SHOJ - English Language Arts

Students worked hard this year on Price Chopper's Bag a Book contest. I love seeing what they choose! We talked about quality and using strong voice in reflecting on our favorite books. Here are a few. Price Chopper selects a winner from both 7th and 8th grade. Way to go, students!

In 8th grade and 7B, all book talks must be finished by next Thursday. In those same classes, students can bring in books for extra credit in either grade book. They can earn up to 5 points each in reading and writing. They know the details! We submitted our order to Price Chopper for the reward of reaching 50,000 pages in these three classes. Eighth graders were excited to finish their last quiz of the year in ELA. Some even felt a bit nostalgic for a bit! Next week, we'll be finishing up our read aloud for this quarter, which is excerpts from  The Princess Bride. We will watch part of the movie next week. The last grammar topic of the year will be misplaced modifiers. (Ex: Incorrect: Picking weeds, several worms crawled to the top of the soil.)f Some 8th graders were interested in writing one last paper about The Princess Bride , so they have an optional literary analysis essay. This will be with 40 points if they choose to do it. It's not extra credit, but it is an add...

Middle school families, In English class 7th graders have finished writing their literary analysis papers! They'll be starting the last work that we're reading this year, which is the story "Flowers for Algernon." It brings up many good topics to discuss, such as the power of intelligence and science and the value society places on them. In 8th grade, we're in a pretty intense part of The Princess Bride ( the book) plot. We connected Joseph Campbell's 12 Stages of a Hero's Journey to other books and movies last week. The students will have their last quiz grade for reading on Thursday. They will need to have the 12 Stages memorized in order, like we talked about in class. The other side of the quiz will be identifying sentences as simple, compound, complex, and compound complex. I'm always available if the students have questions! These games below are some we used in class and can be a good study tool:  The two games we used this week:  ...

Students and parents, As we head into the first week of May, we have our Buy One Get One Free book fair.  Summer is a great time to encourage students to read, and this is a great way to get great books in their hands! We'll be sending flyers home this week and taking a preview day on Tuesday for the students to look around. In Miss Rajewski's homeroom, the students play "bingo" with their PBS cards. On Thursday, they voted to make a giant bingo board for the month of May. Every time they get 5 stars, they get to choose the number they think will win them the prize. Any students who bring in a prize or prizes for the class drawing will automatically get a name on the board. We have 150 spots on the board. That's 750 stars! Seventh graders have been working hard to revise the literary analysis arguments they've been making this month. Above, they are working on finding stronger verbs to take the place of many of the "be" verbs. We...

8th grade families,  Check out the 2nd-annual 8th grade class magazine, this year entitled  This is Us.  Fifty students contributed to the magazine, which is bound like a magazine and looks like a professional publication. In the magazine, students share their "Where I'm From" poems, giving readers a glimpse of the people, places, events, and objects that have shaped the students' lives. This is a great collection from the wonderful class of 2014 and shows the voice and personality of each student who participated!  The proceeds from the magazine benefit Sacred Heart. The magazines costs $20 per magazine. Families can place an order at Brown Bottle. If you are not able to attend Brown Bottle, you can have a friend sign up and pay for you or you can contact me (sarah.rajewski@shoj.org ). Parents can purchase this item for themselves, grandparents, the student, and anyone else you think might enjoy it.  After ordering, the final magazines will be deli...

Thanks to the students who came with me to the writing workshop today. We had a great time and learned a lot! For anyone interested, a summer writing conference was announced. It sounds like a great event!  2014 Summer Student Writing Project July 7 – 17, Monday – Thursday, 9am – Noon UMKC Volker Campus The Student Writing Project’s atmosphere is relaxed, friendly and geared toward intellectual and creative excellence. Students entering grades 4-12 who like to write will love the individual attention they receive while drafting, sharing and revising their work within a creative and supportive writing community. To find more information and to register, visit this website .   We have read over 200,000 pages in middle school this year! Both of the 8th grade classes have read over 50,000 pages, which Price Chopper celebrates by sending us supplies for a party. Keep up the reading!  This week and next week, 7th graders are working to format a hoo...

Dear 8th grade families,  We are testing out a new vocabulary program, instead of the workbooks we have used in the past. Your child will be using Membean, a fully automated, differentiated, and multimodal vocabulary learning system that will effectively address your child at her or his own level of vocabulary expertise and learning style. This learning program is fully web-based, and uses a patented Adaptive Reinforcement Engine which ensures that your child will remember her or his vocabulary words, not just for a test, but on a long-term basis. At Sacred Heart, we are testing out this program with our 8th graders to decide if we want to make it our vocabulary curriculum in middle school. We will also include the students' opinions on this decision, which is why the 8th graders are testing it out.  Depending on the day their class has lab time, students will get the chance to get started sometime this week. To take a tour of the site, visit:  http://membean.com/to...

Dear families, We wish you a wonderful and relaxing week! 7th graders, I saw this and thought of you. After spending time last semester learning about the Holocaust, this exhibit sounds very interesting. From now through Monday, March 31st at the Kansas City (MO) Public Library, there will be an exhibit looking at Holocaust related information through comic books. If you've got time over spring break or the week after, you should check it out! I'm planning to. Here's the description from the website : The role played by comic books in fighting fascism is explored in an exhibit spanning almost 70 years. During the war, superheroes such as Superman, Daredevil, and Captain America did battle with Adolph Hitler and his Nazis. Dr. Seuss, then an editorial cartoonist, depicted Hitler frolicking beneath the swaying bodies of executed Jews. The postwar years introduced the classic  X-Men  character Magneto, a Holocaust survivor who uses his superpowers to wreak veng...

The 7th graders looked awesome today as Greasers and Socs. We started the movie, which they are enjoying! Thanks for participating, 7th graders.

Dear families, We have finished our 7th and 8th grade novels. 7th graders have had their study guides for their test Monday, and we spent today in class reviewing. The test will be over vocabulary for Ch. 7-12 and applying literary terms to the novel. 8th graders received their study guides today for their test on Tuesday over compound sentences and applying literary terms to To Kill a Mockingbird. We spent all class today reviewing and will spend Monday reviewing more. The students can complete the study guide for extra credit. 8th graders working on making a tool to help them remember compound sentences.  Each group was assigned a FANBOY (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).  The 7th grade "casting call" projects were fun to read!  Have a nice weekend!

Dear 7th grade families, The students will learn about this in class tomorrow, but we will be dressing down while we watch The Outsiders  movie, as the classes have done in years past. The attire must be school appropriate. Students choose if they are a Soc or a Greaser. We will be doing this on Tuesday, March 11th. There will be no fake weapons, cigarettes, leggings, or Ugg-style boots. We will be brainstorming in class what each group might have worn. Thanks! Please email us if you have questions. Miss R. and Mrs. W.

I wanted to share some fun pictures that we had from class this week. 8th graders brought in items that were meaningful to them after Jem and Scout find items in a knothole on the way home from school in our novel. They did a great job speaking with great eye contact and volume. I was impressed with how many incorporated pieces of their faith and their families in their presentations. I'm blessed by them! Check it out! We've also finished our maps of Maycomb and today got to hear from our outside speaker who had taught  To Kill a Mockingbird  for 20 years before she retired. She was a wealth of knowledge, and the kids asked good questions. We're also working on compound sentences, which will be our next language test. Students are reading the court room scenes of our novel and studying their vocabulary words for the vocab test Monday. 8th graders also had fun interviewing 5th and 6th graders for their Exchange City trip. It was fun to see the grades work to...

Middle school families, It's been busy in English class these past couple weeks, except of course with our nice long break last week! Eighth graders have finished part one of To Kill a Mockingbird. We've made maps to help us envision Maycomb. Scout's making us laugh, and Atticus and Miss Maudie are sharing their wisdom. Students are bringing items from home with meaning to them to put in their "knothole" next Monday. This will be a fun day to see what everyone brings. We're finishing up prepositions this week and will move onto compound and complex sentences next week. The students will have notes in their notebooks and their grammar books to study from! Next week, we'll have a guest speaker to explain more of our novel to us, and we'll be getting ready for our vocabulary quiz over words from Ch. 1-17. We've been back to our blogs -- which we were gone from for a while -- so be sure to check those out (see links tab above). 7th graders are half...

Parents, Heads up that students are bringing $7 by next Monday to get their copy of The Outsiders for 7th and To Kill a Mockingbird for 8th. We're all using the same version, but if you have a copy of the book your child needs at home and you're OK with them writing in it, that's OK too! Please talk to me if money is an issue.  Students will be allowed to write in their books and keep them after we finish the unit, which will take us into March. We're excited to get started with both novels. Next week we will be doing some pre-reading activities and looking at the different time periods that the books are set in. 7th graders will be looking at the 1960s, and 8th graders will be looking at the 1930s. Both are wonderful books. In years past, students have really enjoyed both novels. The Outsiders brings up good discussion, but does include some gang and teenage violence. To Kill a Mockingbird  focuses on racial issues, and we will be talking about some of the langua...

To finish out the year, students are working hard to wrap up their novels. 7th graders are finishing their diary for Anne Frank, which is due Monday. They will have a test next Thursday over Anne Frank and the information on their Holocaust webquest with a matching section for their Holocaust vocab words (both in their ELA notebooks). We'll spend some time watching a movie about Anne Frank next week. 8th graders seemed to really enjoy going to A Christmas Carol  this morning. They made some great comparisons between the play and the novel they read. We have been working on their theme essays in class. Their projects for A Christmas Carol  will be due next Thursday. We'll also be watching a version of our novel. In language, they have been working on verbs, especially active and passive verbs. Next week, we will work some more with verbs. They will have a test over A Christmas Carol and their verbs information during the last week of school before Christmas. They can g...

7th graders, Our lab activities today: 1. Spend some time with the vocab words from Act 1 and 2. Q uiz yourself (under Spelling Bee or Learn this List). To log in, my username is  sarah.rajewski@shoj.org, and the password is learn.  Act 1:  https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/259369#view=notes   Act 2:  https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/259372#view=notes 2. Explore the Secret Annex online: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/ Write a blog post explaining something you learned. 3. Visit KidBlog. I've posted an optional prompt.  Choose this one or write about something else you would like!  Thank you!

Students are working hard on their novels and on their projects. 7th graders voted to finish Scenes 1 and 2 of Act 2 this weekend before the break so that it will be fresh in their minds! We've been writing their diary entries in class, so they'll just need to type those up at home. 8th graders are also working hard on Christmas Carol. We've had some work time in class, but they've also been reading on their own outside of class. They'll vote tomorrow whether they want to finish Stave 4 over the weekend or over the break. Students, remember we've got a class period to work on your projects next Monday. Don't forget your supplies and your flash drives! Remember to be signing up for your book talk at the end of the semester. Spots are filling up! You don't have to finish the book to sign up and reserve a date later in the quarter. Thanks. -- Miss R.

Students, Some of you asked for the link to the audio book of a Christmas Carol, so you could listen and annotate at the same time. Here you go! Click on the play button next to the stave you would like to listen to. https://librivox.org/a-christmas-carol-by-charles-dickens/ Thanks! Miss R.

8th graders, Here's the video I promised to post to help you study for your quiz next Wednesday. } https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- F2JWKY63K0 Also, if you want to practice with the game we played today, here's helping verb "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" http://www.quia.com/rr/121293.html We'll be playing Jeopardy tomorrow. You can practice at home from this game:  https://jeopardylabs.com/play/action-linking-and-helping-verbs . Here's another game to practice with:  http://www.superteachertools.com/jeopardy/usergames/Nov201145/game1320938820.php

7th grade: First lab activity: 1) Visit this website:  http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/a2z.php?type=idcard 2) Pick a Holocaust victim with a last name that starts with the same letter as your own.  3) Read their biography, and post your own five-sentence summary of their life onto your blog.  Second lab activity: Visit the Kidblog site and create another post for the day. I've given you an optional prompt.  Third lab activity (if you have time): Quiz yourself (under Spelling Bee or Learn this List) on Act 1 vocab words.  https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/259369#view=notes  My username is sarah.rajewski@shoj.org, and the password is learn.  8th grade:  First lab activity: Visit  http://www.pat heos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/christmas-according-to-dickens/ . Scroll down to the second entry " Dickens: The Man Who Invented Christmas?." Read that whole entry (until you see " The Real Business of Christmas, according to Char...