use of Core Literature: Use the text and ideas presented in the text to help students better understand the world around them.

Don’t beat the text itself into the ground. Rather, use it as a vehicle to examine their own lives and the lives of others.

7th Grade Core Text Titles:7th Grade Core Text Titles:

Core texts are supplemented poems, essays, picture books, short stories, additional novels, videos, etc.

This helps us use the ideas presented in the core texts as a springboard for our learning.

7th Grade Literacy

Moving beyond plot, setting, character. – Evidence and reasoning!

We start to look at the elements of literature more deeply. - • So, yes, the character is does this in the story. How does that affect the plot?•How exactly is the author choosing to convey deeper messages?•So this is the setting of the story. How does that affect the plot? How does the setting affect the characters? How does a characer’s experience in the setting affect the plot?•How does your personal experience affect your understanding of the story? •What is going on in our world today that helps us understand this piece of literature? How does this piece help you understand the world?

Other Shared Book Other Shared Book ExperiencesExperiences

Civil Rights Lit Sets including titles such as:

Claudette ColvinMississippi Trial 1955One Crazy SummerRock and the RiverSpies of the MississippiThe GreatestThe $66 SummerWarriors Don’t CryFire from the Rock

Out of the Dust – set during the Dust Bowl

Writing assignments include, but are not limited to the following:

•Poems

•Business letter

•Multi-paragraph essays

•Dialogue

•Memoir

•Creative writing

•Interdisciplinary writing

Independent Reading

Yes, there is required independent reading.

Student choice, with some guidelines

The Writer’s Notebook, affectionately known as “The WNB” to your kiddos, is a place for your students to write, to brainstorm, to vent, to glue “stuff”, to record examples of awesome writing…well, you get the point.

Bits of information…

Homework : Yes, there’s homework in this class.

Homework is not busy work.

Homework is usually a necessary component of the next lesson. If the homework is not complete,students find it difficult to engage in class and fall behind.

Much of your child’s work will be completed on GoogleDocs.

Students get feedback on their work in many ways including peer feedback, one-on-one conferences, and comments on GoogleDocs.

Proofreading tips…

Please do not make corrections for your kids. If you do, they are not learning. My suggestion: give them hints and then talk through how to make the corrections if necessary.

Read your child’s writing to them! Sometimes they can’t SEE mistakes, but they can HEAR them!

“No Excuses”