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Middle School Faculty - Chris McGrathUpdated 5/6/08 Syllabus for the week: Important dates: Civil War Unit Test: Thursday, 5/8; Options 2 and 3 for Decades project: due Tuesday, 5/13; Charleston Class Trip: 5/14-5/16!! Monday: Finish Civil War Packets and begin To Kill a Mockingbird. HW: Due Wednesday: read and annotate to page 50 of TKAM. Tuesday: Finish packets and work on Options 2 and 3 for Decades project (due next Tuesday).
Wednesday: Reading check and discussion of TKAM. Review packets for unit test tomorrow. HW: (SS) Study for unit test tomorrow. (LA) Read and annotate to page 74 by Friday. Thursday: Unit Test in ss. Discussion and reading in la. HW: Read!! Friday: Mockingbird discussions.
For help with your bibliographies, here’s a link to a good citation site: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/06/ Here’s the link to the 20th century website: http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decades.html
Course Description and Classroom Rules Welcome! Rather than jumping right into things, let’s take a minute or two to peer into the depths…
Our goals are actually pretty simple. They are: 1) To learn more about the world around us, so that we are better able to understand and contribute to it. 2) To respect the power and importance of language and to seek mastery over its use. 3) To conduct ourselves at all times in a respectful, positive manner while accomplishing the above.
Our classroom rules are primarily a matter of common sense. Each person in the class has the potential to help or hinder the overall experience of the entire group; we must think beyond ourselves when choosing our actions, words, and attitude. While I know that everyone in here (including me) will make mistakes, my expectations for this class are very high, and I look forward to seeing each of you strive towards our common goals. When you are not meeting expectations for this class, you will find out quickly.
Language Arts: In 7th grade Language Arts, we will use a variety of texts to connect through writing and discussion to themes and ideas from our social studies curriculum. The novels we will read this year include: -Touching Spirit Bear -a Revolutionary War novel -a Civil War novel -To Kill a Mockingbird -a biography of a famous American man or woman In addition to the above, we will also read a variety of poems, short stories, non-fiction texts, and periodicals. The most important thing you can do to succeed in language arts is to READ WHAT IS ASSIGNED!! I check for reading on a near-daily basis in order to ensure that my students are prepared for class. A by-product of all this will be an increased interest in language and the world around us…
As for grammar, yes we do plenty of it…I’ll give you more on that soon.
Social Studies: 7th grade Social Studies will focus primarily on American history—from the very first migrations to this continent right up to the modern era. Although we will be using a wide variety of texts and sources, we will approach this vast span of time in chronological order (please raise your hand now and ask what chronological means). Below is a brief description of what we will be studying during each trimester this year. Remember that we are covering a huge amount of material in a very short time. One could easily spend an entire academic career studying just a single item on this list!
Unit I, Trimester 1 (8/28 - 11/9): circa 40,000 b.c. to 1776
Unit II, Trimester 2 (11/13 – 2/22): 1776 to 1865
Unit III, Trimester 3 (2/27 – 6/4): 1865 to present
Tests, projects, etc.: I try to give a variety of assessments in my class. I put a high value, however, on the writing you do and the thinking that it demonstrates. Flashy projects and PowerPoint presentations are great, but without good ideas, what’s the point?
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