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English
I encourage students to read as much as they can. For assigned reading I include these minutes in my limit of 25 minutes a night for English and Social Studies. However, we all read at different speeds and some students may need to spend more time reading to finish assigned readings. Reading beyond the limit for the class is always an option. The beginning of the year is also a time of reading assessment. All English teachers at the middle school level are evaluating how well our students read, and making plans to challenge them to become better readers. The first **writing** of the school year will be a biographical “incident” of another student in the class. We will follow the writing process and focus on voice from the 6 Traits. This is an important assignment for me as a teacher because I will use it to see how I can help students improve their writings through the year. Peer Revise worksheet. The "big idea " of this unit of study is: Peoples lives, just like historical events can be interpreted in ways dependent upon the author's or historian's perspective.
 * Vocabulary** practice is a routine set early in the year and is a constant homework assignment through the school year. The seventh grade English teachers use the textbook, __Vocabulary for Achievement - First Course.__ It is surprising how many of the weekly words are used after the lesson has passed.
 * Reading** out loud to a class is a learning experience on many levels. It is a chance for me to model good reading habits and strategies with the whole class. I check for listening skills by the individual response I see during the reading and in their response notebooks. These notebooks have answers to questions I post before each reading. The questions are used to guide the students to a clearer picture of what is happening in the story, or lead them to a deeper meaning. For example, __Soup and Me__ is the book I am currently reading, it is an autobiography about a boy and his best friend growing up in Vermont at the turn of the century. In one of the chapters the boys chase a turkey and finally catch it. While most of the chapter was about the chase and capture, what the boys do with the turkey and how the author’s mother feels about it is the real message we discussed in class and in the response notebooks. The notebooks are collected and checked once a week.
 * Biography**

Biographies are written for many reasons.
Essential questions questions: I will use these questions as the class reads and writes biographies. Our first assignment was to use the reading strategies the all levels of the middle school uses from [|My Read] to look at our textbook definition of biography. This was done in small groups and then presented to the class. The students then used the same sheet of strategies for homework for the biography that they are reading. Example work.The same method will be used for autobiography, and nonfiction. Biography reading strategies evaluaton sheet.
 * Why write a biography?
 * Who would you choose to write a biography?
 * How would you write a biography of someone who lived in ancient history?

Social Studies
The first term focus is on **geography** and **current events**. The students will use the textbook, __Resource Atlas in Physical Geography__, for an introduction to geography and a review of map skills. Current events is used to look at world events, where they are taking place, discussing key words used in the reports to write a summary of the event. [|CNN Student News] is used as a resource for most of these events.