This week in LASS we will be continuing our book groups.  Students will get their last chunk to read on Thursday, which will be due on Monday.  It’s okay if students don’t quite finish their books by the end of the quarter.  They will be able to finish reading over break.

This week our main focus is essay writing.  Students will work to write a thesis and support their thesis with evidence that has been collected over the course of the quarter.  Evidence can come from the books they have read and discussed with classmates, and all other learnings we have done in class.  

These essays can be typed or hand written.  They will be due next Tuesday.  Below is an outline of what we will be working on each day.

Monday-write thesis and brainstorm evidence to support thesis

Tuesday-continue work on thesis and write a draft of essay

Wednesday-continue drafting

Thursday-peer review essays and turn in first rough draft for teacher feedback

Friday-use teacher and student feedback to continue working on essay

Over the weekend-keep working on essay!

Monday-work to complete essay

Tuesday-essay due!

p.s.  Students were given rubrics in class today.  I’d post it here, but can’t quite figure it out.  If you lose your rubric, you can find extra copies in the absence files in the back of class!

Thanks to all the families that were able to make it to conferences!  Those of you we missed: we look forward to seeing you at the next round.

This is a big week in LASS.  We will continue our study of the Civil War by working in literature circles.  Students were given four options of books: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Kindred, and Bull Run.  Students will receive their books tomorrow and begin working to read the book and respond to the chunks of reading they have read.  Reading will be homework. Students will be writing their reading assignments in their planners tomorrow and they will also be posted here.  Every Monday, Thursday and Friday a chunk of reading will be due and students will meet with their book group to discuss what they have read.

Please note:  These books deal with both the suffering and perseverance of people during an incredibly harsh time in our nation’s history.  Themes of oppression and resistance run throughout.  Please support your daughter by discussing with her what she has read!

The later part of this week we will begin discussing the essay assignment that will take us through the rest of the quarter.  Students will be learning about creating thesis statements and how to develop evidence to support a thesis.

Please check this site frequently; we will update it with new information as it is presented to the students.

Spelling is due on Wednesday!

We’re glad to have our kids back in full force! 

We’re working to solidify our understanding of the reasons behind the war and how it all went down.  We will then be focusing on Reconstruction and the era of Jim Crow.  Students will examine important events after slavery ended to continually ask themselves what has been accomplished in this country, really accomplished, in the way of equality and justice for African-Americans. 

This week we’re reading an excerpt from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave and doing a shared inquiry discussion on it.   We’ll also be wrapping up the facts of the Civil War and working to establish/maintain academic routines. 

Girls are doing an AMAZING job of engaging their brains in the heavy topic of the reality of slavery in our country, and we are so, so excited to see their excitement grow as we learn about the aftermath of the end of it.

Hi, hi.  This week is kind of a short week for us, as we have NWEA testing on Thursday and Friday.  However, we’re doing some great work with the time that we have!  We are doing some check-in work (formative assessment) on the basics of the U.S. Civil War, reflection on the film, introductory learning about Frederick Douglass, and word study diagnostics.  Girls are doing a fabulous job.

Our essential question for this unit:

What did the U.S. Civil War solve?

So much meaningful learning to come.  Thanks for checking in.

Today and tomorrow we will be watching the movie, Glory. This film is about the first African-American regiment in the Civil War. We are watching it because it gives an accurate depiction of war, and also looks at racism in the North. This will give the students a more accurate picture if what attidues were prevalent during this time period. The film uses language that was common during the time period. We will discuss these derogatory terms in class, what they mean, why they were used, and the implications using them has. We will be pausing to discuss the movie and reflecting on it frequently. We will let students know when the battle scenes are coming and they will be allowed to leave the room for those parts if they feel uncomfortable. We will be watching the rated R version of the film, but making it PG-13 by fast forwarding through one more gruesome part, and one part where swearing is used. Please ask your daughter about the film! What were their reactions to it?

Last week we reviewed the time line of United States history to give us a big picture of events before we zoomed in on the Civil War period.  We began discussing the causes of the Civil War and ended our week by role playing different events that led to the Civil War.

This week we are continuing our learning of this period, as well as adding in important procedural elements to our class.  We are focusing this week on spelling, writing in our writer’s notebook, and current events using Time for Kids as a resource.

We will continue to study the mounting tensions between the North and the South and the differences in attitudes that brought about the Civil War by looking at the population demographics to better understand who held the power and analyzing political cartoons.  We will be watching excerpts of the Ken Burns documentary “The Civil War” and the movie “Glory” to get an overall understanding of what life was like during this time.

In the coming weeks we will closely examine what happened during Reconstruction, looking specifically at Jim Crow laws, and asking ourselves, what did the Civil War solve?

Welcome back! It’s hard to believe we are about to begin our second year of LJA!  We are excited to welcome our new students, to see our returning students, and to get all of this scholarly work underway!!

Along with our second year comes many great changes.  Not only do we have new bulletin boards in the hallway to display student work (very exciting), a brand new LASS room for the fifth graders (complete with a generous amount of ’soft’ seating), but we also have two new and incredibly talented LASS teachers (Ms. Emily and Mr. Jacob).

Class breakdowns:

Ms. Amber and Ms. Kelly will be teaching 7th grade LASS.

Ms. Amber and Ms. Emily will be teaching 6th grade LASS.

Ms. Kelly and Mr. Jacob will be teaching 5th grade LASS.

We will be working this week to figure out the best way to keep everyone up to date on the class happenings.  We may try to work it out to have all the updates for all three classes on this site, or we might have three separate sites. Our goal is to keep these class blogs as easy to use and streamlined as possible.  So, check back next week to see what we’ve come up with!

This week in all the LASS classes we will be watching President Obama’s address to students. We will be discussing what his message to students is, why he feels it’s an important message, and whether or not you agree with him.

Here’s to a great first week!

Great work on the poems, ladies!  As we read through them over the break we couldn’t help but smile at the beautiful imagery flowing through them and the honesty that came out of them.  Thanks for your hard work.  These poems will really help us to understand where our worldviews come from.

This week, we are going to explore other worldviews and how they can change.  We are going to be studying American Indian boarding schools.  We are going to ask: What is a boarding school? What is cultural assimilation?  Why did these boarding schools exist?  Do they still exist today?  How could an American Indian’s worldview have changed after going to a boarding school?

We will answer these questions as true historians by analyzing primary sources, both photographs and actual accounts of people that experienced boarding schools first hand.  We will work as a class to do this at the beginning of the week.  At the end of the week, students will work in groups to analyze different primary sources on the same topic.  Next week, students will work individually to analyze a photograph of an American Indian that was sent to a boarding school and write about what their story could have possibly been, using the facts they will learn this week.

Ahhh, I love LASS class…

Expand Your Mind assignment is on the left!  Remember that you can pick up copies of the books and the various papers in the corner of the LASS room by the EYM bulletin board.

Don’t forget! Spelling is due Friday. 

Also, if you have not turned in your “I am from” poem you will be working to complete it during lunch study this week.

It’s raining today…which makes it the perfect time to get the second page of your scrapbook done!

The “I am from” poems were completed and typed yesterday in class. This week, students need to mount their typed poem onto the card stock they got in class and decorate it in any fashion they would like.  This is due Monday, July 6.

Poets, be thinking about a complete thought or stanza from your poem you would like to add to our school poem.  Make sure this line really gets at where you are from!

Expand Your Mind:  Check back later in the week for the assignment that will go along with the EYM books.

Have a great break!

Hi everyone!  We took a little haitus from our webpage – sorry about that.  You know when you’re traveling, and things are just so awesome that you forget to update your blog?  Well, that’s kind of what it’s been like around here so far this summer!  But we are back at it in full force now.  Thanks for understanding!

Our essential question (and its subquestions) for this summer’s learning:  What is my worldview?  Where did it come from, and what can make it change?  Very challenging, important, and all-encompassing.  A great unit of study for the last few weeks of our first year together.  We’ve seen some great work from the girls so far.  They are currently in the process of writing “I am from” poems, which are coming along very well.

Ask your daughter about Expand Your Mind!  We are excited about its possibilities this quarter. 

Ladies, please remember to study your spelling words!

We’ll give another post at the end of the week.  Until then…