Students of the Week

Congratulations to the following students for earning the distinction of Student of the Week!

1st Period - Alex
3rd Period - Jefari
5th Period - Moo
6th Period - Chiara

Keep up the good work!

Need a little extra credit?

Students can earn ten points added onto their lowest grade by bringing in two school appropriate magazines. These magazines will be used for future class projects. Don't miss this simple opportunity to improve your grade!

Appropriate magazines could be, but are not limited to, the following:

People
Jet
Ebony
Time
US News and World Report
Field and Stream
Good Housekeeping
Family Circle
Rolling Stone
Entertainment Weekly
US Weekly
Sports Illustrated
ESPN
Glamour
Cosmopolitan
Forbes
Cooking Light

Our Class is on Facebook

Ms. Short has created an account on facebook to share school related information and answer ELA questions as needed. Friend her! The ID is MsShort English Class.

Congratulations to our Talented 8th Graders!

Ms. Short would like to congratulate all the talented 8th graders who participated in the Winter concert today. The orchestra, band, and chorus presentations were wonderful! Keep up the good work!

Dear Mayor Miner

This week's editorial is to write a letter to our incoming mayor, Stephanie Miner. Students will outline what they believe the mayor should focus on in order to improve Syracuse. All editorials are due Thursday, December 10th. The best letters will be forwarded to the new mayor.

The Literature Circle Roles

Every week students will be completing a different literature circle role. Students can choose whichever role they would like, but must complete all roles before choosing to revisit a past role. The roles are:

Passage Master - person who finds interesting, important, and/or difficult passages to share with the rest of the group

Word Wizard - person who keeps track of the new, interesting, difficult, or important words in the text

Connector - the person who makes connections between the text and themselves, the text and other texts, and/or the text and the real world

Questioner - the person who creates questions for their group to answer regarding the text

Illustrator - the person who summarizes the main events of the text in pictures

Once a week, students will meet with the rest of the literature circle and discuss the book. Students will share information they gathered and discuss the book as a whole. Each group will address any questions or concerns about information in the book and plan for the next reading week.

Literature Circle Books

Students again are working in Literature Circles, or book clubs, to read one of six possible books. Students have selected one of the above books. Students will be reading these books throughout December into the beginning of January.