A much needed break ...

Our first big break since the beginning of the year ... and I'm guessing kids are longing for a few extra hours of sleep, some football, and Grandma's pumpkin pie! (I know I am!)  We are about two weeks into our new PBL unit: Order from Chaos. Students should be through Ch. 9 of Lord of the Flies by their return next Monday; they've spent some time already thinking about the novel and many teams have already chosen an inquiry trait. That inquiry trait will be the focus of their reading for the next several weeks--they are looking for examples in our anchor novel, AOWs, and other outside reading.

One of our focus's this year in the ELA department is informational reading and writing. Students have a weekly article (AOW) to annotate and respond to; today I had them annotate to demonstrate close reading for an assessment grade. I've led students through three reading strategies and they had a link for review on Moodle Monday, so they should be able to demonstrate mastery of this important reading strategy.