5.1. "The Girl Who Changed Pakistan"

I was struck, probably like many Americans, by this story last week and thought about how far it was from my daily life, which alone made me want to read more about it. Anyway, click here for the reading, "The Girl Who Changed Pakistan," from Newsweek.

RI2./RHST2. Mathematics-Language Arts Interdisciplinary Reading

So . . .
As you have probably noticed, we're trying hard to incorporate reading and writing exercises into all of our classes. Well, we've always done that, but we are trying to communicate and use technology to make those reading and writing experiences more rewarding and useful to the students.
Click here to get to the reading about the benefits of studying math.

RL2. Raymond's Run

This is the reading that you want to do if you decide to try and get the Five Fingers check, either at expert or proficient. It's a story, one I really like, by Toni Cade Bambara called "Raymond's Run," we'll be reading another by her later in the year, but I like this one best. I highly recommend it. (Click on the title of the story; the other link is just background information, IYI).

Language Arts-Social Studies Activity

This week's current event is taking a quick break from the Presidential campaign to talk about a news story that we thought might be interesting to our middle schoolers.

We're going to write less this week that normally for a current event - instead of the Chain of Main Ideas, we're going to write two central ideas, aka WHO+WHAT+WHY sentences. If you don't know how to write one, there are directions to help you below.

1. Read the informational article here and write a WHO+WHAT+WHY sentence that expresses the central idea of the article.

2. Read this second nonfiction piece on the same topic - how is it different from the first one? How is the author's purpose different? How does that affect what's is in the article? Write a WHO+WHAT+WHY sentence for this one, too.

When you are done, you will have read two articles and have written two (longish) sentences.

Things to Think about/That We May Discuss
Think about these issues - you DON'T need to write or type answers to them.

- You know the difference between facts and opinions. Notice that one of these pieces contains the author's opinions and one does not. Why do you think that is?

- Notice that when writing the directions, I used two different terms to name the readings - one is called an "article" and one is not. What accounts for this?

- This article is about France - so what does it have to do with us? Why care about topics that are concerned with French schoolchildren? Why care?

- Notice that the second article adds something as a "Bonus" meaning that the author didn't think that she wanted to simply make it another paragraph. Why do you feel that she labeled this part "Bonus"?

Lather and Nothing Else

Here's the story for tonight . . . I think this is a good one.

If you aren't an expert at the Five Fingers, then write a Five Finger paragraph summary. If you have your expert point, write a Central Idea statement. This is due by midnight tonight.

6.1. RHST2./RHST6. Week of Respect Readings

We found all these readings for our assignments on this website, Teens Against Bullying, which has a good deal of other interesting information on it and looks pretty, too.

Tuesday (RHST2.)
"A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly" This is a news article from The New York Times, which is considered by many to be the most important daily newspaper in America (even the world).

For this reading, we can practice the "Chain of Main Ideas" summary (click the link if you need directions) - remember that the main idea of each paragraph is the (WHO+WHAT) - "Who is the person or group that we're talking about and what is happening to them/with text?"

Wednesday (RHST1.)
"The Bully and the Bystander" This reading is from a website that is designed to teach parents, kids, and teachers important information.

For this reading, we are going to practice learning to read "textbook text." We're learning outlining in Social Studies, which is the best/easiest way to learn what you need from this kind of text, so make an outline of the argument.

Thursday (RHST2.)
"Telling Bullies to Think Pink" This is a more personal essay written by a news reporter - which is different from saying that it's news.

For this reading, we'll write a single sentence that determines the central idea (WHO+WHAT+WHY).

Current Events Article RI2./RHST2.

We're doing another Current Event Article about the 2012 Presidential Election, which the biggest news story in America during October.
However, the article will be easier to understand if we take a quick check of your understanding of American government. Take this short true/false quiz to check what you know about this topic. You get your credit when you get to the end of the quiz and the form asks for your name.


Once you are done with that, here's this week's article, "Struggling Young Adults Are a Question Mark for Campaigns," which deals with an crucial part of the electorate in the coming election.

Complete your "Chain of Main Ideas" summary according to our format. Remember that in some news articles, there are shorter paragraphs, and if you see a paragraph that is just a quotation, it probably is the proving evidence for the previous paragraph. You don't need to write a main idea sentence for that one, since you already did. For Mr. Holder's classes, complete your chain of main ideas in Google Docs. For Mr. Holder's classes and Ms. O'Mara's, after your summary, write a WHO+WHAT+WHY central idea sentence, because you get credit for that in our class.

5.2. Giver Nonfiction Topics: Geoengineering RI2.

Why We Should Read This Thing Right Now: One of the science fiction aspects of The Giver that is getting closer to science fact is the idea of controlling the weather. The vast majority of scientists are warning that the behavior of people on earth is altering the climate. Now, scientists are talking about a topic called "geoengineering," which is the practice ("-ing") of changing the earth ("geo") on purpose through technical means ("engineer"). So, as is happening more and more lately, science fiction is turning into science fact.

What You Need to Know: Remember, this week's skill is "Determining the Central Idea of a Short Reading" - so you only need to write a single sentence about this reading. We'll discuss all this in conversations throughout the next few months, in science and language arts, so I'd like you to have this reading. We've reviewed this twice, so you may already feel comfortable, otherwise click on the link to get a little help.

The Text: Today's article,  How Stuff Works "Cloud Seeding", is a look at one way that people have proposed to fight global warming - not by recycling (which does not do anything for global warming, but people tend to think recycling solves all environmental problems) or reusing stuff (which does help the environment) - but by actually doing something active to change the environment more.